The Book or the Video?
Making the Hard Stuff Easy

You may be hesitant to learn from written material if you’re a visual learner or if you’re approaching a topic that you find daunting. That can create a problem with learning musical concepts. But learning from a book doesn’t have to be hard and you can benefit from it, regardless of your learning style.

If you’ve experienced difficulty learning from books in the past, it’s probably because you didn’t slow down enough to build a solid knowledge base. If you want to learn and retain written information, you’ll have the most success by picking up a book and employing patience.

The Process

Most people expect to read something once and understand it, but learning doesn’t work that way. If you surrender to a process that utilizes repetition, you may be surprised at how quickly you’re able to learn. And, once you’re practiced at that process, you’ll be better at learning anything from any platform, including YouTube.

Start by reading the instructions once through without worrying about how much you understand. The goal of the first reading is just to begin forming a general picture of what you’re going to learn.

Next, go back to the beginning and read the first paragraph again, slowly. If it’s a long or complicated paragraph, read only the first sentence, and don’t be in a hurry. If you understand it, even just a little bit, go to the next paragraph or sentence and read it slowly. You’ll be returning to it, so you don’t have to understand every detail, but you want to see the picture emerging at least a little with every reading.

It’s a good idea to read it out loud, pausing after every sentence to let it sink in. The more challenging the material, the more important it is to read it aloud.

Continue in this manner, repeating as often as necessary to feel comfortable trying the exercises or practices. Once you begin an exercise, you can always refer back to the instructions, so just give it a try.

Beware of Distractions!

Stay on track as much as possible. If you encounter unfamiliar terms (which you surely will), take it in stride. You may need to know some new terms, but you don’t need to know who named them or why. Be on guard for other details that may be interesting or helpful to know but aren’t requirements for understanding the lesson you’re studying. Make a note to get back to those terms or concepts, but don’t let them be an excuse for getting off track.

Once you have some understanding of the concept, however shaky, start practicing it! Do any relevant worksheets or exercises and, when you can, start using your new knowledge in your playing. No matter how much you study a concept, you’ll never truly own it until you put it to use in a variety of contexts.

Try Both!

I wrote A Guitar Player’s Guide to Music Theory to make it easy for you to learn the things you need to know about music. If you approach the book in the way I’ve described, you’ll learn those things without a lot of struggle, and you’ll reap the benefits in your playing. But I also made videos for the Virtual Studio where I teach the lessons in the book, so you can combine the two ways of learning. If you want to choose one, though, choose the book. It has everything you need, including worksheets.

The best way to use the theory videos is to watch them two or three times, then go to the book and read the chapter on the topic in the video, following the instructions I’ve outlined above for learning written material. Do the worksheets repeatedly and review them frequently. Regardless of how well you understand the instruction of the topic, you’ll only get the benefits through doing the exercises and worksheets and incorporating them into your practice.