Originally Posted by: CSchlegelWalter Piston's books are outstanding. I can absolutely guarantee you will learn a lot about harmony from that book. However, using that book to learn rock & roll guitar music might be like trying to kill a housefly with a tank. :)
I would start something a step above the "Idiot" book before you go to Piston. Since you have access to GT, start here with my tutorials covering a lot of this material.
Music Theory Overview
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=495
Circle Of Fifths
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=835
The most important thing about theory is how you apply it.
Piston's book is brilliant. However, it teaches harmony by demonstrating tonal harmonic functions by example using standard Baroque & Classical pieces. Unless you are already very familiar with the standard repertoire from Bach, Beethoven & Brahms, etc. you might be in way over your head. And it also assumes you already understand functional harmony and are ready to apply that basic understanding to musical pieces (orchestrations & piano pieces).
More to the point, it has nothing about applying music theory to playing the guitar, much less rock and roll. Since you want to play rock & roll on the guitar, you might benefit from a book that approaches theory from that perspective. For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Hal-Leonard-Fretboard-Mastery-Book/dp/0793597897
Check out my music theory tutorials. And remember, I can point you to tons of other GT tutorials that will also show you more about how to learn theory and apply it to rock guitar playing. :) Have fun with it!
In the first video about Intervals from the link above to "Tutorial: Music Theory: a Brief Overview" you mention a previous Internals tutorial. Can you give me a link to that? I have zero music theory knowledge and want to study it. Do you have a video to start me from the very beginning?
