Edly's Music Theory For Practical People. - Review - book review

Whole Earth, Spring, 2000 by Steve Taylor

EDLY'S MUSIC THEORY FOR PRACTICAL PEOPLE

Ed Roseman. 1999 (2nd ed.); 147 PP. $25 ($28 postpaid). Musical EdVentures, 106 Arundel Road, Kennebunkport, ME 04046, 207/967-5433, edly@edly.com, www.edly.com.

Teaching yourself music is like teaching yourself a foreign language. It ain't easy, but it can be done. When Leo Tolstoy taught himself Dutch because he'd heard the Bible was a thumping good read in that tongue, he didn't have the benefit of self-help guides, but he did have determination. For self-teachers in the language of music, these two books offer user-friendly guidance in, respectively, basic contemporary music theory and the rudiments of blues piano. Like Leo, though, you still need the drive to figure it out. The theory book offers an intro to a complex and bewildering subject in clear diagrams and a kind of chummy howdy-how-ya-doin' prose that may or may not suit you. The fundamentals get a section apiece, and specialized jargon is kept to a bare minimum. You eventually get a decent dose of more complex jazz harmonies and substitutions and the like. Given that no books are going to give you a thorough working knowledge of music-you'll have to play for several hours a day for years for that-these are one worthy stretch of road on the way to musical competence. I'd recommend both books for music teachers who have young or beginning students with an interest in jazz, or for players with little or no music theory who want a concise, clearly laid-out theory manual and intro to blues piano.