Is my friend Stupid?

[Metal Matt]

I've been playing bass for like 6 or 7 years now. No lessons, I can't read music, I don't know any scales although I've been half assed learning here and there. I started out learning some songs from bands that I liked. I'd find tabs online or whatever and just play along until my hands felt like fire.

The first band I was in was a hardcore/metal band. I've never had problems communicating with other band members. Although our way of telling each other what to play wasn't "proper" it worked. Someone would make a part, play it slow for everyone else until it stuck. Then we'd start trying it at the right speed. If they where playing a wrong note in the riff or whatever you'd say something like, "no play a 6 on the A string". It may not be proper but it gets the job done. I played with my fingers where most bands of the style use picks. I used chords here and there in that band which is not something common for a bass player in that genre to do. I always got compliments for it though. But I also knew enough to know not to over use chords and I've always understood that sometimes "less is more".

I'm currently not playing bass in a band, but I do sing (scream/yell) for one. We all take part in writing pretty much. It's been mostly our one guitarist but the past couple songs started with riffs I made and another recent song started with a riff our drummer wrote. For the past few years now, a large chunk of the music I listen to is hardcore/punk/noise type stuff (Converge, Botch, Coalesce). Lots of dirty heavy music. We play stuff that's fairly close to that. I can't make those kind of songs on bass though. Maybe a part here and there but most of the time when I have some part in my head, I go to a guitar to work it out because I can hear it clearer on a guitar than bass. When I'm writing something I just start to work out the riff I hear in my head, change notes in it and all that stuff and change the rhythm of it until I think it sounds good. I take into consideration my bands existing songs so I don't make something that sounds like something we already have. Then I bring it to practice, and if they like it I then show them how to play the part, or song.

I still use chords when I'm just screwing around. I couldn't tell you what the chords are named, but I could tell you to form them by playing for example A8, D7, and G9 or playing A12, D14, G16 etc...I just figured out what chords sound good to me and what doesn't. I can make stuff like Tool songs that are played on the D and G strings, and I can also turn on Ol' Dirty Bastard the Third (ODB3), crank the gain and pummel my eardrums with some sludgy hardcore riff. I play mostly with a pick now and I think I have great control. I only play hard when I need to. I can play with my fingers fairly well, I can do slap pretty good. I can do a few two hand tap things but nothing spectacular. All without a single lesson. Whenever I want to learn something new, I can usually find it online. For the music I make, I know everything I need to know so I'm happy with that.

Like someone else said, some genres you will be set just being self taught, some genres depend on knowledge of theory and scales and all that stuff. Your friend should figure out what he might want to do on bass, learn some songs that are in that style. I think that's a pretty damn good way to start.


There's my two cents anyways... well maybe more like a dollar.

 

[Ten Four One]

Ok so I want to drive to Clevland. So I just strike out, no map or particular plan. Just drive. Eventually I will arrive, just no telling when. With a lot of luck, persistence and maybe an inate ability to travel in the right direction. I will make it!

I reckon if I had a map and a plan I could achieve my goal much sooner and more efficiently. But then I would have to admit that I used tools to help me, and didn't just do it on my own.

What a horrible analogy. Music, of all things, is about the journey not the destination. I spent 2 moths backpacking around the country, which forced me to become spontaneous & self reliant. Ever since then, I simply can't do the plan-ahead thing when vacationing. It sickens me to stick to a pre-defined schedule and not experience things on my own, in my own way, in my own time.

One vacation I took with my girlfriend was "rent a car for 2 weeks and see what happens - I want to hit Philly and Boston and let's just see what happens." We discovered all sorts of charming little towns and amazing restaurants along the way. Yes, I had a map (I'm not stupid) but I had no plan beyond what I told you. I got discount coupons for hotels at rest stops and stayed at the best hotels for budget motel prices.

I went to New Orleans with my friends - didn't book a hotel in advance & ended up getting a better hotel (on Bourbon Street, with a pool) and the same price my friends paid for theirs halfway to the garden district with no pool, though I did spend half a day tracking it down.

You can take the guided tour of Europe with "2 hours free time before we meet back here for the night-time restaurant tour" or you can backpack around Europe for a month. Which of you experiences the REAL Europe? Sure one of you comes home with all sorts of interesting historical facts, but can you really possibly say that the guided tour version was more authentic & a more direct way to experience Europe?

 

[ric1312]

If your friends intention is to become good on bass and a compitent musician, then yes he is stupid. Why? Because it is stupid to learn something the hard, more time consuming way when you can pick up a book or get a teacher and learn it in a shorter amount of time.

Learning an instrument with an instructor or book or learning scales and theory won't suck the fun out of learning unless he worried more about learning scales then what he can do with them in the context of a real song.

I would guess it's not that he's stupid but that he's just lazy and sees learning scales and some theory as buzzkilling homework.

P.S. this whole, "music comes from the heart/soul argument, not a book," is a bunch of rubbish. For one thing, yes music can come from a book. A player can play music from notation that he hasn't heard before.
There is nothing wrong with knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it. Knowing theory doesn't kill creativity. That's something guys say who were just too lazy to ever learn any. If you take two guys with a similar musical background, but one learns by ear and doodleing and the other one takes lessons or picks up a book, the guy that takes lessons is going to always learn quicker. When I checkout bass players I can always tell who the, "by ear," guys are, they are usually the guys moving their postion all over the fretboard (when the song could be played from one position) and playing with one finger because they never even learned a couple of simple scale patterns.

 

[Ten Four One]

You can take the guided tour of Europe with "2 hours free time before we meet back here for the night-time restaurant tour" or you can backpack around Europe for a month. Which of you experiences the REAL Europe? Sure one of you comes home with all sorts of interesting historical facts, but can you really possibly say that the guided tour version was more authentic & a more direct way to experience Europe?

Actually, this gets to the heart of my point.

Theory isn't music. Theory is a description of music. Learning theory is like learning how to read & write and learning the parts of speech. All great ways to learn language & learn the literature of the past, but not completely necessary to someone who simply enjoys talking. Someone could become a great persuader, a great speaker, a great rapper or singer without ever learning how to read or write, and I suspect as often as not, the watered down "roadmap" most people learn as music theory is helpful only in that it boxes them into something that's known to work so they make fewer mistakes on their own - but making fewer mistakes means making fewer discoveries and developing less of a distinctive style.

 

[Ten Four One]

P.S. this whole, "music comes from the heart/soul argument, not a book," is a bunch of rubbish. For one thing, yes music can come from a book. A player can play music from notation that he hasn't heard before.
There is nothing wrong with knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it. Knowing theory doesn't kill creativity. That's something guys say who were just too lazy to ever learn any. If you take two guys with a similar musical background, but one learns by ear and doodleing and the other one takes lessons or picks up a book, the guy that takes lessons is going to always learn quicker. When I checkout bass players I can always tell who the, "by ear," guys are, they are usually the guys moving their postion all over the fretboard (when the song could be played from one position) and playing with one finger because they never even learned a couple of simple scale patterns.

I agree that knowing theory doesn't kill creativity - but I disagree that the "by ear" guys are the ones that are doing things in a necessarily bad way. I don't know any "by ear" bass players, but I know a lot of "by ear" guitar players and I always find that their stuff is much more interesting than the learned guys stuff because it does stuff I don't expect it to do.

 

[ric1312]

What a horrible analogy. Music, of all things, is about the journey not the destination. I spent 2 moths backpacking around the country, which forced me to become spontaneous & self reliant. Ever since then, I simply can't do the plan-ahead thing when vacationing. It sickens me to stick to a pre-defined schedule and not experience things on my own, in my own way, in my own time.

One vacation I took with my girlfriend was "rent a car for 2 weeks and see what happens - I want to hit Philly and Boston and let's just see what happens." We discovered all sorts of charming little towns and amazing restaurants along the way. Yes, I had a map (I'm not stupid) but I had no plan beyond what I told you. I got discount coupons for hotels at rest stops and stayed at the best hotels for budget motel prices.

I went to New Orleans with my friends - didn't book a hotel in advance & ended up getting a better hotel (on Bourbon Street, with a pool) and the same price my friends paid for theirs halfway to the garden district with no pool, though I did spend half a day tracking it down.

You can take the guided tour of Europe with "2 hours free time before we meet back here for the night-time restaurant tour" or you can backpack around Europe for a month. Which of you experiences the REAL Europe? Sure one of you comes home with all sorts of interesting historical facts, but can you really possibly say that the guided tour version was more authentic & a more direct way to experience Europe?

Actually I think his analogy was dead on and yours was horrible. Strictly speaking, if you were to learn theory and scales when learning bass you would get the, "more authentic and direct way to experience music," as you are actually learning music and understanding why something works and not just thumping notes on a bass until you find the ones that sound right with the song you are trying to play.

 

[WarriorJoe7]

But let's say that you don't use a map but you found a place that is heaven on earth on your way there. You wouldn't have found it if you had a map. So was it worth it?

Ok so I want to drive to Clevland. So I just strike out, no map or particular plan. Just drive. Eventually I will arrive, just no telling when. With a lot of luck, persistence and maybe an inate ability to travel in the right direction. I will make it!

I reckon if I had a map and a plan I could achieve my goal much sooner and more efficiently. But then I would have to admit that I used tools to help me, and didn't just do it on my own.

 

[Ten Four One]

Actually I think his analogy was dead on and yours was horrible. Strictly speaking, if you were to learn theory and scales when learning bass you would get the, "more authentic and direct way to experience music," as you are actually learning music and understanding why something works and not just thumping notes on a bass until you find the ones that sound right with the song you are trying to play.

I totally disagree.

First, I contend that 99% of music theory that's being taught today is crap. Scales & chords are spoon fed to people without any real understanding of why they work. I'm sure this varies from book to book or teacher to teacher, so I can't speak for everyone, but if you talk to people that know a handful of theory - not the ones that can pontificate about the purpose of a cdim7 like you get here, but the ones who know scales and modes out the wazoo, you find they really don't have the kind of fundamental understanding that you'd hope theory would impart on them.

Second, while I'm primarily talking about guitarists, the ones that don't learn theory either develop into musical midgets that can only play a handful of chords and are still flailing about after 8 years (your example) or musical prodigies that do all sorts of insane runs whose basis the people who learn theory would have a hard time putting together (my example). This is probably less the case for bass players because of the support role that we play, it does help if you can at least communicate with the other musicians in the band in a meaningful way.

Now, I'd say that the odds are skewed towards people who don't learn theory becoming musical midgets (your example), but that doesn't mean that all people who don't learn theory are going to become idiots that can't play worth a damn after a decade on the instrument. Some of them, through persistence or talent actually become good & they play in a very different way from the people who learn theory.

 

[ric1312]

But let's say that you don't use a map but you found a place that is heaven on earth on your way there. You wouldn't have found it if you had a map. So was it worth it?

Now, you are just talking in vauge analogies. Both types of players are going to get there, how you arrive their won't really make the place any better once you are there. The guy with the map is always going to spend less time getting there though.

I've only been playing bass about 4 years now. My first two years I learned some scales and theory and songs. Most people that heard my band, even other bands, assumed I'd been playing bass much longer. If I tried to learn by ear I'd be no where near the skill level I have now.

 

[WarriorJoe7]

Basically there is no CORRECT way to learn to play an instrument... unless you have a specific end-goal in mind. If you want to play for the symphony or a type of music that is very structured, then you best learn your theory and how to read. If you want to play totally experimental noise, then noodling is perfectly fine. There are a million places in between. If you want to be in a TYPICAL rock band you don't necessarily need to know theory, but there are dfinitely rock bands where you DO (Dream Theater, Rush, any fusion etc.) One thing is for sure, unless you are playing only for yourself by yourself then you better either develop a strong ear and a good way to communicate with musicians, or learn theory and reading. You will have to rely on one or the other to work with other people. It is probably best to have atleast a little of both though. Ear playing can open up your creativity but with more mistakes/discoveries. Theory and reading music can build up your creativity by allowing you to study what others have done, and also will let you know of possibilities you might not have found by ear. It is also a generalization but somewhat true... If you have a good ear you can follow other musicians easier, and if you know your theory you can lead easier (but there definitely are exceptions to both.) If you are decent at both, it's better exponentially rather than additionally.

 

[WarriorJoe7]

How is this vague? I can't prove it because you can't go back in time, but if you could do that, I would make a strong bet that there would be certain things that you would have learned playing by ear that you did not learn by theory. I can't list the things because it would be experiential. Let's just say that you wouldn't play the same way and it can't be quantified. Let's just say that learning theory makes you alot more predictable, and probably less apt to go outside the box. This is mere conjecture, but honestly, so is what you say.

Now, you are just talking in vauge analogies. Both types of players are going to get there, how you arrive their won't really make the place any better once you are there. The guy with the map is always going to spend less time getting there though.

I've only been playing bass about 4 years now. My first two years I learned some scales and theory and songs. Most people that heard my band, even other bands, assumed I'd been playing bass much longer. If I tried to learn by ear I'd be no where near the skill level I have now.

 

[ric1312]

I totally disagree.

First, I contend that 99% of music theory that's being taught today is crap. Scales & chords are spoon fed to people without any real understanding of why they work. I'm sure this varies from book to book or teacher to teacher, so I can't speak for everyone, but if you talk to people that know a handful of theory - not the ones that can pontificate about the purpose of a cdim7 like you get here, but the ones who know scales and modes out the wazoo, you find they really don't have the kind of fundamental understanding that you'd hope theory would impart on them.

Second, while I'm primarily talking about guitarists, the ones that don't learn theory either develop into musical midgets that can only play a handful of chords and are still flailing about after 8 years (your example) or musical prodigies that do all sorts of insane runs whose basis the people who learn theory would have a hard time putting together (my example). This is probably less the case for bass players because of the support role that we play, it does help if you can at least communicate with the other musicians in the band in a meaningful way.

Now, I'd say that the odds are skewed towards people who don't learn theory becoming musical midgets (your example), but that doesn't mean that all people who don't learn theory are going to become idiots that can't play worth a damn after a decade on the instrument. Some of them, through persistence or talent actually become good & they play in a very different way from the people who learn theory.

I'm not argueing that players who learn by ear turn into musical midgets or that they turn into prodigies. What I'm saying is it is simple fact that a player will become a better player quicker by getting some instruction, or picking up a book and learning even just a bit of theory.

Again why learn anything the hard way? Doodleing and figuring everything out yourself is the hard, more time consuming way.

Also, it's been my experience with guitar players that the more theory they know the better they are not only technically but on a creative level as their stuff sound more coherant and isn't just a rewrite of their favorite bands guitar riffs.

I've played with A LOT of guitar players. The ones that don't know any theory are more often than not a very big pain in the ass to work with, even when I'm not playing bass, because they don't know how to communicate what they are doing and don't know how to make up a riff to someone elses original content without hacking at it, "be ear," for an hour. A guitar player that at least knows a little theory can be told, "o ya this parts in A minor." I don't have to tell them all the notes I'm playing or fret number if they are really bad and don't even know notes on their fretboard. Not saying everyone should be or even needs to be a theory expert, but a little goes a long way.

 

[Ten Four One]

Now, you are just talking in vauge analogies. Both types of players are going to get there, how you arrive their won't really make the place any better once you are there. The guy with the map is always going to spend less time getting there though.

I've only been playing bass about 4 years now. My first two years I learned some scales and theory and songs. Most people that heard my band, even other bands, assumed I'd been playing bass much longer. If I tried to learn by ear I'd be no where near the skill level I have now.

That's great. When I was playing for 4 years I was also saved by music theory and eventually created my own style within theory.

But I've also played with some very talented musicians who barely knew any theory & I see no reason to foist theory on people who don't need/want to learn it - just because you and I benefited from it doesn't mean everyone should be forced to learn it.

 

[Ten Four One]

Again why learn anything the hard way? Doodleing and figuring everything out yourself is the hard, more time consuming way.

Also, it's been my experience with guitar players that the more theory they know the better they are not only technically but on a creative level as their stuff sound more coherant and isn't just a rewrite of their favorite bands guitar riffs.

I've played with A LOT of guitar players. The ones that don't know any theory are more often than not a very big pain in the ass to work with, even when I'm not playing bass, because they don't know how to communicate what they are doing and don't know how to make up a riff to someone elses original content without hacking at it, "be ear," for an hour. A guitar player that at least knows a little theory can be told, "o ya this parts in A minor." I don't have to tell them all the notes I'm playing or fret number if they are really bad and don't even know notes on their fretboard. Not saying everyone should be or even needs to be a theory expert, but a little goes a long way.

1. Kanoodling isn't necessarily the long way. This person could have a naturally good ear.

2. The guitar players I know fall into one of 3 camps:

a) know theory - great to work with, can sometimes get too technical, but can always communicate what's going on

b) don't know theory - great to work with, their stuff always sounds like music & is pretty simple since they don't know complex chords or blazing guitar leads. these people also tend to be singers & just have a natural ear for the stuff.

c) don't know theory - horrible to work with. these guitarists don't sing typically & and can be all over the map technically, especially if they're not used to working with other musicians, but do some incredibly interesting stuff that I would never think of in a million years.

I'm not arguing against learning theory by any means, I'm arguing against thinking theory is the only/best way for everybody.

 

[ric1312]

How is this vague? I can't prove it because you can't go back in time, but if you could do that, I would make a strong bet that there would be certain things that you would have learned playing by ear that you did not learn by theory. I can't list the things because it would be experiential. Let's just say that you wouldn't play the same way and it can't be quantified. Let's just say that learning theory makes you alot more predictable, and probably less apt to go outside the box. This is mere conjecture, but honestly, so is what you say.

Theory only makes you predictable or stale if you use it as hard barrier that you refuse to go out of. I knew couple of guitarists like this. One is a teacher he can play every style of music on the guitar spectacularly. His original music, very boring, when he jams out it sounds like he's just going through a catalouge of things he can play.

As far as predictable and bass.....unless you are some solo shredder/lead bass guy, I don't think I've ever heard a bass line that wasn't on some level predictable.

What I say isn't conjecture.. all I'm saying isthat someone with a teacher or instruction is going to become skilled quicker than someone who just doodles by ear. Learning theory doesn't black out learning by ear, if anything it enhances your ear.

 

[Jared Lash]

My friend thinks that if he just doodles around on his bass every day he will get good. When i say doodle i mean he just plays what he wants without chords and scales just messes around you know He just plays for fun and thinks he will become good.I keep telling him to try to actually learn chords or take lessons but he thinks he can become good by himself is this possible?I play Guitar but i know you cant just learn any instrument by not actually practicing chords or scales.

Can your friend get good this way? IMO, no. Now if he were jamming with as many people as possible and learning to "doodle" in a group setting then, yes absolutely he could get very good.

No one has to sit and learn scales, modes and arpeggios with a metronome to be a good bass player. I firmly believe that it helps, but there are a lot of different things you can do to improve yourself that isn't as structured. Learning songs by ear and/or playing along with CDs, playing with other musicians (I think this is crucial for development), writing your own songs (which I tell every young musician to do as early as possible), even just playing with effects for fun can all help you become a better bas player.

As for the "playing comes from the heart, not a book" or "untrained musicians make more interesting music" comments, they remind me of my drummer. He's a great drummer, but it seems what he really wants to be is a bass player. But he insists that he doesn't want to learn theory because it will inhibit his creativity. Of course, what he knows about theory at this point is the whole steps and half steps that make up a major scale without knowing any fingering patterns.

Nevertheless, during every break he picks up my bass and plays around, though when I pick up the guitar and our guitarist plays drums, he struggles to play in key. Also, during the rest of the week writes Victor Wooten "inspired" bass lines that are (1) overly complex (2) often atonal and (3) lack a groove.

Insisting that theory inhibits creativity is ridiculous. As my guitarist frequently says, "once you know the rules, you can understand how to break them" in interesting ways. I can see scales and theory being limiting to someone who isn't well versed because they get locked in one boxy pattern or something, but to me, theory and scales should be relate to music the same way grammar relates to writing.

I don't consciously think about subjects, predicates, gerunds, prepositional phrases or any of the technical aspects of grammar when I'm writing, but those rules still make me a better writer, the same way my underlying knowledge of theory makes me a better bass player, even when I'm knowingly breaking those rules to make something interesting in the same way a writer breaks grammatical law to make a passage stand out.

That's how I see it anyway.

 

[WarriorJoe7]

But really it depends on what your end goal is if you have one. I agree that a little theroy goes a long way, but I think we might disagree about WHEN and HOW MUCH you learn that theory. What if it's later rather than earlier... or how about never. Or how about before you even pick up a bass. They are all valid approaches. How about note names on the fretboard or 7 part modal harmony... both valid.

I personally actually want to know what modes go over what chords, because though I have a decent ear I want to see what the other possibilities are. However I can easily say that there are probably plenty of ear musicians out there who are way better with their ear compared to my best day, and may not need theory.

I would argue that for most people it would be much easier to be boxed into theory if they start it earlier rather than later. I have my own style but now I want to open it up more.

Phil Keaggy is known for being an incredible player (Eric Clapton said that he was the best guitarist he knew of sometime in the 70s) but he knows no theory. Certain Jazz musicians don't know theory. I remember hearing a story about a VERY famous horn player who was invited to play with a bunch of other famous instruementalists and they were fairly shocked that he didn't know theory. So they communicated to him by telling him that certain things they were going to do were like certain sections of songs he knew. He was lost until they did that, then he blew them away afterwards.

I like to be truly open-minded. Nobody has to do anything a certain way, because nobody has to have the same goal as someone else. This doesn't necessarily apply to everything but if applies to anything it would be music.

On another note the best guitarist Ive ever played with didn't know theory. His lines in a rock context were quite a bit more unique than others I have worked with. I believe George Lynch who played with Dokken didn't know theory but he grew up playing guitar and mimicking sound he heard on cartoons and commercials. He is one of my favorite shredder type people. Another of my favorite guitarists is from a band that you never heard of probably... And Prickett from the prayer chain. For a rock guitarist he is a bit out there. I don't know if he knows theory but probably. I wish I knew his story.

 

[Ten Four One]

So can we agree that:

- having a teacher early on brings you up to competency faster than not having one

- those who learn theory *can* *sometimes* be limited by it

- there are those who don't know theory that are very interesting players - however rare.

Therefore: Theory is great, it's there to describe what works & what doesn't, but in doing so, can also be limiting because the childish "grammar" most musicians learn at first doesn't describe well enough the great pieces that are out there & potentially within us.

 

[Peaved]

Can your friend get good this way? IMO, no.

Hard to say without knowing his friend. If this were 1927 and his friend Sir Duke, I wouldn't dare suggest he tell his friend to resume piano lessons and get theory down or he'll be a failure.

Everyone is different. Some people have a much better ear than others. Some people can discover amazing things through experimentation. Without knowing the OP's friend, we haven't a clue.

Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands
But just because a record has a groove
Dont make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at letter a
When the people start to move

 

[Ten Four One]

Hard to say without knowing his friend. If this were 1927 and his friend Sir Duke, I wouldn't dare suggest he tell his friend to resume piano lessons and get theory down or he'll be a failure.

Everyone is different. Some people have a much better ear than others. Some people can discover amazing things through experimentation. Without knowing the OP's friend, we haven't a clue.

Amen.

I'd also like to add that, in general, the answer to "Is my friend stupid?" is "Yes, yes your friend is stupid" regardless of the context.

Just like Mark's General Rule of Your (non-musical) Friend's Friend's Band: Your friend's friend's band always sucks. Especially if your friend is the girlfriend of one of the guys in the band.