How much theory goes into your playing?

[Craig Garfinkel]

Unless I am completely misinformed (which is always possible), Benson doesn't read a note. A complete ear player. If I'm wrong, I've been under that impression for years. I checked out a bio, and it mentions him having been taught to play ukelele by his father, who later gave him a guitar. That's it about his musical education.

 

[Pacman]

GIven the material, and the maturity he displays when covering what he's done, I find that hard to believe. However, I don't know it to be untrue.

Can anyone else shed some light on this?

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Craig Garfinkel
Unless I am completely misinformed (which is always possible), Benson doesn't read a note. A complete ear player. If I'm wrong, I've been under that impression for years. I checked out a bio, and it mentions him having been taught to play ukelele by his father, who later gave him a guitar. That's it about his musical education.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't know any theory - theory does not equal sight reading!

Benson played with loads of the Jazz greats - like Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard etc. Every improvised solo he played demonstrated a huge knowledge of theory - in terms of what scales go with what chord sequences etc.

Juts listen to his solos on things like Freddie Hubbard's "First Light" - great examples of how to contruct interesting solos on modal pieces. A lot of Freddie Hubbard's pieces from the CTI period have quite structured and written-out arrangments.

I have also seen Benson gigs on TV and so there is like 90 minutes of his own tunes - all written out for the band and orchestra - now of course, he probably got someone to do this, but he had to have the knowledge of music theory to write what are often fairly complex tunes in the first place.

A lot of the Jazz greats played by ear, but they had huge and innovative knowledge of music theory.

 

[Craig Garfinkel]

I'm still gonna stay out on this limb until it breaks . I've known two other musicians in my life (one of them's my brother) that were born with perfect pitch and an uncanny memory. At the age of six my bro was able to listen to his kindergarten music teacher play songs on the piano, and he could come home later that day and play back the song...left and right hand voicings correct, mind you...after a single listen and with no training whatsoever. It's freakish, I know...pretty much a savant. He looked at the keyboard and it just made sense to him immediately.

I'm ready and willing to admit I'm wrong here, but someone has to come up with more definitive evidence than Benson sounds like he can read.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Craig Garfinkel


I'm ready and willing to admit I'm wrong here, but someone has to come up with more definitive evidence than Benson sounds like he can read.

I didn't say that at all!! But this discussion is about music theory and not about reading music - the two are not the same thing!!

I can quite believe that George Benson doesn't sight-read parts - but there is no way he could play a completely improvised solo over several choruses of complex Jazz tunes without knowing about chord/ scale relationships and functional harmony.

Benson is not just playing things that he has heard elsehwere - he is writing his own original compositions - sometimes quite complex and he is producing improvised solos that could not just have been copied verbatim from elsewhere - he must know theory to do this!

Whether he can sight-read standard notation is irrelevant in the context of this thread. As I said - lots of great Jazz players didn't read but still knew loads about music theory.

 

[Craig Garfinkel]

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield


- but there is no way he could play a completely improvised solo over several choruses of complex Jazz tunes without knowing about chord/ scale relationships and functional harmony.

I didn't come here for an argument, Bruce (Yes you did! No I didn't! Yes you did! Look, this isn't an argument! Yes it is!) but this statement is just incorrect. I've known cats who could and can do exactly that.

I shouldn't have emphasized reading. As has been pointed out previously, theory came after music. Theory is only a method for mapping out musical pitches and rhythms and their relativity. Just as written language is merely a method...a series of symbols we've devised to communicate speech visually . If we were never able to develop written language, we'd still be able to speak. And some of us would be able to create eloguent spoken language simply based on what we had heard and were able to repeat.

In the middle of posting this, I just got a call from a good friend who would be considered by anyone here a jazz "legend"...one who knows of what he speaks. I asked him about Benson, and he said he reads "a bit" but "not very well". I asked him for an example of someone who knew no theory whatsoever but was an amazing soloist, and he said Wes Montgomery. Hmmmm....one of Benson's major influences.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Well I would say that the very fact of doing this is by definition, making use of a knowledge of musical theory - the person themselves might say that they don't know about theory, but in the case you mentioned or any like them - I would say that they are using musical theory to construct those solos. I would go further and say the only thing they possibly can be using is musical theory

The fact that they don't call it "musical theory" explicitly, doesn't change the fact they have a certain knowledge about what scales sound right with a particular chord or sequence. They have that theoretical knowledge available to them in the best way, in a sense - in terms of practical facility; but it is still musical theory!

Wes Montgomery didn't just play things that he heard elsewhere; he constructed new improvised solos and sounds that hadn't been heard before. He was using his knowledge to create something new - putting theory into practice. You don't have to learn music theory in a classroom - in fact I would day that you can't at all - you only really learn it or rather know it, when you can put it into practice on the bandstand or at any "real" musical situation.

Music theory isn't just a load of text and symbols, it's knowing what goes with what and what will sound good in a certain musical situation.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

PS - Is this just the 5-minute argument or the full half hour?

 

[Craig Garfinkel]

That was never five minutes just then.