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Guitar Zero: The Science of Becoming Musical at Any Age Paperback – 24 Dec 2012

by Gary Marcus (Author)
14 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 274 pages
  • Publisher: Alfred Publishing Co.(UK)Ltd (24 Dec. 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0143122789
  • ISBN-13: 978-0143122784
  • Product Dimensions: 14 x 1.9 x 21.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 825,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Curate's egg of a book about the science of learning to play an instrument
By Paul Bowes TOP 500 REVIEWER on 19 May 2012
Format: Hardcover
This is an amiable, lucid, intermittently interesting book about current science of learning and cognition as it applies to the task of learning to play a musical instrument - in the author's case, the guitar - from scratch in middle life. Gary Marcus is a well-regarded expert in the field.

The book is at its strongest when Marcus sticks to what he knows best - the science. Marcus explains the various psychological and physical hurdles and mechanisms well, and It's hard to come away without an enhanced understanding of how difficult the task of learning to play music really is. Marcus is also unusually aware of how many unrelated facets there are to practical music-making, many of which have to be mastered simultaneously in the early years, and how many different skills these call on.

Unfortunately, he has relatively little of interest to say about music, the guitar as an instrument, or the process of learning to play as an adult. Marcus talks to a lot of players, but the insights he gleans are the stuff of magazine interviews. Nor is his personal odyssey - from total noob to borderline competent noob, which broadly alternates with the technical chapters - compelling.

The author does perform one very useful service: presenting a sceptical counter-argument to the recently popularised "ten thousand hours" school of thought, which implies that with sufficient practice anybody can become an elite performer. Although he gives every credit to the importance and effect of focussed practice, Marcus's account of how truly elite performers come to be is far more credible than Malcolm Gladwell's more optimistic version in 'Outliers'.

The book's title is a little misleading, and as a result it's hard to see who this book is really aimed at.Read more ›
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Sensible and honest, but could have been a bit more useful
By Matthew Leitch VINE VOICE on 20 Aug. 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Some other reviews of this book have been rather harsh, I think, so here are the good points first. The book has an engaging story about the author's struggle to learn to play a guitar and make music, and he does in fact achieve a good level of success considering his age, profession, and lack of apparent talent. It is true that we don't get much detail, but we do get enough on this story.

Mainly the book discusses most of the big psychological/philosophical questions concerning music and skilled playing and here the author is sensible, measured, balanced, well informed, and (usually) one feels he must be right in his general points.

The main practical advice a reader might take out of this is that, whatever your initial difficulties and your age, if you stick at it, put in the hours, and focus on improving your skills and removing your weaknesses, you will make progress and eventually be able to play music. Adults actually have some advantages over children because adults learn more quickly, but we just have to be more patient and more willing to focus on details for as long as it takes.

What would have made this a five star book for me would have been a bit more detail on what effective practice of music is like (with perhaps less on the never ending nature-nurture debate), and perhaps more on the computational problem your brain has to solve when learning music. He does in fact refer to this in one of the later chapters, but it would have been nice to develop it a bit more, and perhaps show some diagrams and perhaps some basic statistics about the number of different units of knowledge that perhaps might need to be acquired.Read more ›
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
I'm finding this a struggle to read..
By C. Irwin on 21 Aug. 2012
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I bought this book based on a review that said it was a Dave Gorman style book about the author's quest to learn an instrument, along with some scientific stuff about how the human brain behaves when learning an instrument. As a person who started guitar in his early 40s, likes books by Dave Gorman, and is also interested in authors like Oliver Sacks who write about the brain and its ability to adapt to changing circumstances, I thought Guitar Zero would be a good fit for me.

Unfortunately I'm struggling with it. There seems to be too much explanation of why learning music, and the guitar in particular, is difficult, and not enough about the actual accomplishments of the author. For instance, there is rambling discourse about Western musical annotation or where to find certain tones on a guitar fretboard that are so dry and uninteresting that I don't feel inspired to read on.

I've abandoned the book for a while, in favour of some reading material that flows better. I may well return to it as I'm hoping there could be insights later in the text that could assist with my own learning of the guitar.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
It's never too late ....
By Philip Rundall on 8 Nov. 2012
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I enjoyed reading this book. It's particularly useful for the older individual who is thinking about starting to play a musical instrument from scratch.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A great opportunity missed
By S. Robson on 26 Sept. 2012
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This is an endearing account of Gary Marcus journey through learning to play guitar at the age of 38 but amounts to little else. It is featherlight on any explanations of the underlying brain / central nervous system mechanisms involved in learning new skills both musically and otherwise. There are no real 'take home' messages to help readers utilise the findings of contemporary neuroscience towards influencing their own musical ( or otherwise) skills. In light of the current available neuroscience this is a great shame as there is some really exciting stuff going on out there!

I felt the book fell well short of what it purports to be - charming but not informative (even to those who know zilch about neuroscience). It's a great "message of hope" to aspiring musicians mature in years but it gives readers little on which to focus their endeavours, other than 'practice as much as you can'.

If you are thinking of buying this book to find out more about the science behind learning, you will probably be very disappointed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Five Stars

Entertaining, educational, inspirational.

Published 1 month ago by Mr. G. F. Hunt
Good Stuff Gary

An interesting read. It along with Dan Lev' s Your Brain On Music book I've learned a lot. Ultimately it keeps us mature types positive in our endeavours to carry on learning this... Read more

Published 9 months ago by David R
Very nice and clever writing

Very nice and clever writing.. I am reading other books of this writer. Nice to read and very informative without tiring the reader!

Published 9 months ago by Panagiotis Mantas
Guitar Zero

I fantastic book.
I really like the depth of the book and the way it is written.
I would really like to recommend it to everyone.

Published 22 months ago by Galina Cholakova
guitar zero

Just started to read it but think I will enjoy the book. Its written form the basis of a scientist who has taken up guitar and his experience of trying to master the instrument! Read more

Published 24 months ago by D
Not much about the guitar really

This was quite a disappointment. Instead of the narrative I was expecting -- a renowned brain scientist picks up the guitar at a late age and uses the latest scientific thinking to... Read more

Published on 2 July 2013 by Niall E. Shakeshaft
Don't really know why I bought this.

This seemed on the face of it a must have read for the mature guitar novice.I bought the Kindle version and was pleased with the speed of the down load.Well done Amazon. Read more

Published on 16 May 2013 by Terry Swain
Never too late to rock

As someone who did not start to learn guitar until my 60's I read this book with great interest. I was intrigued to find Gary was a mere kid of 38 when he started and yet we seem... Read more

Published on 26 Feb. 2013 by Gi Forks
Guitar

I was wondering why progress in music was such a slow process for me. Not being of the scientific frame of mind, I needed the technicalities of music to be explained.

Published on 26 July 2012 by Christopher Barnett

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