Music Theory

[Silurian]

So I've been playing on and off for about 13 years. In the last three years I've taken it more seriously. As a consequence my technical skills have improved markedly. I'm no shredder but I can play quickly and fluently and have most of the other technical skills in my toolbox.

The downside is that I know next to nothing about music theory. I've felt this increasingly limiting. So I've bitten the bullet and bought Guitar Theory for Dummies.

Is there anyone else who hasn't got a clue about Dorian and Myxilodian, etc, etc? Anyone like me but not at all interested in learning a bit of theory or feel it wouldn't be beneficial?

Anyone believe that a minimum of theoretical knowledge is required for progress?

[Mr. Jelly]

I think it's good to know about it. I do think that learning how to apply it is what makes it worth while. I don't think spending allot of effort, time and energy learning all the scales makes much sense. Knowing how it works does have it benefits so when you want to achieve some musical goal and don't know how to get there you know where and what to look for to make it happen. When I first started looking into different scales I thought most of them sounded like crap. And they are. On their own. Music dictates the scale, scales don't dictate the music.

[fazool]

I took a college class in music theory which taught me some really good fundamentals.

Understanding scales and chord theory was very helpful in understanding what I'm playing.

But, unless you are composing or playing improv at a jazz cut, I think the rest is a bit over-emphasized. When learning a song, no one ever tries to analyze if its Dorian or Mixolydian. And even knowing every scale isn't needed either.

I think a lot of musicians study that simply for the appreciation of studying music but its not needed for playing.

Stick to basic music theory and you should be good (IMO)

[Skip Ellis]

The thing that has been most helpful to me over the years is knowing chord theory which enables you to construct a needed chord anywhere on the neck (assuming you know where all the notes are). Got into this early on when learning 'Chet' stuff and, later, constructing jazz chord melody.

[donlyn]

Music Theory

I had the good fortune and foresight to have taken a music theory course in college a little over 50 years ago. Final was doing an arrangement of an original piece, mostly graded by how much you could put into it. Professor played all the pieces in class. (Was not a dedicated music school, even though they've been around locally for many years also.)

Not sure how much benefit I got immediately from this, as I had been playing guitar for only a few years at the time, but I have benefited greatly from it as I have learned more and more on my chosen instrument. To include making my own arrangements for myself for songs I want to play, with or without vocals.

So I would say this is definitely something to learn, and you will profit from it for years to come. And it will open doors to stuff you never knew existed.

Don
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[Silurian]

Originally Posted by fazool

I took a college class in music theory which taught me some really good fundamentals.

Understanding scales and chord theory was very helpful in understanding what I'm playing.

But, unless you are composing or playing improv at a jazz cut, I think the rest is a bit over-emphasized. When learning a song, no one ever tries to analyze if its Dorian or Mixolydian. And even knowing every scale isn't needed either.

I think a lot of musicians study that simply for the appreciation of studying music but its not needed for playing.

Stick to basic music theory and you should be good (IMO)

That's why I bought the Guitar Theory for dummies book. It makes it clear in the intro that it's geared towards the practical application of theory to the guitar specifically and not intended to provide a general grounding in theory

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

I think it's good to know about it. I do think that learning how to apply it is what makes it worth while. . When I first started looking into different scales I thought most of them sounded like crap. And they are. On their own. Music dictates the scale, scales don't dictate the music.

Yes this is the important thing to take home, at the level of defining musical notation etc sure that has to be a set of unchanging rules so any one who looks at a score will read it the same way, but scales chord progressions etc then music theory is just a description of what people actually do with sounds, it's not a set of rules. If I learn a melody that has a distinctive quality to the sound then knowing that this tune was constructed arounded a mixolydian scale is very usefull cause next time I hear a tune which shares that same quality of sound then I know out of which scale to find the notes.

[tbirdman]

I bought the dummies book as I was tired of trying to figure out what my guitar instructors were saying. Everything was a letter (chords, keys, scales notes etc) Also I took a look community college class. Lastly I took this online course at Justin Guitar for $10 https://www.justinguitar.com/classes...n-music-theory.

After doing all this I saw how music was one big mathematical relationship. All of this has made me understand music a bit more, and every once in a while I will get an aha moment from things I've learned. I continue to want to learn. This past semester I took a classical guitar class and learned how to read music.

I figure knowledge is a good thing.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Silurian

…Anyone believe that a minimum of theoretical knowledge is required for progress?

Hi Silurian

Music theory is universally applied to all instruments. It's not guitar theory, and keyboard theory, and brass theory etc. It's music theory.

Scales are scales…major, minor and chromatic with their variants.

As for modes, you either really get into them, or you acknowledge they exist and don't pay attention to them very often.

I have a college degree in theory, and in 40 years of teaching intermediate and advanced fingerstyle guitar never once dealt with them. And I do not feel negligent nor dismissive.

I DO believe knowing what one is doing and playing musically (a minimum of theoretical knowledge) leads to more progress. I feel the more one understands about the music they are playing, beginning with simple scales and chord formation, intervals and delving into melody and harmony, the better musicians they become.

Similar to spoken language where children speak for up to 5 years before they begin to read and write, yet they communicate freely, music can be played long before a musician learns note names, and formalizes scales and chord formation (melody creation etc).

Without calling it Music Theory, I taught students all about music and how it was constructed, and how the parts interacted. If they stayed with me for at least a year, they were thinking in keys, and intervals and playing fluent scale work with both melody and harmony included in the scale work and etudes.

We made it fun, and didn't focus just on theory. In a one hour lesson, the theory stuff occupied about 10 minutes, and that was what I expected of them with their daily practice…10 minutes of an hour.

Most went from barely reading chord charts to memorizing everything they practiced & played, and being able to transpose on the fly. Interestingly I did all this without scores or TAB.

For those who wanted to learn more about theory, I recommended them to a basic piano course of 1 or 2 semesters at out community college. Music Theory always makes most sense on a keyboard. Chord construction and progression on a keyboard makes so much more sense than on other instrument.

[FrankHudson]

"Music Theory" is just a system series of names for certain patterns and arrangements of notes combined with some guidance about how they work together and may be expected to produce effects in the listener. The names used are not entirely standardized, but it's better than making up your own names. Having names in common for things makes it easier to convey what you're aiming for to others who know those names and what they mean. The second part: how these named things might work together, can be useful for composition, including spontaneous composition ("improvisation").

Do you need to convey your musical ideas or aims to others? If so, learning the lingo of music theory could be very helpful. Play mostly by yourself? Just knowing (or even feeling) a bit about rhythm and a few forms for each chord on the standard-tuned guitar is plenty to make pleasing music.

Need to compose/improvise? Music theory isn't required, and I suspect it can even be an ineffective way to always enter those fields for everybody every time. That said, when I compose I find that even my limited grasp of music theory gives me ideas all the time to try this or that with results like "Hey, that sounds interesting!" when I might not have fallen into trying that combination other than because it illustrated some musical structure systemized by music theory.

[mr. beaumont]

Be sure to get down the fundamentals first. Major scales, chord building, and to be guitar specific, fretboard knowledge.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Silurian

Anyone believe that a minimum of theoretical knowledge is required for progress?

The question is in what form that theoretical knowledge is.

IOW, it's like the grammar of a language. You can learn it all by ear - as you did your mother tongue - or you can use books of grammar and vocabulary - as you probably did if you ever learned a foreign language.

Music is different, in that (a) the music of your own culture is not "foreign", although it can seem complicated and mysterious; and (b) the meanings of music are all contained in its sounds, they don't translate in any other way.
E.g., in verbal language, words "denote" things. Musical sounds don't denote anything - they just are what they are. (Some people like to attach emotional meanings to particular musical sounds, but those are subjective associations, not inherent in the sounds themselves.)

Most pop/rock/folk musicians learn most of their theory by ear. They (we!) will learn basic jargon such as note names, chord names, maybe scale and key names (that's all "theory"), but won't go any further than that. The way chords are put together - theories of harmony, chord progression, modes and all that - is learned by copying songs, picking up common practices that way.

I.e., we all learn the minimum amount of theory we need, just as we go along. And the reason we need it is to talk to other musicians: to say what we just played, to tell them what to play, or to follow what they ask us to play. We need to know things like chord names in order to follow chord charts.
Some of us may learn standard notation, especially if we want to learn songs from songbooks, or give parts to other reading musicians without having to laboriously tell them what to play.

Yet more of us may study theory purely out of curiosity. That's my angle. I like music - lots of different kinds - which is why I want to get inside it in any way I can - whether or not the theory turns out to be of any practical help in my playing. I can honestly say I don't believe any of my theoretical study (which has been going on for some 50 years, on and off) has really helped me with composing or improvising. My composing and improvising has certainly got better over the years, but that's for two reasons: learning to play more music, and writing and improvising more. That's naturally improved both my ear and my technique, as well as my vocabulary of musical effects.
My theory knowledge just means I know what to call all those things!
Admittedly, being able to label everything helps to build a coherent mental database. But that's just information. Music is not information, it's a process, an activity. You learn how to do it by doing it.
It's easy to fall into a sense of smug satisfaction that all the labelling actually means anything. When you know the names of things, it can make you feel like you understand them. That's not the case. A label is just a label - an arbitrary word attached to the thing. Useful, naturally, just not any kind of explanation.

With music, the only way to understand it is to play it and listen to it. As I say, the sounds are what they are, no more no less: their meaning is entirely self-contained. Non-musicians understand music perfectly well: they know when to dance to it, when to march to it, when to sing along, cheer or weep to it, and so on. Musicians, meanwhile, understand by playing it (adding to the common understanding acquired by listening).

Another thing to bear in mind is that when you know something, it's no longer mysterious or difficult. You already know some "theory" (chord names and so on), you might just not think of it as theory. You might regard "theory" as "all that mysterious jargon I don't know" - so you think there is some kind of boundary there, that you're nervous to cross. In fact, there is a smooth continuum between what you know and what you don't know. As with any exploration into the unknown, it's not wise to suddenly parachute yourself into somewhere totally foreign. You start from where you are now.
You already know stuff. Add little bits as you come across them. Put out feelers: if something doesn't make sense, ignore it - you don't need it. When you do need it, you'll find it will click. Quite often you'll find yourself reading theory and realising you already know what you're reading about - because you've been playing it for years without knowing what it was called.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Silurian

So I've been playing on and off for about 13 years. In the last three years I've taken it more seriously. As a consequence my technical skills have improved markedly. I'm no shredder but I can play quickly and fluently and have most of the other technical skills in my toolbox.

The downside is that I know next to nothing about music theory. I've felt this increasingly limiting. So I've bitten the bullet and bought Guitar Theory for Dummies.

Is there anyone else who hasn't got a clue about Dorian and Myxilodian, etc, etc? Anyone like me but not at all interested in learning a bit of theory or feel it wouldn't be beneficial?

Anyone believe that a minimum of theoretical knowledge is required for progress?

I think learning chord progressions, keys and their related minor, chord building and understanding how scales are built and how to write musical notation (there is software for this) would be really helpful. The starting point would be to learn the chromatic scale on the fretboard. You don't have to memorize every note but at least have some "anchor" notes memorized.

[rick-slo]

Some basic music theory is helpful for sure. On the other hand it's not that uncommon go down a rabbit hole of theory never to return.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Some basic music theory is helpful for sure. On the other hand it's not that uncommon go down a rabbit hole of theory never to return.

Indeed.
Anyone got a carrot? Or some lettuce? I'm feeling peckish...