Vaideology: Basic Music Theory for Guitar Players | Guitar Instruction by Steve Vai | Includes Practical Exercises, Scales, and Diagrams | Full-Color Guitar Educational Songbook
(Guitar Educational). Named Guardians of Guitar 2019 NAMM top pick! Experience must-know music knowledge and wisdom through the highly focused lens of legendary guitar virtuoso Steve Vai. This full-color instructional book written by Vai himself features in-depth discussions of the music theory fundamentals that every aspiring (and veteran) guitar player should know, packed with practical exercises, diagrams, tips, inspiring ideas and concepts, practice methods, and ways of looking at music that you may have never considered. Topics covered academic vs. experiential learning * reading and writing music * key signatures * chord scales * rhythm basics * guitar harmonics * modes * and much more. This beautiful book is full-color throughout and features artwork on every page by Vai!
Unfortunately despite what the book tells you, you need to know the basics of theory before you can make sense of this book. The exercises itself are good, so it's better to learn the music theory somewhere else (my rec is harnum's bmt) and then come back to this to get ideas for practice
Music theory is music theory whatever the instrument you play. That said, there are a few things here that are especially relevant to guitar players, the chord symbol dictionary for one. His experiential chord study stuff made me giggle, but the rest is good advice. I liked what he had to say about reading music: "Unfortunately, the guitar is one of the hardest instruments to sight-read music notation on because of the way the strings are laid out and how that relates to finding the best fingerings for a musical passage. Tab offers a solution for finding the best fret positions." Good thing to know if you find sight-reading difficult.