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Gary Willis' "Ear Training" Book.

Yes, Osama, I have this book, but unfortunately the CD has broken. It appears to be quite delicate, so take good care of it.

I feel it is an excellent book. I like Willis' method for building you up slowly as you progress through intervals, then become more complex with chords, scales, major and minor tonalities, then more complex with chord progressions, etc.

I also liked his "thumb and finger" method of practicing fingering even without a bass. You use your thumb as the invisible fretboard then 'fret" notes and scales with your forefinger or other fingers. That actually worked quite nicely for me. I'm not saying it is a technique that will satisfy everyone.

The only minus in this program is that Willis plays his drills on the CD very fast for a beginner or even some intermediates to keep up. That was a real challenge for me. If you try to play along, you'd better be fast. However, I overcame this difficulty by practicing his drills a lot before I even tried to play along.

As luck would have it, I don't have the book handy right now, so there may be other important points to make.

This book is only as good as one's resolve to slowly and painstakingly work one's way through it. I feel even if you complete only one chapter (Intervals) you will be way ahead in your ear training. Of course going on through the book to chords, sclaes, progressions is even better. I don't think you can go wrong with any book written by Gary Willis.
 
Boplicity said:
Yes, Osama, I have this book, but unfortunately the CD has broken. It appears to be quite delicate, so take good care of it.

I feel it is an excellent book. I like Willis' method for building you up slowly as you progress through intervals, then become more complex with chords, scales, major and minor tonalities, then more complex with chord progressions, etc.

I also liked his "thumb and finger" method of practicing fingering even without a bass. You use your thumb as the invisible fretboard then 'fret" notes and scales with your forefinger or other fingers. That actually worked quite nicely for me. I'm not saying it is a technique that will satisfy everyone.

The only minus in this program is that Willis plays his drills on the CD very fast for a beginner or even some intermediates to keep up. That was a real challenge for me. If you try to play along, you'd better be fast. However, I overcame this difficulty by practicing his drills a lot before I even tried to play along.

As luck would have it, I don't have the book handy right now, so there may be other important points to make.

This book is only as good as one's resolve to slowly and painstakingly work one's way through it. I feel even if you complete only one chapter (Intervals) you will be way ahead in your ear training. Of course going on through the book to chords, sclaes, progressions is even better. I don't think you can go wrong with any book written by Gary Willis.

Thank you for the review!

So,you think I should go for it? It's only $9 + Shipping...

I have never heard Gary Willis however.
 
Switched said:
What format is the CD in? I use Linux, so if it has Windows/Mac software it would be useless to me. If it's just a series of .wav files I'd definately look into this book/cd myself :)


Haven't played it yet (and I'm playing Volume one of SITSOM right now or I'd slip it in...), but from what I can tell...it's got now software on it, just wave files. Pretty sure it's like the other books that come with CDs...