This is excellent advice.
Never conclude that you've finished learning. You can get to the stage where you've learned "enough" - but there's always more, and it's never a waste of your time.
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theory over rated
- Thread starter helterschecter
- Start date
Never conclude that you've finished learning. You can get to the stage where you've learned "enough" - but there's always more, and it's never a waste of your time.
lucas - that's the biz, man. i lik your atitutde. but can u tell me if i shud play stoner b5 or dooom b5?
Is this cat serious?
If so, I can come to two conclusions.
1) He hates theory because he apparently hates the alphabet.
2) He listens to ICP
I assumed so, but such craftsmanship of illiteracy was astoundingly convincing.
If you don't know the scales, arpeggios and harmonic theory, you'll have a limited vocabulary and won't be able to play what you want, when you want unless it's pretty uncomplicated.
If you analyze the songs, musically, you'll be amazed by what you find. Some people study for their whole life and feel that they know very little. If you stop studying now, you'll undoubtedly find some other style that interests you and it will be harder to pick it up.
Are you doing any ear training?
It looks like you are taking a similar approach with punctuation and sentence structure. And you obviously don't know very much about the music you are talking about.
helterschecter said:
Your question contains a statement of your purpose -- to play the songs you want to play -- right?
Seems to me that if you have the natural inclination to noodle around on your bass until you can find the basslines you want to play (by ear), then scales may be beside the point for the moment. Just keep fumbling until it gets easier. That's how good ears develop!
But most music/melody is naturally organized around the series of notes that make up scales. Learning by ear involves your fingers finding parts of those same patterns on your instrument, when your ear tells you you need them.
If your purpose broadens, you may decide later you want to equip yourself with some of ideas and tools offered by music theory. Scales are part of that.
But if you're struggling to play by ear, then having a teacher show you these pattern/series of notes might help your ear (that is, your sense of melody) to connect to your instrument.
U fail at sarcazm!! Another thing music theory helps with is when learning to play different insturments. I've been playing guitar for years and learning theory along the way. I've only been playing bass for two months, but because I know diatonic chord/scale structure I can figure out a basic bassline for any key in any progression, write it out, learn it, and then get creative with it.
I'm learning piano as well, and that's an insrurment where you can really "SEE" how the chord/scale/harmony structure comes together.
I don't use music theory as an absolute law, I use it as a guide, and so far from what I've learned it's guided me very well.
All that doesn't mean I'm a good bass or piano player by any means, quite the opposite I'm a beginner in both and have to loonnnnnng way to go and lot of woodshedding ahead of me.
For me, music theory has helped me become a better musician.
I'm learning piano as well, and that's an insrurment where you can really "SEE" how the chord/scale/harmony structure comes together.
I don't use music theory as an absolute law, I use it as a guide, and so far from what I've learned it's guided me very well.
All that doesn't mean I'm a good bass or piano player by any means, quite the opposite I'm a beginner in both and have to loonnnnnng way to go and lot of woodshedding ahead of me.
For me, music theory has helped me become a better musician.
It literally hurts my head to do it.
It's a skill like anything else (learning to write and read modern stoner/doom metal textlish as it is practiced by today's generation)
Theory a waste of time?
I never thought so. I compare music to the martial arts. It's all about underlying principles and foundations, and overall systems of logic. Take a martial art like modern strip mall Tae Kwon Do. They are basically just teaching preset responses to preset situations. Guy punches you with right hand, you do "x" or "Y". But what they fail to teach is what happens if guy pulls his punch as a fake and then hits you with a knee instead. This is comparable to only only learning a note-to note rendition of some song perfectly, and then trying to apply the patterns you just learned to every other situation. You will be hopelessly lost in a paradigm shift of epic porportions.
Now, if you take a sport's based martial art such as boxing, muay thai kickboxing, judo or brazilianju-jitsu, where they work on underlying principles and then apply them to every situation, you have a huge edge over the average opponent. These sports-based martial arts teach you the basic theory, learning them in a creative enviroment where you have to apply those same basics to real-time problem solving.
But without those basics, you can't easily play different styles.
We have all seen the heavy metal guitarist, for example, that is utterly lost when playing with a bluegrass or folk music act. They generally can't play properly without the safety net of heavy distortion, and then they try to fit their blues -based pentatonic lead solos to it, and are unable.
They feel totally lost and can't figure out why the limited riffs and patterns they learned from focusing only on one style with out learning any theory won't help them play a different style.
It's been my experience that once you have learned theory to an advanced level, you can pretty much play any type of music. And even those who for example, have only ever played classical music and have never improvised, are with enough exposure to and experience with something like bluegrass, able to play it just fine.
Why do you keep bashing a single genre (stoner/doom metal) as the epitome of wrongness and the opposite of educated?
I really want to take the side of "more education = more opportunities" in this thread, but I am not sure if occasionally enjoying slow and repetitive riffs is somehow going to make me dumber and unable to give that piece of advice. I live in the butt of Europe and probably I am missing something stereotypical about doom fans in the developed and civilized world these days, but aren't most die-hard fans of any genre (and only that single genre) annoying and purveyors of ignorance, anyways?
I really want to take the side of "more education = more opportunities" in this thread, but I am not sure if occasionally enjoying slow and repetitive riffs is somehow going to make me dumber and unable to give that piece of advice. I live in the butt of Europe and probably I am missing something stereotypical about doom fans in the developed and civilized world these days, but aren't most die-hard fans of any genre (and only that single genre) annoying and purveyors of ignorance, anyways?
No. Most of the time, people into things like "stoner/doom metal" are only into that particular type of music. Of course, the 2 or 3 people in this world that like stoner/doom metal AND smooth jazz at the same time, and in equal amounts, will surely chime in soon trying to say I am wrong.
But, I just used it as an example. It could apply to people who like other styles as well. Mostly hip hop and punk.
The point was that the OP was saying that you don't really need theory to play music. I say that is true, if all you are interested in being a stoner/doom bassist. But you need some degree of theory to be able to play 90% of all music.
But, I just used it as an example. It could apply to people who like other styles as well. Mostly hip hop and punk.
The point was that the OP was saying that you don't really need theory to play music. I say that is true, if all you are interested in being a stoner/doom bassist. But you need some degree of theory to be able to play 90% of all music.
You're f****ed now. It all depends on how you learned. If you learned by ear, theory is ehhh, ok. If you learned by theory then you will use your ear 2nd.
Don't let theory make you play stuff cause you 'should'..all the good ones play what they 'hear' anyway.
Don't let theory make you play stuff cause you 'should'..all the good ones play what they 'hear' anyway.
