best way to learn music theory?

This is a tough question, because what worked for me, might not work for some one else, and vice versa.

First of all, something about me; I play the guitar so that I can write songs. Playing the guitar is a tool, not an end in itself. This means that I don't focus on learning chords and scales to play them on the guitar, although it obviously is handy to be able to do that. I focus on why certain chords and scales go well with eachother. I have written songs that I can't really play fluently, but I know what I want to hear.

I learned music theory by simply reading everything about it that I could find. At first a lot of stuff will be too hard to comprehend, because you lack the basic knowledge to understand all of it. Sometimes, however, you'll stumble across a great article, that perfectly matches your current level of knowledge. Digest it all, try to understand it. I started out in 1995 and information on the internet was sparse then. Now there's a wealth of information. If you stumble across a term or word you don't understand: look it up on Google or Wikipedia, or ask on a forum like this one.

I also learned from looking at other people's compositions. I didn't start out writing songs on the guitar, I started out as a tracker. Tracking is the art of composing songs with digital samples (ie .MOD files, they were hot on the Amiga early 1990s). The advantage of tracking was that you could see all the notes laid out for you. When people play a G7 chord on the guitar, they might not know that they actually play the notes G, B, D and F. Seeing this all in front of you can be very enlightening. The tracking scene was flowering around the mid 1990s and I learned a lot from looking at what other trackers did. There were some great composers around, and some incredible music was made, especially considering the limitations of the format.

Finally, you learn the most by simply doing it. Sit down with your guitar and start composing. Write down what you do, because that way it's easier to remember what you wrote and it makes things visual. When I composed songs in a tracker I composed them moslty with my brains (ie. based on what I knew about music theory), now, on the guitar, I use a combination of that knowledge and my hearing (what sounds good).

The big thing with theory is to understand that all the basic modal theory and 95% of the music you will encounter is all based on one simple scale. For whatever reason, the old system of teaching puts you through tis complicated mess of stuff to learn all your scales and modes but it's really pretty simple.

So the scale is the one you know: the major scale. All the modes (including the minor scale) are just you playing that major scales but starting and ending on a different note. So if C major is c-d-e-f-g-a-b then the second mode (dorian) is just d-e-f-g-a-b-c; the third (phrygian) is e-f-g-a-b-c-d; and so on. The minor scale happens to start and end on the sixth note (a-b-c-d-e-f-g).

Being that the guitar is this wonderfully symmetrical thing, if you learn to play C major (say 3 notes per string starting on the 8th fret of the E string) then if you play the same patter starting on the 5th fret you'd have A major. Memorize one pattern and you know it in all 11 keys. So at the end of the day you only need to learn 7 patterns to do all of modal scale theory on your guitar. Each one of those seven modes has it's own sound and it's fun to experiment with.

I'm posting a bunch about this to my own site so I hope no one minds me linking it here. It'll be over the next few months I get all the lessons up but you can check it out via the link in my sig below.

I'll disagree with that last post.

The wonderful thing about the guitar is its chromatic nature. That makes it, and other fretted instruments, far easier to learn than other instruments. They actually have to learn what notes make up which keys - all guitarists really need to do is learn one scale fingering and move it around in order to play in all keys.

But that means there's a knowledge gap.between what guitarists know and what other musicians know. To top it off, the majority of guitarists don't read music. So most guitarists don't understand the very basics... but they do get hungry to 'know more' about it.

ANTI-MODE RANT BEGINS HERE

Unfortunately, actually learning can be hard work... and the guitar is such an easy instrument! So folks take shortcuts and make stuff up. Modal theory is one of them.

You'll hear about modes in just a few places when you talk with other musicians:

- music history courses will talk about modes in the development of Gregorian chant. Pretty limited.
- jazz players will talk about a few of the modes, especially Dorian, Lydian, and Mixolydian. These people know their instrument backwards and forwards, though.
- people who went to Berklee (and virtually no other music schools!).
- guitarists. And of all the guitarists who talk about modes, the vast majority do not actually use them - because they don't understand them.

See, modes are a lot like the guitar. On the guitar you learn ONE fingering and you can play any scale - even if you don't understand what you're doing. Modes look very simple on the surface, but the simple explanation igores how modes actually work... and without that, you're just learning a lot of extra fingerings and still playing major scales!

END MODE RANT

Learn the major scale, really learn it - learn what the names of the notes are in each key, and where to find them on the guitar. Then learn how chords are built. After that, learn the natural minor scale - and figure out what makes it sound different from the major scale. Learn the alterations that make the scale harmonic or melodic, and what that does to the accompanying chords.

Those items will let you play almost all music. Then get genre-specific; different styles emphasize different things.

The question was about learning musical theory, not about learning box patterns on a guitar, so I have to go with Noteboat on this one.
I would say that learning the major scale is the first step, because all other scales derive from it. Learn the notes (start with C, it's the easiest, as there are no accidentals - sharps/flats) and where they can be found on the fretboard. By all means, learn them through the box patterns, but make the goal knowledge of the scale notes, not the box patterns.
Then, learn the natural minor, a Noteboat says.
Along the way, I'd suggest learning standard notation - start by learning to recognise the notes on the staff and where they are to be found on the fretboard. I regret not having done this from the beginning - in many respects it's much harder to start after you've become accustomed to tab. I'm having to go backwards, to go forwards.
This will give you enough learning material for the next few years - there are so many aspects to exhaust, before you'll find the need to go into more esoteric arenas, such as modes.
you only need to learn 7 patterns to do all of modal scale theory on your guitar
Sorry, but, IMHO, learning any number of fretboard patterns is not going to teach you any theory. It will teach where the right places are to play the Cmajor scale, for example, but it will NOT teach you the theory behind the Cmajor scale (or any major scale, for that matter) or why you are playing those particular frets. You will learn that the second note of the C scale is two frets up from the first - but you will not learn that that is a major interval, just as little as you will learn that that note is a D natural.

Hey Noteboat,

about six months ago I figured out how to go from C major to C (place mode of your choice, but I'll use C Lydian) using the CAGED system. So if MarkTiarra learned that would he better off than just knowing how to go from C major to F lydian? He still wouldn't have to learn the name of the notes...

Actually, I just want to know if you've ever heard of anybody using the CAGED system to go from C major to C (any mode of their choice.) I've never took lessons, so I don't know if that's taught or not. I just stumbled across it on my own.

I'm with the others - learning a set of box patterns won't teach you anything about modal theory. It won't even teach you anything about the starting note, the end note, the climax or the cadence.

Modes are misunderstood more than anything else. Stay away from them.

A :-)

Yes Neztok, you'd be a bit better off learning the scales in parallel - because then your ear has a better understanding of what makes them different. F Lydian is not 'C starting from F' (although it has those notes), it's F with a raised fourth... so if you compare it to F major, you see what makes the sound characteristically different.

But that's just a bit of an improvement - it's still incomplete.

What you really want to know is how to use them, and to fully get that you need to know the spellings. Yes, you can do more with knowing parallels from a root... but you'll just be jumping around to match roots.

Take a tune like Carl Perkins' "Grooveyard". The intro uses Ebm9 and Ab7#11. So you look at that and decide you can use an Eb minor type (Dorian, Phrygian, or Aeolian) and an Ab dominant type (Mixolydian). This does give you more choices than simply using an Eb minor scale.

But knowing all the notes lets you dig deeper and have a lot more options. Ab7#11 has notes Ab-C-Eb-Gb-D... an Eb diminished scale has notes Eb-F-Gb-Ab-A-B-C-D-Eb; all the chord tones, plus that natural A note to play with and emphasize the dissonance if you choose. Then you can compare that to Eb Dorian - Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bb-C-Db-Eb, which is going to work fine over the Ebm9 (Eb-Gb-Bb-Db-F).

Now you can see that using Eb Dorian and Eb diminished is one way to stay 'in key' (maintaining a strong Eb tonic center) while exploiting the dissonances of the progression.

You simply can't do stuff like that unless you know the scale spellings, know the chord spellings, and know where to find all those notes on the fretboard. There isn't any quick approach that gives you all the choices... except learning where those choices come from.

I agree with Noteboat on this one fully.

I started out as a guitarist. After I had an accident that severly limited my ability to play the guitar, I picked up the sax.

I thought I knew a lot about music theory, after all, I was doing studio gigs and improving over lead sheets I'd never seen before. It seemed to me that I must know something. So I was really really surprised when it took me 2 years to learn the major scales on a new instrument.

Then I had to go learn the minor scales, and the alterations.

In the process, I learned that knowing patterns and knowing scales are two very very different things.

Now, when I practice scales, I go through it very differently than I did before.

I start by playing each note and saying it's name. Then I do it again and say the scale position.

I spend a bit of time each day going over the scales in my head.

It's a long hard processes, but learning how the scales relate is essential to really getting a handle on music theory.

To start, learn the major scales. Not how to play htem, but what notes they are comprised of. How to play them isn't really what's important here, and in fact, because it's so easy to play them on the guitar, it can be a detriment to learning the scale because your muscle memory will take over long before your brain really understands what you're doing.

Along with that, learn to read music. There's a lot of music theory that simply isn't understandable if you don't understand the difference between A# and Bb. (and frankly, some a lot of it is outdated, but there's no better system today.)

I know everything that Noteboat said. I know the theory, but what I want to know is don't your ear tell you if you're playing the right notes over what chord? I believe that is what most guitar players are relying on...

Or are you guys good enough to HEAR a couple of chords and know exactly what notes are in those chords within seconds? And instantaneously know all the scales that will fit over both chords? How about three chords or four? Is this what I'm supposed to know how to do? :shock:

In order to understand why you use certain scales over certain chords (and there are some good guidlines here) you have to understand what notes are in a scale, then you have to understand how the scale relates to the chord.

So if you know your major scales. And I mean really know them -- if I say "Db major" you can tell me the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th without taking a breath -- then you can start seeing how those scales relate to chords.

From there you can see how altered scales fit some chords better than others.

I know everything that Noteboat said. I know the theory, but what I want to know is don't your ear tell you if you're playing the right notes over what chord? I believe that is what most guitar players are relying on...

Or are you guys good enough to HEAR a couple of chords and know exactly what notes are in those chords within seconds? And instantaneously know all the scales that will fit over both chords? How about three chords or four? Is this what I'm supposed to know how to do? :shock:

It's really all about ear training.

Play a C chord. Play a D note. Now play an E chord, and play a D note.

Same note, different feel.

When you have a chord, you have a background happening, and each note in a scale serves a different function. If you're playing in C, knowing what scale degree the note is on is something you work at in the beginning... then you forget about it.

We don't (or at least I don't) instantly know what scales will work. If I have a chance to study a chart, I do - the example I gave above came from a book I pulled off the shelf... the tune is in the Real Book vol. 2, and I picked a tune at random and said "how might I approach this?". I spent about a minute with it.

When I'm improvising, it's more about melody - I don't think scale, I hear melody and try to play it. But you don't get there without the steps in between, with learning the scales and chords, and listening to what they do, and thinking about it, and experimenting.

It takes a while, but it's a really fun journey.

I'm not saying one shouldn't learn the sounds of the modes and the theory behind them but my main point is this:

Most people get discouraged learning theory and scales because the system for teaching them is so cerebral that it takes to long to actually get playing. I've been teaching for over almost twenty years now and have found that by far, if I teach the students the visual and symmetrical patterns on the guitar first so they can use them and play even before they understand the theory behind it... then we work a bit at a time at the truth behind what they are playing.

Alot of great music has been made by people who didn't have a clue what note they were playing. Let's not forget music is about emotions, not rules. So IMHO it's better to set a new player on the path to playing the instrument and then work on dissembling what he/she is playing as he/she goes.

So I stand by my statement that it's been made overcomplicated and you can simplify it greatly by first learning those 7 patterns and understanding that it's all from one scale, the major scale.

Also I'd like to note that too many people make the mistake of thinking that the mode used while playing the lead sets the mood. If the backdrop/chords behind your lead are centered around one of the modes then that will determine the feel of the part more than anything...

Imagine you are playing Gmaj7, D, Cmaj7 and using the G major scale over it. The part stays the same and you move to B Phrygian. The feel will change some but the backdrop and mood mostly stay the same. But if instead you are playing the same G major scale over two sets of chord changes (Gmaj7, D, Cmaj7 then switch to a Phrygian progressions of Bmin7, C, Emin) you will get a much greater shift in the emotion of the part and a much greater sense of the modal feel.

Just a quick post to show my appreciation for the info in this thread - modes have always frazzled my brain, but the info here relates it in a way I (think) can appreciate. I'll know for sure when I get home, get the guitar out and spend the entire evening noodling instead of working... :)

Just a quick post to show my appreciation for the info in this thread - modes have always frazzled my brain, but the info here relates it in a way I (think) can appreciate. I'll know for sure when I get home, get the guitar out and spend the entire evening noodling instead of working... :)

Hey, I checked out your beta... pretty neat! The only thing I'd say is if you could find a way to make it use flats when they are appropriate over sharps. It's not the best idea to have a scale represented with D and D#, etc...