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Books I Like (my very subjective book reviews)

This section contains books I really like.

- Hearing and Writing Music: learn to transcribe by ear (without instrument)
- Harmony with LEGO Bricks: recognize and play jazz standards by ear

Hearing and Writing Music (2nd edition), by Ron Gorow

I read this book in February 2003, two months after I released Functional Ear Trainer - Basic.
What I really like is that this book is all about applied ear training. The author views musical activities such as transcribing, composition, arranging, improvising as related activities that should be controled by your inner ear. So the first thing to do is learn how to develop your inner ear. Although the author stresses the importance of intervals, he suggests you always double-check what you hear/write by using another method, e.g. the function of the note within the current key. He also encourages you to transcribe from memory without instrument: sing the melody, pretend it's a particular key, determine the first note and write down the whole melody. Very effective!
So together with F.E.T Basic & Advanced you have the tools to get the most out of this book.
More info: http://www.rongorow.com
Note: I wrote this review before Ron contributed to my website by writing the article Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe!.

The New Guide to Harmony with LEGO Bricks, by Conrad Cork

I finished reading this book in March 2004. This book is about learning to hear and remember (jazz) chord progressions by identifying building blocks in songs. The author takes you by the hand and explains step by step in a non-technical way how to reach that goal. The book is therefore an excellent self-study guide.
In the beginning of the book, the author asks you to create a collection of jazz standards that will be further discussed in the book. It takes some time to do this but I found it very rewarding and a fun thing to do: You end up with over 100 jazz songs from different players and styles. I managed to create one CD with all the songs in MP3 format.
When you have done that you can continue reading the book. :-)

The approach of Cork is to first look at the structure of the song. AABA? ABA? ABAC? etc.
The second step is to look for large building blocks: is it "New wine in old bottles"? Is the bridge the same as in another jazz song? etc.
Then you look for familiar patterns, what Cork calls LEGO bricks.
There are 3 types of lego bricks:
- cadences (e.g. | Dm7 | G7 | CMaj7 | % | or | Am7 | Dm7 | G7 | CMaj7 | etc.)
- hovers (= a few measures of no harmonic movement, like 2 measures of Fm7)
- turnarounds

To play a song "by ear" you have to reciognize and remember the lego bricks and how they are joined.
The cadences, turnarounds and joins all get a specific name. The book teaches you how to learn to recognize these "lego bricks" by referencing various songs in which you can hear them very clearly.

What I really like about this book is that it forces you to use your ears to learn/play/remember tunes and that it teaches you HOW to do this. Other books will focus on theory or things like functional harmony, but that won't make you a better musician. You will know things theoretically but you won't be able to apply it. "Harmony with LEGO Bricks" is very different because it asks you to listen to songs, to compare them with other versions of the same song or with different songs, etc. So while you read you have to DO something.

When I read this book I had my CD player nearby, my guitar and I took notes: I read a paragraph, I was asked to listen for example to the bridge of a particular song, then I took my guitar to play these "lego bricks", listened to the sound, compared with the record...
That way I "internalized" it.

More info about this book: www.tadleyewing.co.uk

Note: Cork refers in his book to a fake book by Lionel Grigson. I also bought this book. While not essential, it is handy because you have all the changes referred to in "Harmony with LEGO Bricks" in one book.

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