Piano Forum

Topic: Book Review: The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten  (Read 1862 times)

Offline rc

  • PS Silver Member
  • Sr. Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 1935
Book Review: The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten
on: September 16, 2008, 01:52:40 AM
I picked up this book at random last time I was wandering through the bookstore (I'll wager a lot of us know exactly where the music section is in the local bookstores and libraries ;D), and overall found it a worthwhile read.  Subtitled "A Spiritual Search For Growth Through Music", so we know this won't be a technical manual.

Victor Wooten is an award winning bassist, which I learned from the book cover.  It's written from the perspective of somewhat improvised music, so there are some things that won't apply to playing from the score, but there are also a lot of good points made about music in general.

He wrote it in the form of a story, where an imaginary teacher pops into his life and shows him a better path, with unconventional methods, which turns his music making and his life around.

*A warning: the writing can be pretty hokey at times, it nearly turned me off the book, but if you can accept that, it's still a unique, entertaining read with a lot of good bits of wisdom.  They may not all be so unfamiliar, but at the very least they're the sort of things that's it's good to be reminded of