General Music Chat

I'd say the PLUS for learning basic theory is playing with others in a new setting or 'sitting in'.
Example: sitting in with a friend last weekend, I asked 'what key do you do that in, B?' He said 'E'. In fact, he was starting on an E major chord, but playing in B. Until he started playing I was figuring how I was going to transpose this song up 5 frets (or down 7)on an acoustic 12 string and make it sound ok!
With the guy I was playing with recently, it was as simple as 'I do that in Eminor' or 'Bflat', and we both knew what to play.

gMike

That's it exactly! I played a thing at chuch recently on bass guitar. It's a five string and one hour before rehearsals started the tuner on the D string broke.

No time to fix it so I tied the D string to the G tuner and transposed most of my part to accommodate not having a G string. It really does help to know how to do that - and it ain't rocket science.

Talbot

It helps to at least know the notes so you can tune without an electronic tuner, too!

There is a case for studying theory - there is a method to all that madness and pretty soon you start understanding just what you've been doing all along.

The big pay off comes when you hit a dry spell in your playing. All your stuff is sounding the same - you turn your guitar down so nobody can hear your tawdry, boring playing. That's when you call up GSOK.com and tinker with scales, arpeggios and various chord voicings.

There really is a difference between a natural minor scale and a harmonic minor scales. Slight difference actually but all of sudden it's totally someplace else. You can play them all at least six different ways.

My point is while you run through some of this stuff you find you are practicing timing, rythym, getting your ear used to hearing the nuances and exercising your fingers. Pretty soon you start banging those scales out of the park into some pretty nice lead guitar. And I mean pretty soon as in the same practice session.

I sincerely hope I'm not the only guy who hits those dry spells - not that I wish anyone ill. There is comfort in being one of the crowd. (one can still play but the overall feel is of a zombie strumming a piece of telephone wire)


Actual theory - circle of fifths and all that other stuff - can be helpful at whatever level you approach it. I think you could learn the circle of 5ths and some basic scales or modes; and stop there and you'd still have gained much. There is much more though and you can take it or leave it.

Yet I agree with some of the other guys here too - if your stuff is working without all that then run with it. The other side of it is that if you are pushing forward hard it might hold you back to start investing time in theory.

One question to ask yourself though, am I continuing to improve? If you are, to me that's the big win.

Talbot

^^signed

I learn guitar the same way But don't worry there is a payoff to it I once knew a guy who learned how to play listening to kill switch songs but now he's unable to write anything himself because all his brain knows it kill switch learning the way you are allows you to truly develop your own style of playing well still be open 2 other concepts and when you play people say who is that. Instead of saying is that. ( insert whatever band ) they want to figure out who's playing like that

Theory is a good tool for learning what happened and exposing yourself to new sounds you may have never heard before - odd chords, progressions, harmonies, etc. When push comes to shove though, the crux of music is getting what you consider to be the sound you like out of your head and translated to your instrument. Unless you're playing to sheet music, you're not going to find much use for theory when on stage. Playing live is mostly motor muscle memory.

Even learning scales is more about teaching your ear to hear what note ought to come next and how to reach it without having to think about finger placement. The real benefit of learning things like that (scales) is that the repetition required to learn it builds your motor muscle memory so that when you think of the next note in your head, you don't have to examine the fretboard to determine what makes theoretical sense - your hands just know how to get there because you've gone down that road so many times during practice.

Same with learning chords - learn them so you know what they sound like and how to play them - over time, you'll learn how to reach for them without thinking about how to arrange your fingers - it will come naturally.

Practice practice practice - and know up front that it takes years - if you expect immediate results, you'll frustrate yourself into depression.

Jimi stepped off the bus and reinvented guitar playing over 40 years ago.

Jimi toured for years before he recorded his stuff ....
Backing up Little Richard and the Isley Brothers - maybe not lessons in the true sense but a great learning experience playing OTHER peoples tunes.
You can hear other players in Jimi's playin' in tunes like Little Wing ; 3rd Stone ; Redhouse - Wes Montgomery/ Albert King/Curtis Mayfield
So its not like he just left his bedroom and recorded Are You Experienced ...
Bottom line
Even Jimi learned from others ...
Its a shame that some people think lessons will kill your own sound when in fact they will broaden and expand your knowledge of music and guitar playin'.
Knowledge is power.
.02$

I never learned music theory, sure wished I did. A jazz trained metal guitarist I once played with told me that I knew and understood more about music theory then a lot of musicians do, though I did'nt realize it. He said I understood the concepts without actually having learned it.

That being said, I statred out with acoustic, and I did the whole Mel Bay guitar chord thing. I learned crap like John Denver, Jim Croce, Hank Williams, lots of folk and older country.

I was always a rocker and once I was shown the two note bar chord, it was on. I learned the Stones, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, among many others...I bought the Metal Method guitar course and it taught me the basics like; speed picking, full bar chords, the penatonic scale, etc...I also learned a great deal from Guitar Player and Guitar World magazines.

But, I picked up more just by watching other guitarists and by the ones I played with over the years then anything else...

Intervals.

A lot boils down to intervals and relative pitch (ear) training.

Jimi stepped off the bus and reinvented guitar playing over 40 years ago.

Jimi toured for years before he recorded his stuff ....
Backing up Little Richard and the Isley Brothers - maybe not lessons in the true sense but a great learning experience playing OTHER peoples tunes.
You can hear other players in Jimi's playin' in tunes like Little Wing ; 3rd Stone ; Redhouse - Wes Montgomery/ Albert King/Curtis Mayfield
So its not like he just left his bedroom and recorded Are You Experienced ...
Bottom line
Even Jimi learned from others ...
Its a shame that some people think lessons will kill your own sound when in fact they will broaden and expand your knowledge of music and guitar playin'.
Knowledge is power.
.02$

Totally agree... Its like I was telling my kid one day... all he sees is the glorious 3 minutes on MTV... not realizing the grueling decades behind that.

My 2 cents on theory and playing the guitar.
You need to know all the notes in a scale, that
way you know the starting note for all the other
modes of that scale....eg scale of C C, D, E, F, G, A, B
the 1st note of the 2nd mode will start with D, the
3rd mode will start with E. So now you know what note
all the different modes start on. Are you playing
a 6th string root note scale or a 5th string root note
scale, to do this you will need to know the notes on the
6th and 5th string. It goes on, but ultimately breaksdown
to interval relationships, yeah your fingers might know
where to go but does your head know why a F, And a G note
always sound good in C, why does a B note always want to
go back to C in the Key of C.

Interval relationships it's where music is formed.