Learning scales

What happens if you was never on the right road in the first place, and you didn't have a map? You know, like most beginners...
Well, Some people stop and ask for directions but most men just drive on and never admit they are lost :lol:

And if ya end up in Idaho, there's "Free Taters for Outta Staters" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry Couldn't resist, but I like the road map analogy too.

You're from Oregon...

I wouldn't worry too much about theory, if I was in your shoes, just yet.....

I'd learn some songs first, get tabs off the internet, work on those, then try to learn the theory behind the song.....

There are millions of songs out there, learn one, then try to figure out why it sounds so good.....

But most of all, keep ractising guitar......

:D :D :D

Vic

And if ya end up in Idaho, there's "Free Taters for Outta Staters" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry Couldn't resist, but I like the road map analogy too.

You're from Oregon...

Doesn't mean I haven't been lost in Idaho. :oops: :oops:

My biggest fear is becoming too reliant on theory. I don't want it to hinder my creativity or cause me to sound bland. I don't want to become too reliant on it because it can't explain everything.

Don't worry about that. 8) I promise that there's absolutely no link between creativity and lack of knowledge. Or between knowing stuff and being bland for that matter. :twisted:

Sure, there have been some creative people who didn't always know all the technical stuff, but their ignorance of the details was not what made them creative, or kept them that way.

Quite the reverse. More knowledge should open fresh doors not close them. The difference is that genuinely creative people (rather than just wannabes) take all new information, absorb it and then use it as a jumping off point for further adventures.

Only the uncreative would see knowledge as some sort of dangerous rut to avoid. "Aaargh... don't tell me anything, it might influence me..." :shock: I can't see Hendrix thinking that way... :D

I'll give you an idea of just how much learning about keys and scales might "cramp your style".

So you want to write a melody or solo of some kind. Say you decide on the key of C major. You also decide that you'll stick just to the open strings and the top 3 frets. That's over two octaves in that key, and 17 notes to choose from for your first note. Assume a modest choice of three different notes lengths to pick from (there are more of course) and you're up to 50 choices just for the first note.

Then another fifty for the next note, and so on.

So after four notes you have had 50*50*50*50 = 6,250,000 possibilities.

Now you're quite possibly still in the first bar, and you have had over 6 million possibilities. :shock:

Should be a bit of room left for creativity in there. :twisted:

Cheers, Chris

My biggest fear is becoming too reliant on theory. I don't want it to hinder my creativity or cause me to sound bland. I don't want to become too reliant on it because it can't explain everything.

One example is the guitar solo in Alter Bridge - The End Is Here. One of the reasons I love it is because it starts out clean but gets dirter with each passing line until it ends with a heavy gritty sound often found in metal. Which makes me wonder if theory can tell you how much distortion to use and when to use it.....

I guess the solution to learn it, but don't overdo it.
Theory won't tell you what to do. It tells you what other people have done so you can understand it and write in that idiom yourself, because doing something completely different isn't what most people want to do, no matter how creative they are.

That makes sense. Doubt I'd ever need that many notes for just one song but it's good the choice is there. Though 6,250,000 is only the number of choices with quarters notes. With eighth notes I'd have 39,062,500,000,000 choices and with 16th notes I'd have.............a really big number. And that doesn't include going outside the key.

Theory won't tell you what to do. It tells you what other people have done so you can understand it and write in that idiom yourself, because doing something completely different isn't what most people want to do, no matter how creative they are.

I agree with this statement completely. I'd even go a bit further and say that there are some idioms where lack of theory knowledge makes it impossible to play successfully in that style. Try reharmonizing a jazz tune on the fly without knowing some theory, for example . . .

That makes sense. Doubt I'd ever need that many notes for just one song but it's good the choice is there. Though 6,250,000 is only the number of choices with quarters notes. With eighth notes I'd have 39,062,500,000,000 choices and with 16th notes I'd have.............a really big number. And that doesn't include going outside the key.

Yeah, it's pretty huge. Let's say you stick to just ONE note. Sixteenth notes divide a beat of 4/4 time into quarter beats... the first beat can be either 'on' (note) or 'off' (rest). After that, you've got three choices for each sixteenth - 'on' (new note), 'off' (rest), or 'hold' (making the last sixteenth an eighth, etc.

So in a single bar of 4/4, using nothing but sixteenths, you've got almost a million possible rhythms. Combine that with notes, even in just one octave, and you've got one heck of a number...

I've heard people say that music is finite, so eventually people will write everything possible. I think it's finite in the way the number of atoms in the universe is... there may be a fixed number, but it's so big it doesn't matter.

I'm still lost on how to apply this theory. I tried looking at a song I'm currently working on, which is in the key of Am. Found out the three chords are: Am, Dm and E. I took a look at the intro to the song, the progression is: F5, F#5, D5 and Eb5. Naturally, I was lost on how you get F5, F#5, D5 and Eb5 out of Am, Dm and E. So I looked at all the chords in Am: Am Bdim Caug Dm E F G#dim Am. Nope, still lost......

Are you saying that Am, Dm and Em are used in the song, or that Am, Dm and Em are the main chords of Am? It's important to realise that alot of songs (especially in metal) use chromatic notes. That F, F#, D, D# progression you mentioned kind of reminds me of Master of Puppets by Metallica, if you look at that song, you can tell that it's in E minor: it's the most frequent note really and the chorus resolves to it. But in one riff of the song it uses the notes:

E F B C C#

which in theory makes no sense, but in my opinion it sounds awesome. Why? probably because it isn't typical and the riff is predominantly chromatic but still resolves to something. That's my problem with theory and scales: people tend to think they are the be all and end all to figuring out music: it shouldn't be a guide it should be an extra help. Right now I've started to focus a bit more on developing my ear, it can be as simple as playing a song and noticing how certain chords sound as opposed to other ones, I also have found scale, interval and chord trainers that i use for ear training.

I agree with the statement that someone said about how theory is an organisation of observations that other people have figured out: in reality every player has to figure out what sounds good, having good knowledge of theory doesn't have to mean that you have to know how to build every scale, chord and key, it could be as simple as knowing why one chord sounds better from another one. Sorry about the rant, but the point remains, take theory with a grain of salt.

Well, my first impression would be that the intro isn't necessarily in Am. It does lead into it by starting with F5 to Eb5. That then evolves into the Am progression for the rest of the song.

Keep in mind that a Key is just a guidline, not an absolute. And there's nothing wrong with being 'out of key' if it's accenting something or making it sound cool.

Like clothes. You can fashion an outfit based on earth tones, say various shades of brown. Then have a bright red scarf, hat, or something. Is bright red an earth tone? No. It's an accent. (Mebbe that would clash, I'm not a clothes person. But that sorth of thing is done when painting houses and such. A completely out of theme color is used to accent minor things.) Translated to this, the intro is the accent.

That's my take, though I have the usual disclaimer that I'm still learning this stuff too...

I meant the chords Am, Dm and Em are the main chords of Am. And those chords, or any chords of Am are not used in the song at all. The verses are F#5, D5, F5, D5 and the first chorus is a repeat of the intro. The 2nd and 3rd choruses are: Eb5, F#5, F5 then F5, E5, D5 and A5. So the song never goes into any Am progression. Those chords would probably sound too muddy with the distortion for this song anyway.

You have a point though, if it sounds good, who cares? I think theory is like that roadmap in missleman's analogy. It makes the journey easier and faster but you can make the journey without it.

Sorry for the million questions on this stuff. As I said before, theory is not something that comes easy to me.

To paraphrase an old saying "If you take 100 monkeys and sit them in front of 100 computers, each running Powertab editor, within a few minutes, you'll have several major "R&B" hits." :)

Keep in mind that 5 chords or powerchords aren't generally chords at all (they're counterpoint) and they are not major or minor. Since they aren't major or minor, you have to look at the role the play in the song. Without actually doing a little analysis of how the melody relates to the harmony, and what the bass line is doing, it's easy to make a guess and be wrong. You have too little information to make a sound judgement.

That said if you have a song that you think is in Am, and you see lots stuff like Eb5, F#5, F5 then F5, E5, D5 and A5, you could have (in order) dimV, bVI, vi, then vi, V, IV, i in the key of Am.

I think I understand. It might be best if I put this stuff to bed for a while and go back to using my ear. Thanks so much for all your help to my millions of questions. Now where can I get 100 monkeys.........