Music education question

[sloar]

I'm about 7 months into this wonderful journey, I'm really pleased with myself on the improvements I've made on my playing. Problem is I know zero about music. I'm starting to understand about 1% of it all and would like to know more to help my playing and understand what I'm playing. Where should a beginner start? I thought about music theory books or how to read music, but I don't want to start wrong. So I'm asking here, where and what should I start with. Thank you!

[jafranks]

Great question, Sloar. There are many here that are more accomplished than I, but I'm about 5 years in and have a few thoughts that might help.

It really depends on your goals. Would you like to fully understand music theory and write your own music, etc.? Do you want to be a gigging musician? Do you simply (like most of us, I think) want to be able to play adequately enough to entertain yourself and friends/family? There are undoubtedly multiple other "endpoints" to your journey, but it starts with figuring at least where you "think" you'd like to be in a few years.

As has been mentioned before, Justin Sandercoe has an outstanding beginner guitar course, sprinkled with enough theory to get you going, but focused on PLAYING, which helps to maintain interest through the long haul for most.

You will get lots of good advice here, but that's my .02$

[mr. beaumont]

I think the musical knowledge things that be most beneficial for a beginner is basic music reading and fretboard knowledge. There's numerous books that can get you started, something like good old Mel Bay will set you in the right direction, but then you might also supplement it with a fake book of tunes you enjoy, where only the chord names and melody are given.

I think for most beginners, reading "pitch" is the easy thing, and for the most part can be learned by rote. Rhythms can be a little trickier, my advice is to count everything, even stuff you "know."

Keep everything practical. There's no need to collect "knowledge," most of what folks call "theory" is simple fact, and the stuff that's actually useful to a beginner is pretty straightforward.

[sloar]

As far as my goal, no gigs or writing. I just want to improve for myself and feel confident in front of others.

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by jafranks

As has been mentioned before, Justin Sandercoe has an outstanding beginner guitar course, sprinkled with enough theory to get you going, but focused on PLAYING, which helps to maintain interest through the long haul for most.

He also teaches a music theory course...

https://www.justinguitar.com/categor...l-music-theory

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by sloar

...would like to know more to help my playing and understand what I'm playing.....

Take a few lessons..... on piano. Best way to get an idea about what's going on with this music thing.

[JonPR]

Music theory is a well-established body of knowledge (evolved over many centuries), so it's hard to go wrong whatever source you use. (I mean, if you avoid the flakier regions of the internet, I guess...)

The problem is that not many sources are guitar-friendly. They teach you to read music to begin with, but that's not a lot of use it you don't know the notes on your guitar (yet). (A lot of sources assume you're working with piano - the ideal instrument for theoretical study.)

The point about notation is that that's how the books and websites illustrate the concepts they're explaining, expecting you to be able to play them on your instrument. (If you don't know how the concepts sound, you're wasting your time.) So learning notation is the first, essential thing to do. (Every other musician aside from non-classical guitarists learns notation from the start. )

The best online theory site is https://www.musictheory.net/lessons. It guides you through from the beginning (don't be tempted to skip pages), and provides sound samples when needed, so you don't need to read notation straight away. But you really need to play the stuff as soon as you can, to connect it to your instrument, not just to your ear. (Some of the more advanced concepts are more relevant to classical music than pop or rock, or even jazz. Pop and rock don't "break rules", they just have their own variations on the rules, some of which are not covered and are hard to find explained anywhere.)

A good guitar-friendly book is this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leonard-Gui.../dp/063406651X - shows you the notes on the fretboard right at the beginning.

[Joe Beamish]

Check out Howard Morgen’s “fingerboard breakthrough” course at TrueFire. Super good and practical, linear, and never pedantic. He starts you off with some basics for navigating the fretboard, then asks you to memorize your major triads, then starts showing you how to build your own chords and voicings, and how to arrange songs with voice leading (that is, with individual moving lines.)

https://truefire.com/jazz-guitar-les...akthrough/c210

[Paddy1951]

Your question is a good one with no one or simple answer.
As others have stated, a lot depends on what your goals are. Whatever direction you decide to take, don't take on too much too fast.

Think of leaning music as similar to computer knowledge. Given what you establish as what you want to do, is it necessary to know XYZ? For instance, music theory can get pretty complex. There are some things that will really help you and some things that may be of little value to your situation. Most of us learn to use a computer to a degree of competency necessary to what we want/need to do with a computer. Is it necessary to know how all the internals work? Not for most of us.

There are many ways to teach music and many ways to learn it. You will have to do your homework as to what will be best for you. That said, I offer two things that benefit most, if not all players.

Rhythm
I can't tell you how many times I have played with otherwise good musicians who cannot keep tempo, do not understand rhythm or it's importance. It is not just a matter of counting but of developing an internal kind of clock, if you will.
Spend some time on this. Take a few lessons with a good percussionist.

Circle of 5ths
I don't know what you are learning presently. I might guess notation and notes on the fretboard. At some point, you will be on to or will want to know chords, chord theory. If you can get real comfortable with the C of 5ths, it will help you and almost certainly be something that will be useable no matter where you adventure takes you.

Most people, especially adults, learn better by pursuing small pieces of the whole IMO. Keep this in mind.

Have a great adventure!

[godfreydaniel]

Originally Posted by Joe Beamish

Check out Howard Morgen’s “fingerboard breakthrough” course at TrueFire. Super good and practical, linear, and never pedantic. He starts you off with some basics for navigating the fretboard, then asks you to memorize your major triads, then starts showing you how to build your own chords and voicings, and how to arrange songs with voice leading (that is, with individual moving lines.)

https://truefire.com/jazz-guitar-les...akthrough/c210

I took lessons with Howard a long time ago. His explanations of how to understand the fretboard and music theory filled in all the gaps I had and have been invaluable to me. This is a great suggestion!

[Earl49]

It's not a course per se, but I have learned a lot from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Handbo.../dp/B00L2MG3QA

Even though I've had it for 30 years, I still open it monthly to read an essay about some topic, especially topics like modes, chord progressions, chord substitution, etc.

[Twitch]

I would highly recommend finding a teacher and taking lessons. Explain your goals to him or her and together come up with a plan on how to achieve them. This would be beneficial for several reasons:

• Having a weekly live lesson forces you to focus and be prepared.
• As a relative beginner, a teacher can help you get fundamentals correct before bad habits set in.
• You can network and maybe build relationships with other guitarists. Playing guitar with others is fun!

As an already somewhat mature guitarist, I took lessons for about 9 months with the goal of becoming functional at reading the staff and chord charts (my prior music background was very minimal). It was a great experience and marked a period of tremendous growth in my skill level.

[Paddy1951]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Take a few lessons..... on piano. Best way to get an idea about what's going on with this music thing.

This may be excellent advice. My son was a music major as an undergrad and went on to get a Masters, almost a doctorate in Performance Music. He and all of his classmates had to have a basic core competency on piano- regardless of their primary instrument.

[brad2001]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Take a few lessons..... on piano. Best way to get an idea about what's going on with this music thing.

+1 on that .. and you get the benefit of being able to accompany on piano as well ..

[Ten]

In my experience, actually understanding theory requires me to have the technical capability on guitar to execute the theory without issue.

I took music theory classes in college, but becoming a better guitar player had little to do with learning theory. It came from learning songs, chords, scales, the notes in them, etc.