Theory is cool but does it make people think too much??

[since197three]

Theory and all it's implications is just a means to an end, a communication structure. It's cool to know so you can communicate your musical intentions over distance or time without the need to record what it sounds like (I know, not a good analogy, but bear with me). If you can read the notes, you can make the music. It helps you understand why things sound they way the do and gives a naming system to describe them. It isn't music, but a method to understanding music and how it works. Kids learn to speak without knowing the system, they pick it up through repetition and listening to those around them. Same thing with 'ear' musicians (I am one). My father's family had a lot of musicians, a knack for it so to speak. I was born with it too, so playing came easily and quickly, I was able to correlate what I heard with the position of my hands easily. I didn't know why it worked, I just knew it did. Just like a kid I was able to imitate and become a decent player, though again like a kid, I made plenty of mistakes or bad choices at times without knowing why. When I learned the numbering system (from playing with other very patient people) many things became clearer and easier. This was an accidental introductory theory lesson. When I ended up taking ear training and theory classes in college, I got all the names to things I already knew, and playing got almost instantly easier. I suspect you know plenty of theory right now but just don't have the vocabulary to express it. You certainly won't become a worse player for learning some terms.

You guys are definitely opening my eyes to the theory end of playing. I can dig it.

 

[Roy Vogt]

Were Chet Atkins still alive, I'm sure he would get a chuckle out of that.
Roy Clark was asked if he could read music. His response was, "Not enough to interfer with my pickin'."

I was fortunate enough to play with both of these gentlemen on Nashville Now (Chet with Jerry Reed) and Hee Haw (with Roy). Chet and Roy are (or were) both natural ear-driven players, but most of their bands were pretty highly trained guys-Darryl Dybka (Chet's keyboard guy) had previously played with Earl Klugh and Fareed Haque, for example and my friend and fellow UNT alum Bob Parr played with Roy live and fellow UNT alum David Hungate recorded several records with Chet.

 

[hasbeen]

does math make you think too much or does it help you understand things better? Does being able to read make you think too much, or does it help you gain knowledge and be able to communicate?

 

[lfmn16]

First, I never said you don't need musical training. I have it, it has helped. I have worked with both classically trained and self taught musicians, so I know the difference. All other things being equal, the trained musician has an advantage. But that doesn't mean a trained musician is automatically better than one with no training.

I'm don't know how you would read what you posted, "Roy Clark was asked if he could read music. His response was, "Not enough to interfer with my pickin'." as an endorsement for training.

I never said that a trained musician is automatically better than an untrained one. I don't know that anyone in this thread said it.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

That being said, I have found (IMO), that so many people are getting right into jazz theory, they really know their stuff, but they all sound the same to me. Of course there is slight differences, phrasing etc, but over all, if you gave them the same gear (so you couldn't tell them apart by their sound), gave them a II, V, I to play over, I probably couldn't tell who was who. Of course, I am not saying this of ALL jazz trained muso's, but if you go on YouTube & have a listen, it is hard to find a stand out with their own sound, style, voice (musical).

Very good point here, these are the people who mastered grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure and could not think up a good story to save their lives. In a way, it isn't their fault, like on Vic Wooten's Groove Workshop DVD...all they were taught most of the time is 1 of the elements of making music, notes. There were 9 other elements they explored in the DVD and those things make all the difference in the world and give your playing a signature sound. If they leave out articulation, dynamics, rhythmic phrasing, emotion/feel, and spacing they are going to all sound like cookie-cutter bassists.

Something I run into with guitarists most of the time is the "One-way improv'ers". You play around everything they do, but you could introduce a basic I-IV-V progression and they are practically lost on what to do. That, or they have no idea how to play along with someone else and have a musical conversation within a certain style or genre. I try to add more space into my playing, as it really shows in the music when you let the notes season for a bit and linger in the air. Unfortunately there is a lot of push to play as many notes as possible in the bands I've been in.

 

[Fat Steve]

This thread has come up before and I think the theory stuff is best analogized into a language like Victor Wooten says. You may be able to tell a story beautifully, but have no ability to write it out or compose your thoughts in a decent or structured manner...thus frustrating you or confusing the audience. In the same vein, you could know grammar, vocabulary, and narrative structure front to back...but if you don't have an interesting story to tell, nobody is going to want to read or listen. Music is in so many ways just like that, a creative person isn't going to become less creative by being exposed to music theory, if anything it can make them go over people's heads too often with their playing/composition.

It's important to understand that the two aren't mutually exclusive to each other. I run into soooooooooooo many people that are like "Well [insert famous musician here] doesn't know theory or how to read sheet music, and they are freakin awesome so you don't have to learn theory!" when what they don't understand is the difference between theory and chops. Flea would be an example of chops without theory, while someone like Michael Manring would be an example of chops AND theory. Personally, I would rather have Manring as my teacher, because I know he can deeply explain why instead of just the how that people similar to Flea might teach. It's whatever works for you, but anyone who plays an instrument is using theory whether they know it or not.

Considering Flea started out as a jazz Trumpet player, he most likely knows a few things about theory.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

Considering Flea started out as a jazz Trumpet player, he most likely knows a few things about theory.

My frame of reference was in the Master Sessions video he did with River Phoenix, he admitted to not knowing theory. If it hadn't been for that, I would have assumed he did.

 

[Bainbridge]

Killer players come in all shapes and sizes, and from different backgrounds. Somebody who is musically illiterate and plays music by "feel" has overcome many obstacles to their musicianship, learned by trial and error, and has thus learned to fine-tune and trust their intuition. (This case can also exist for literate/trained musicians, the two are not mutually exclusive.) Trained musicians have been trained to quantify, so they can hear/play music, point, and say, "This is what's going on."

The very first thing I wrote, when I was seventeen (maybe sixteen) years old, was a little number I came up with on a twelve-string acoustic guitar. It came to me the moment I sat down with the instrument, I really liked it, and I wanted to expand upon it, but I had a really difficult time overcoming my writer's block. It sat on the backburner after a few failed attempts to tack some more material onto it. I tried notating it a few times, but was lost as to what I was even playing. About six years later, I had enough knowledge and musicianship to figure it out, and wrote down what I had on staff paper. Four bars of 11/8, followed by a bar of 5/16, a bar of 9/8, a bar of 12/8, a bar of 15/8, two bars of 12/8, another four bars of 12/8 in the next phrase, a bar of 5/16, a bar of 18/8, basically a meter change every bar or so, most of the chords were minor triads, but included such monstrosities as D11/F#, and Em(add#11,♭9), as well as secondary functions and some chromatic mediant relationships... No wonder I had trouble trying to describe this thing! Keep in mind that I started playing music when I was 16, and I was an ignoramus, so all of this technical jargon has nothing to do with being trained or untrained. It's really not all that crazy of a piece, though. The form is binary, for example, and aside from some secondary functions and odd tonal relationships, the A section stays in E minor and the B section is in B minor - classic key relationships (tonic and dominant). I'm proud to have made such a basic modulation using such inventive harmony. Anyway, once I had it quantified, I could see what was going on and started writing more. It all felt very logical once I could see the whole picture. I took my intuition as far as it would take me, and then used my newfound tools to complete the job.

Some people get bent out of shape over having to learn something new.



Some people put the time in, understand the benefits of their efforts, and are awesome to be around.

 

[Rockin Mike]

The greatest pros in the world spend years learning theory because it doesn't matter and is a waste of time.

 

[Rockin Mike]

There's theory and there's theory.

Knowing the names of the notes is theory.

Knowing the math behind how the spiral shape of the cochlea causes the mind to differentiate 12 distinct tones within an octave is also theory.

Everybody knows a I-IV-V progression by instinct. Theory is just putting labels on it so we can talk about it and trade and collect ideas about it.
Theory is putting language around music, specific language so we can accurately talk about music.

As humans, using language to trade & collect ideas is kind of our best trick.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

well ... what most people call music theory is really the bare bone basic stuff that I'm surprise some people just don't know ... I mean come one ... it is like not knowing basic words and how to structure a sentence, it is like the first thing you learn at school ! without that you can't function in our society ... even if you can learn English by ear.

I learned some ridiculously complex stuff during my music theory class and I'm sure there is a lot more to learn, I could spend a lifetime and never see the bottom of it. But it is all stuff that no one uses anymore except classical music composer and movie score composer ( maybe in video games too ).

Also I think it is basic decency to learn how each thing name ... so you don't end up giving it names that no one else uses or call a triplet every groupe of three notes ...

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

I was fortunate enough to play with both of these gentlemen on Nashville Now (Chet with Jerry Reed) and Hee Haw (with Roy). Chet and Roy are (or were) both natural ear-driven players, but most of their bands were pretty highly trained guys-Darryl Dybka (Chet's keyboard guy) had previously played with Earl Klugh and Fareed Haque, for example and my friend and fellow UNT alum Bob Parr played with Roy live and fellow UNT alum David Hungate recorded several records with Chet.

Interesting. One thing I was surprised to learn when I was working out of Nashville was that most of the studio session players had music degrees.

 

[wrench45us]

If all the fluid players you know never took lessons and don't know a lot of theory, not a lot of posts on a forum are going to change your mind.

Maybe someday you'll get in a position where the best players around want to change keys to get in a new singer's range or change a couple of chords from major add 2 to minor sus4s or suggest the bridge gets played in a different mode.
Just about everyone I know who plays started learning songs by ear. If you learn some theory, you learn music -- the common threads and structure that show up in songcraft, so songs aren't isolated sequences, but related under some common system. Most people find it useful to know that system.

The best guitar players I know were taken under the wing of old jazzers and gently brought along and up to speed.
It's all context and experience and nobody's going to force a bunch of music theory on anybody.

I have the kind of mind that likes theory and guess what? I don't play all that well, so maybe I'd sound stiff and like I'm thinking too much. I like walking bass and 32 bar standards with key changes and interesting chord progressions. It's not that I'm thinking too much, it's that I'm not playing very well. Like anything else it takes practice to integrate what you know with what you do. I figured it wouldn't be easy going in.
Thing is, ripping off a rocker with a 8th note roots and a few fills comes pretty easy after.

 

[since197three]

Ok guys, after reading all the responses and checking out some books and websites. Maybe I was a tad critical of theory. A lot of you guys explained the theory end of playing and it struck a chord (ha) So I'm definitely curious about it now.

So where does one who has been playing for 26 yrs seek theory? Books? Sites? Find an actual teacher in the area?

 

[KevInDaBassment]

So where does one who has been playing for 26 yrs seek theory? Books? Sites? Find an actual teacher in the area?

Whatever way is most comfortable to you. I prefer a college course environment, but with how much I work, I don't have time. So I looked for a teacher in my area and that's pretty much the best option for me. Some people can just pick up a book, read it, and it makes total sense to them. I would say that plenty of DVDs and Youtube videos exist to give you a hand. I'd try the free options first, but if you start getting frustrated you might want to break off and try another method of learning to keep yourself from walling off theory out of frustration.

Good luck on your journey!

 

[lfmn16]

So where does one who has been playing for 26 yrs seek theory? Books? Sites? Find an actual teacher in the area?

Just one man's opinion, but I suggest starting by defining your goals. It's easier to stick with something if you can see yourself making progress towards some end. If you just want to get an overview before deciding if learning theory is something you want to pursue, a lot of people recommend The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine as a starting place. A good teacher is always a good option.

Good Luck.

 

[JaminDyer]

So where does one who has been playing for 26 yrs seek theory? Books? Sites? Find an actual teacher in the area?

The internet is going to be one of your most useful resource, and cheapest too! You just need to know the basics to know what to search.

It's hard to say without knowing how much you know already, so to take the safe side, I wont assume anything.

There's many routes to take, most coincide, some don't, but which ever route you take it's always useful to really understand the fretboard and where notes are.
I still have this website saved for when I was learning the notes all over the fretboard as I already knew how to read bass clef from piano. However, learning to read sheet music if you don't already is a handy thing to know.

Scales are another way to go about the fretboard. Learn the major scale, or even the pentatonic to begin with, and figure out the inversions of it and how it can be played up and down the neck. From this, you'll pretty much know the modes, and you'll just need to put names to them!

Knowing your chords and what makes up chords is also very useful, so when you're told the guitarist is playing a certain chord, you'll also know what notes will sound good under it and which ones to avoid.

I'm hope that's enough to get you started.

Good luck, as learning theory is a journey you can never finish, albeit an incredibly useful/interesting one!

 

[Mushroo]

So where does one who has been playing for 26 yrs seek theory?

I'd start by brutally and honestly assessing what are your biggest musical weaknesses. A trusted private instructor or musician friend can be very helpful in this regard. Once you know the areas you need to improve, then you can create a curriculum to help you reach your goal.

In terms of "music theory 101" a good place to begin, in my opinion, is to learn all 12 Major Scales over the entire range of the instrument. Learn not only the notes, but the number of each pitch in the scale (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

 

[since197three]

Im familiar with notes on the fretboard, major and minor scales, the basics. Getting deeper into scales is what interests me the most.

I would describe myself as..a pitcher who can throw a blazing fast ball and a wicked curve. But can't explain to you how I did it. Lol

 

[Ric5]

Am I wrong?? Theory is cool but does it make people think too much??

You need some theory ... I don't like to play with people who don't know what note is an A or don't know the difference between major and minor ... But you don't need a lot of theory to be a good player.