Digital piracy is a reality. So are honest consumers.
âI think there are more honest consumers than those who want something for nothing.â ~ Duke Sharp
If you would like to donate thatâs cool! Pay only what you can afford⊠hereâs the authorâs side of the offer.
Garage Band Theory is the culmination of over ten years of hard work, distilling my experience of thousands of hours of practice, performance and lessons into a useful tool for students and teachers alike. Out-of-pocket expenses include fees to editors, proofreaders, music teachers, an indexer, cover designer and photographer, graphic artists, web developers and consultants, as well as software, hardware, etc.
After spending more than a decade writing this book and turning it into a product Iâm proud to bring to the market, I find I am in complete disagreement with the pervasive belief that a digital book is somehow âworth lessâ than a paper version.
I think everyone would agree that the value of any book is in the ideas it contains, not the medium on which it is presented. About 90% of the expenses are exactly the same for both, and are incurred before printing a paper book or hiring a web developer to make it available digitally.
DRM is an annoying, insulting nuisance for honest consumers and a very minor inconvenience to dedicated file-sharers. For these and other reasons I will not use DRM on the PDF version of Garage Band Theory. I believe that if youâve purchased the download you should be able to use it on any of your computers, and loan it to your friends.
Loaning a digital book to friends and family is your right when youâve purchased it, just like you do with a paper book. I am sincerely honored when anyone thinks enough of GBT to want to share it, and I encourage you to do so. The difference is that when you âloanâ a digital copy, it is never âreturned.â
GBT is not a novel youâll read once and never look at again â itâs a resource youâll find valuable for years to come.
If you share this book with someone who likes it and wants to use it, I believe itâs fair for me to ask that they make a donation. I hope youâll mention that if you share GBT.
Please consider my time and expenses when you decide whether to compensate me for the download. I am not a corporate publisher or a major record label. Iâm a musician and an author offering his wares for a fair price, not unlike the potter, weaver or painter at the crafts fair.
If you know someone who could really use GBT and they honestly canât afford to pay for it, feel free to share it, no strings attached.
If you purchase the download from this website within one year and later decide you want the book too, Iâll deduct $10 from the retail price.
Please, do keep in mind that this book was designed to sit on a music stand, on the kitchen table or in your lap, and it wonât work quite as well on most computers unless you can see two pages at once. Itâs OK on the screen, but there are a lot of places where youâll want to see the writing on the left-hand page at the same time as the example thatâs on the right-hand page.
Garage Band Theory – Background
Garage Band Theory is a new approach to music theory and is written for all instruments. It’s a great place for beginners to start, but deep enough to be a great resource for experienced players.
Playing music in and around Montana has been my main occupation for over 30 years. I was teaching private lessons when I started developing GBT approach. I was often frustrated by the fact that most students, beginners and advanced alike, did not have enough musical vocabulary to articulate their questions.
In fact, that’s true of most of the working musicians I’ve known. They play great, but don’t know the names of anything except maybe a handful of basic chords. They can talk all day about instruments, amps, effects, gigs… while basic musical terms like âit’s a 1-6-2-5 progression’ and âC minor seven flat five’ are complete mysteries!
This is easy stuff, and useful too. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, vocabulary is what enables coherent thought and conversation and most musicians are weak when it comes to musical vocabulary.
One of the questions I was asked most often was âHow do you hear a song one time and play it right back… by ear?â
GBT is the only book that explains and illuminates the mysterious process of playing by ear by using practical, useful music theory. There’s now a way to meet in the middle. The good news is that it is coming very soon on Amazon.com!
Rodney Crowell
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Kris Ellingsen
Clear a space immediately in your music library for Garage Band Theory. It’s not likely, though, that this excellent book will sit on the shelf for long. I’m guessing that your copy, like mine, will either take up a position on your music stand, flagged with sticky notes and paperclips, or perhaps lie on the floor in your favorite practice nook, splayed out flat (thanks to the practical ring binding) and stained with the coffee cup rings that indicate a long and satisfying relationship.
Whether you are just beginning to play music – or, like me, are a classical player who missed school the day everyone got together and learned to play by ear for fun – Garage Band Theory is the last book you’ll need to buy for a very long time. It offers multiple entry points into the vast world of applied music theory and is an entertaining read from start to finish. It’s packed with technical information and exercises that are woven together with anecdotes and historical perspectives.
The book starts out with an introduction to basic music notation and progresses through chapters dedicated to counting, intervals, scales, chords, and harmonic progressions. There are quizzes for the studious and an excellent index. Pages and pages of inspiring quotes from famous musicians and other creative souls offer relief when the learning curve gets steep. Throughout the book, the author’s welcoming, witty, and wise voice provides a running commentary that functions rather like a private lesson in print.
Every line of music written in standard notation is accompanied by at least one corresponding line of tablature. Often there are multiple tabs to cover other instruments or alternative fingerings or voicings, and accompanying CDs provide ear-training and improvisation opportunities. The last couple of chapters form a comprehensive conclusion clarifying most remaining mysteries … at least the ones that involve theory, technique and practice. Regarding the mystery surrounding your own particular relationship with Music, this book gives you the tools, and the tool sharpeners, to do that work on your own.
Craig Hall
In âGarage Band Theoryâ Duke Sharp has delivered to us the anti-textbook. Apparently inspired less by the tired approaches of endless theory books on the local music store rack, than by, say, Dave Barryâs delightful drollery, GBT reads at moments like a coffee shop conversation twixt rock band sidemen at a restaurant after a questionable gig, complete with puns both good and bad, musician âinside humorâ and self-demeaning laments.
The genius within the madness is that after finally acquiescing to the har-har humor, the reader will find himself actually learning a lot about music along the way. More to the point, learning how band-stand musicians THINK about music.
There has forever been a gap between the way music theorist negotiate their topic and what a pianist is thinking about when he glances at an upcoming C#7#11. (The truth is, he may still be thinking about the joke he heard last break.) The gap between traditional theorists and the musicians who play mostly âby earâ is even wider. GBT comes very close to bridging those gaps.
Mr. Sharp has taken a shot across the bow of academia (this isnât how I was taught theory!) and delivered to us a quite accurate and unconventionally authoritative romp through the slightly circuitous logic of a guy making a hundred bucks on a stage somewhere tonight.
Funneling in most effectively on guitarists, other instrumentalists need not fret. (Sorry. Itâs contagious.) The book also reads well to other fretted stringites, with a plethora of TAB and notation layouts for banjologists and mandolinonians. Truthfully any humor-deprived soul interested in how pitches relates to another might be advised to take the GBT plunge, if only to research just how absolutely twisted we habitual pickers are.
With dozens of relevant music examples ranging from the pen of King Henry the Eighth to recent pop, a few thematic threads are recognizable throughout the book, two being: âExperiment. A lot.â And, âYou can learn this stuff! If I can do this you CERTAINLY can do this!â
I recommend this superficially light but painstakingly complete and well-crafted book to anyone who enjoys pondering, for example, one of its many included quotes: âI know canned music makes chickens lay more eggs and makes factory workers produce more. But how much more can they get out of you on an elevator?â (Victor Borge.)