Playing or understanding

[larryb]

Granted, there are some people who can play without understanding a thing musically (theoretically) that they are doing. They are gifted. But for most of us who struggle throughout our entire lives, when learning a new tune, is it more important to be able to play something and make it sound like music, or is it more important to actually understand what you are doing (names of the chords, the theoretical structure, etc), so that you can advance as a musician?

Obviously, both are important. But, when should you move on to learning the next tune? Once you can play something well? Or only after you can play it AND understand exactly what you are doing. For example, I can play lots of tunes well (at least I think I play them pretty well), without knowing what I'm doing musically. To grow as a musician, is it essential that I understand what I'm doing before moving on? Or is this something that will just evolve naturally?

[rick-slo]

The music came first and then the theory to explain it. You do not need to know all the theory that could be applied to a particular
piece before moving on. That would slow you down expanding your repertoire, developing motor skill and ear training that you get
just by learning and listening to various pieces. Many people who know all the theory still can't play or compose very well. I am a
strong believer in learning by doing when it comes to guitar in the same way a child learns a language. Add the theory at a measured
pace as you go along.

[cotten]

"Theory" is the written language of music. If you want to communicate music well in writing or understand that which is written, you must learn to speak the language. Taken in small, practical steps, it's not difficult.

However, "music" is sound. One can make beautiful sounds without knowing anything about how they are written. Just ask a song bird.

I prefer to be able to both make the sound and understand the sound. For me, it is more satisfying than either alone.

cotten

[larryb]

I should clarify what I meant in my op. I do understand theory and chord structure fairly well. I understand major and minor scale construction, the modes, how to construct chords, etc. What I am referring to in my op is that when I'm playing, after I learn HOW to play a song, often (usually) I'm not thinking of the theoretical aspects. My muscle memory has kicked in and I'm just playing. My question is, to what extent do I need to worry about knowing exactly what I'm doing while I'm doing it. For improvisation, I think this is critical. But when not improvising, are you thinking, now I'm switching to this chord, now i've switched keys, now I'm in this mode, or are you just playing?
Maybe I already do this when I'm playing and I don't even realize it.

[cotten]

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. When I play, I recognize what I'm doing, but I am concentrating on the sound I'm making. I can't do that well and also be thinking, "Ah, now this D Major coming up is a V of V in the key of C, unless I change it to a dominant seventh and modulate to G."

cotten

[Allman_Fan]

Ah, man this is good stuff. So good, I’m gonna break it into three parts and two I’ll address here and one I’ll start a new post.

1. “For example, I can play lots of tunes well (at least I think I play them pretty well), without knowing what I'm doing musically. To grow as a musician, is it essential that I understand what I'm doing before moving on?”
This approach is fairly foreign to me. How do you know what to play if you don’t understand what is going on? For me to play something, I have to understand what is going on; even more so if I want to remember it without notes/visual prompts. (Note: I am definitely not criticizing this approach; it’s just far different than “how I do it.”)

2. “But when not improvising, are you thinking, now I'm switching to this chord, now i've switched keys, now I'm in this mode, or are you just playing?”
Nah, when I have the song down, I’m not thinking about that stuff. If I am “on” or performing as one should, I’m focused on tone, being right on the beat (or not) etc. However, there have been (and will be times) when I am playing and I’m thinking about something else . . . Ex: Try playing bass in a bar band to a three chord song while the guitar player takes an extended lead. Sometimes you MIGHT think about the theory and philosophy of faking enthusiasm.

[Bob1131]

I think the answer depends on what your goals are. Why do you play guitar and what do you want to achieve? I play strictly for my enjoyment, so I almost never think about the theory anymore...I'm just happy playing. Why something musically works or doesn't is certainly interesting, but is not a driving need, nor does it have any impact on my goal to enjoy playing guitar and making music. Of course, if your goal is to achieve some level of proficiency, occupation or fame, knowing what you are doing musically is essential.

[BULLSPRIG]

Its all about the sound. Or sounds.

I couldn't tell you one thing about theory or how the guitar is constructed or what music looks like on paper.

What I can do is to create a song in my head (say while showering), then grab my guitar and "hum" the starting point note, find its location on the neck (or its key) and then start to run thru various chord structures within that note (that I'm aware of or have discovered on my own through the years), until I find the one that "fits" the sounds in my head, and keep building the song in that manner from humming it out loud. I find a lot of times the songs I write in my mind need a bass or say a piano to make them really work. I will realize the guitar portion of the song is limited, and I may lose interest in it because I have no bass or piano. And I can't play a piano.

weird, huh.

[Bingoccc]

I did not learn to play by ear, and have a tin ear. I learned music but wish I learned how to play the guitar. If I could not read music I'd be lost. I wish I was gifted. But I still love the sound of a guitar so much that I play on. If you love it, never say die.

[Explorer]

Larry raises some interesting points in his first post, and the things which crystalize my response are these:

Originally Posted by larryb

But for most of us who struggle throughout our entire lives, when learning a new tune, is it more important to be able to play something and make it sound like music, or is it more important to actually understand what you are doing (names of the chords, the theoretical structure, etc), so that you can advance as a musician?

Obviously, both (are important. But, when should you move on to learning the next tune?

I was talking with my kid (who has a degree in music performance), and we were discussing the new paradigm of talent being overrated. One of the things we talked about, and which many teachers I know agree with, is that we've all had students who didn't learn what was happening underneath the surface of the music.

Learning just the presentation of a "tune," without learning the structures underneath, means that every tune is just a unique exercise, and that there is no advancement upon which to build.

To give an example, if one only learns to read a sentence upon sight, but never masters the individual letters or the phonics behind sounding those letters out, then one can only recognize the words, not new words build with the same components which one has ignored.

By learning the individual letters, and then building into words, learning parts of speech and punctuation, one can then effectively communicate.

if i neevr learn wordz and punkchewashun then is their any way to know what im trying to say i would guess not what do you think

I've worked scales and chord progressions, and I understand why they work. Now, I don't have to learn just one scale or chord progression for a particular song, and then do all the work for a new song. I can relate it to the old knowledge which I learned in a systematic way.

----

One can learn things to where they become unconscious. In the same way we can walk or drive absentmindedly, and sometimes even wind up in the wrong place because the subconscious process works along a practiced groove, one can work scales, patterns and chords to where one doesn't have to think, okay, we're transitioning to this chord now, which means I go to this!

I've even known folks who learned how to learn by ear, bit by bit. It can take practice, but it is a skill which can be acquired. Even classical university students, who normally work off of written music, take an ear-training course or two. I do hear folks who say that they can't learn by ear, but normally they haven't put in the time to learn the skills on which playing by ear is built. Some folks easily acquire those skills, some have to learn more formally, but it can be done.

----

I'd say, if you want to learn each piece as an individual piece, and not have any knowledge overlap between them, then learn everything from scratch on a particular tune, and then do it again for the next tune. Why not?

I'd also say, if you want to acquire the more basic skills which will support everything else, then do so. The only people I've never seen acquire them are those who say "I can't!" and then don't invest the time in acquiring them. As adults, most folks forget how much work they put into learning reading and writing, for example, or learning to drive, or playing catch with a baseball. If you want to learn, why not invest the time?

[Christian Reno]

Originally Posted by larryb

... My question is, to what extent do I need to worry about knowing exactly what I'm doing while I'm doing it....Maybe I already do this when I'm playing and I don't even realize it.

It depends on how much you want to have committed to memory. It is hard to remember 100's of songs by pure muscle memory, but you can certainly "remember" a handful that way.

Knowing and thinking about exaclty what chords you are moving to and possibly why in a theory sense can help you remember a ton more music than relying on muscle memory.

[shawlie]

Originally Posted by Bingoccc

I did not learn to play by ear, and have a tin ear. I learned music but wish I learned how to play the guitar. If I could not read music I'd be lost. I wish I was gifted. But I still love the sound of a guitar so much that I play on. If you love it, never say die.

I'm like this, too. I always found theory very interesting, ever since I got one of those "1000 chord books" when I was 15 and tried to figure out the logic to it all.

But never could I figure things out by listening, so understanding some theory has helped me a whole lot. Now it makes playing by ear a little easier - knowing the keys and chords, the more obvious changes.

It helps with writing, too, I think - thinking about things like inversions/non-roots in the bass, for example, is a lot of fun to try and get a different sound out the same old chords. More creative people might do this out of instinct, of course, but I sometimes like to have an idea to work with, too.

I'm all for both sides, and think it's best to do what interests you.

[Bob Womack]

Let me give you some examples that may help:

As a recording engineer, I work with symphony musicians who come in to play on tracks. These are well-schooled musicians, some from Juliard. We are running down a piece and something doesn't sound right. If I say, "you know the Em7 resolution on the second line doesn't sound right," they stare at me blankly. If I say, "measure thirty-eight beat four doesn't sound right," they key right in. These folks are most likely taught theory but their education focuses on performance, on taking the symbolic language of written music and interpreting it into the emotion and feel requested. Many of the single-string or single-note instruments players think only of their own line and chain of notes, accidentals, and descriptors in the sheet and transferring that to sound. They do that very well.

I work with a great young arranger who also plays several instruments. Her charts are appreciated by the symphony players for whom she writes. She also doesn't understand the theoretical references, but often thinks of the music on her charts in basically Renaissance terms: it is a group of polyphonic lines that come into relationships that support the emotions she is attempting to convey. She also doesn't understand the vocabulary of theoretical, compositional tools of development, you know, tension, release, complication, etc. Somehow her scores contain many of the elements, but best I can tell, she is doing it entirely intuitively and does quite well.

I worked with a particular, well-know national musician, a singer-songwriter, who was invited to come perform a particular song. When she arrived, she was asked on the spot to perform another well-known song from her catalog. This person is a pretty darn good guitarist, but on that second song, the recording and all subsequent public performances had featured professional accompaniment guitarists. Long story short, she didn't know the fingerpicked arrangement of her own song on guitar. She came into my studio to record some other stuff while trying to put the song together. I was alone with her for a while. Since I knew the song, I offered to teach it to her. She kept getting stuck on the IV chord of the song, a first position, first inversion D (D with the F# in the bass or D/F#). She had her guitar, I had none. Without grabbing her guitar, I tried to describe it to her as above: (the IV chord, first inversion, first inversion D, D with F# in the bass, D/F#). She stared at me blankly. I showed the chord form to her using my wrist as a guitar neck and she said, "Oh yea." Now, she's got top-ten albums, performs before thousands at a typical concert, writes her own music, makes a lot o' money, doesn't have a clue about theory, and doesn't appear to need it.

Bob

[larryb]

Yeah. It's a mystery. I can play some pretty complex stuff. When I'm learning it, I'm looking at the chords and understanding, for the most part, the structure. But after I've played sections of it a thousand times, I have forgotten what chords I'm playing and the structure, and i just know where my fingers should be. The problem is, if my muscle memory fails and I have to improvise, unless I know where I am, musically, it's tough to improvise out of the problem.

Then again, there are people like Lennon and McCartney who were never schooled formally, musically. They didn't understand theory. Yet, they wrote some of the most amazing melodies and chord changes in history. Go figure.

[rick-slo]

Bob,
I would say that the disconnect between theory and performance ability (even compositional ability) is not that unusual although
not understanding terms such as tension and release and basic chord numerology is rather extreme. I am rather amazed at those
who believe that if you do not know the theory behind of each piece you learn you get nothing much from them and will not progress
as an able guitar player (musician) and I wonder how well they play to be making such assumptions. The goal of many guitar players
is to be able to play the music of other guitar song writers many of whom did not understand music theory in any formal way
(especially that applies to many of the old blues and ragtime guitar players). Of course there are exceptions every which way you can
imagine and in some lines of work the theory is vital, but the principle remains in many cases and it is not in the least surprising to me.