What do you have in mind?
Some people take lessons to just learn songs on an instrument,
some want to know more about music itself. Both are important and if you just
do one of these things you may miss the joys of the other. It's like
learning a language in more ways than
one; knowing important, commonly used phrases is useful but so is
learning how the language works. For us in lessons, music theory is best thought of as the grammar and punctuation of music. It helps to know these things to be able to converse intelligently in
the language. Having said that, you can learn some things by imitation and analysis alone. Some people are very clever at picking things up without formal training, just as some people can speak in a language without know howing to read. In lessons (and on these blogs and my other online portals) we will attempt to build on the background it takes to really understand the language of music and to speak it in depth and we will work on conversing in the language. Interacting with other musicians socially and musically is extremely important to your progress and enjoyment. In other words, we all need to study, practice and jam whenever we can!
More on this soon.
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Theory has always been hard for me....I have never been very good at remembering, or paying attention to the technical. A touch of ADD maybe. I did, however get a massive dose of intuition added to my "bag of tricks" and, as a singer , that intuitive ability was a great equalizer.
ReplyDeleteI can tell tho, after a whopping 5 lessons, I am going to have to brush up on my theory, or I won't be able to et where I want to be. Guess theory is the same as it was in 1986 right? :)
It is. Sometimes the presentation can change though. Guitar can be a boon or a bane in the way the fretboard seems to thwart the left to right ease of keyboard based theory. We can learn chords and scales on guitar and (especially) change keys without seeing the patterns. Typically, theory is taught on the keyboard in schools even if the student's major is guitar. That is how useful keyboard knowledge can be for us, it makes that part of our education easier. With that in mind it is interesting to see how much can be done and how much music can be played without the traditional theory background. We will keep both sides of the theory discussion in mind and focus primarily on practical useable knowledge as we learn our theory. As I like to tell students, we should have a sound for every theory term we use. The step by step process is important and we'll try and make sure we understand how to use the theory we learn before we add more terms.
ReplyDeleteWell I definitely don't see any of those "patterns" you mentioned right now. My soul understands it all but my brain can't wrap itself around it all yet. Let alone my hands and fingers. It has has been a while,since I learned something new like this tho so I have to remember to be patient....Rome wasn't conquered in a day right? When I finally feel like I have played that chord correctly, and it sounds like it is supposed to, it is as gratifying as a warm hug.
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