Book Illustrated Music from Scratch

The way into the collection: notes, scales, and chords from scratch. Guitar and piano make music easier to see and understand, but what you learn applies whether you later sing, produce, compose, or play any instrument.

All my books start by assuming you can already play a chord. This one starts earlier. Illustrated Music from Scratch is the way into the collection: what a note is, what a scale is, what a string is, how a chord is built, and how to play it. The goal is specific, and there’s only one: to get you playing chords cleanly and in time. That’s all you need to open any of the other books and get the most out of it from the very first page. Everything is taught through guitar and piano, not because this is a book only for guitarists and pianists, but because these two instruments are especially useful for seeing, hearing, and understanding how music works. Whether you eventually want to sing, produce, compose, or play any other instrument, what you learn here will be just as useful. You’ll see how guitar and piano work together, the range each instrument covers, what each one plays, and how their rhythms fit together. There’s also a chapter dedicated to each book in the collection, so you know where to begin. Take Illustrated Harmony, for example: the mandalas can look intimidating because they contain so many chords, until you break them down and discover how easy they are to play, both on piano and guitar. Same language as always: no sheet music, entirely visual, with chord symbols and diagrams.