best way to learn music theory?

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.
You can get them playing by giving them tab - they don't even need to learn a scale. If you're going to teach them a scale, you've also got to let them understand that it has a relevance - and, by then, you're already teaching them theory. As far as I'm concerned the worst thing to do is to teach a rule and not explain (even a little of) the substance behind it. Leave it too long and the "parrot rule" is too deeply ingrained to allow the student to put the parts together.
I admit, I have a problem with modes and I shall revisit them one day. When I was learning what (little) I know about theory, I actually confronted modes from the other end that, I suspect, most people do. You can see my thought process here - I was actually trying to understand why a harmonised scale had maj, min, min, maj, maj, min, dim chords. For me, a Dorian mode, for example, is simply a minor scale, rooted on the second degree of another scale, with an augmented 6th. However, to approach modes from the box pattern side, leaves me in total bewilderment - how can I differentiate the Ionian from the Dorian, when I'm using the same basic pattern, just putting the root on a different place - I just find confusion. Giving them a box pattern for the Dorian and not explaining the relevance to the Ionian is not going to cut it either.
Alot of great music has been made by people who didn't have a clue what note they were playing.
Perfectly correct, but even these people use some form of notation and "theory", no matter how informal. Hendrix, apparently, classified notes by colour (which, I understand, is quite common).
]Let's not forget music is about emotions, not rules.
1 out of 2 isn't bad. By giving your students box patterns to learn, you are imposing rules. By not telling them the relevance of those rules, you are not crediting them with enough intelligence to grasp, at least, the most basic reasons for those rules.

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.

Mark,

I don't have nearly the experience teaching that you do. And I further recognize that there are many paths to the same destination.

However, I see no value in using patterns prior to the students discovering them for themselves.

Once the student understands the concept of a major scale, have them find all the ways to play a C major scale on the guitar. There's a hell of a lot more than those 7 patterns, btw.

Then have them do the same for F major.

Talk them through discovering the similarities and difference between the scales.

Some students see patterns right away, but most don't. And that's a good thing. Thinking in patterns instead of in scales is a hinderance to being a good musician in my mind. So let them practice thinking in scales until they discover they can use patterns as a short-cut.

I find this is vastly superior to first learning patterns. In my admittedly much more limited experience, it seems to me that kids who learn patterns first never really grok scales as well as kids who learn scales first. Noteboat eluded to this earlier . .. go find a kid who is a horn player and compare his understanding of scales to a kid who plays the guitar from patterns.

This all kinda hits home. When I started learning guitar some 20 years ago, I learned how to read tab. Now I am taking lessons and learning theory and all I got to say is my playing has improved. My biggest improvment has to be improvising. To me learning a scale and what notes make up that scale is the foundation to chord voicings and what notes make up the chords within the scale and the interval it falls under. When I practice, I like to play each note in the scale reciting each note out loud and go back and recite the interval out loud as well. Once I have got a firm grasp on this, I learned the boxed patterns. I found intervals very important in solo construction and applying arpeggios in your solos.

I guess my bottom line is you have to know what the ingredients are before you can make a world class dish.

Maybe I am wrong, but I found this best for me to understand and apply theory.

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear, but at no time did I mean to imply I would teach a student patterns and never the relevance behind it. My point is that most people grasp on to patterns FASTER than figuring out how the modes compare relative to intervals and harmonies and so I show them the patterns FIRST. Then as they are playing and making music and also learning other people's music, I start explaining the theory behind it bit by bit. It sticks in students minds much more when theory comes from application, not application from theory.

I seem to be giving people the impression that I'm trying to change what people are learning, but I'm not. I simply found what I think is the fastest route to "mastery" and it's proven out in many many students. Heck, I managed to get one kid from the beginning of his senior year picking up a guitar for the first time into Berklee on three lessons a week. Granted he was one heck of a quick learner... but I stand by my system. It works.

As for making music out of patterns... I ask you this? Who here writes music thinking theory first? Theory has two primary purposes: Knowing where to go when you improvise (again patterns play the biggest role here) and analyzing music already written. If you are worrying about what tonal color intervals create when you are writing music and thinking in terms of theory as you compose then I'm going to guess the music will be pretty lifeless. You write what you hear in your head and knowing the theory helps you to get what's in your head out through your fingers. That's the the real power of it. Maybe once in awhile you use theory to spring an idea and see what something will sound like (i.e. "let me mess around in Phrygian and see what it sounds like...") but the song is still going to take on a life by hearing the notes in your head first.

I've been teaching guitar for a long time (this is my 28th year at it). My approach to teaching modes took a long time to develop, but my method works very well.

I had a teacher way back when who 'showed' me modes. Probably a lot like you do - here's a pattern, play with it. I was totally lost, and couldn't understand them. Or more accurately, 'understanding' didn't lead to anything practical. I could build a phrase in a mode, but I couldn't craft a melody.

Then I studied music in college, and we covered modes in a music history class. I could tell the difference between the modes, I could write modal melodies, and for the life of me I still couldn't put the guitar patterns to any practical use. That was incredibly frustrating, because modes are 'easy to understand'... but they're hard to use when you approach them from the 'easy' understanding.

Then, while I was still in college, I took private lessons in jazz improvisation from a bassist. It finally all made sense. And the more music history I studied, the more I realized why everybody (me included) got so screwed up in learning modes - it's because of Glareanus.

For hundreds of years modes were simply independent of each other, each a scale in its own right. Glareanus realized they used the same interval patterns, but starting from a different point... he 'related' the modes to each other. Just like my first teacher did. Just like you did, Mark - "All the modes (including the minor scale) are just you playing that major scales but starting and ending on a different note"

That tells you what notes are in a mode, but so what? Those are the same notes as in any other related mode - and it's incorrect that they 'start and end' on the key note - they have the key note as the tonal center; if that's the first and/or last note, it's mere coincidence. Early church music even had different names for them - a melody that started on G and ended on G, but had D as the tonal center was not in G Mixolydian - it was in D Hypodorian. Glareanus discarded those fine distinctions, which gummed up the works more.

Where modes are useful is in deviations from the expected melody, by playing in parallel. If you play a C major melody, and then repeat it while sharping all the F notes, you have C Lydian. Do it again, but flat all the B notes, and you have C mixolydian. This approach, starting with a known melody, avoids all the problems of keeping the proper tonal center - which is the only thing that separates one mode from another!

But in order to take this approach, you need to know (at the very least) what makes up the parallel scale. If you can see that Lydian is just a major with a raised fourth, or that Dorian is just a natural minor with a raised sixth, you have immediate, and practical, mastery of the mode. Learning a fingering pattern doesn't cut it, because there's no emphasis on the tonal center. Since our ears are conditioned to major/minor tonalities, you tend to place the center where it doesn't belong... and that makes the 'modal fingerings' simply major scales in a different key.

So I stand by my system too :)

Oh, I agree with you that theory has to be integrated. And in writing, I find the most important place for it is in arrangement... the melody comes first.

"Learn Music Theory"? HA!

Just kidding. :P

My suggestion: Read the "picking the right teacher" lesson and then get a teacher...if you can afford it...

Where modes are useful is in deviations from the expected melody, by playing in parallel. If you play a C major melody, and then repeat it while sharping all the F notes, you have C Lydian. Do it again, but flat all the B notes, and you have C mixolydian. This approach, starting with a known melody, avoids all the problems of keeping the proper tonal center - which is the only thing that separates one mode from another!

But in order to take this approach, you need to know (at the very least) what makes up the parallel scale. If you can see that Lydian is just a major with a raised fourth, or that Dorian is just a natural minor with a raised sixth, you have immediate, and practical, mastery of the mode. Learning a fingering pattern doesn't cut it, because there's no emphasis on the tonal center. Since our ears are conditioned to major/minor tonalities, you tend to place the center where it doesn't belong... and that makes the 'modal fingerings' simply major scales in a different key.

So I stand by my system too :)

Oh, I agree with you that theory has to be integrated. And in writing, I find the most important place for it is in arrangement... the melody comes first.

Again I'm not saying I disagree with any of that... it's just the order I teach it to my students in. After they have the patterns down and have started playing the modes, the next "phase" of the curriculum is harmonies and from there I begin teaching them how the modes differ from the same root tonal center. Now they know the modes and are playing... they are learning diads at first and finding out how a minor third harmony sounds and feels compared to a major third and suddenly I point out - Hey see how in Dorian the third note is minor... now you see why it sounds sad? Then I have them picking apart the modes themselves, not just me showing them what's different. I don't want to tell them what the mode should sound like... I want them to discover it for themselves and thus find their own flavor for it rather than the generally agreed upon perception.

Thanks for all the good advice. I think one of the common elements of all the opinions is to learn the major scale thoroughly. The suggestion to say the notes and the position when playing the scale is a good idea. I have found that I can play the scale fairly quickly but can't name the notes and positions as quick. I also bought a little electronic keyboard which is helping me to learn theory. The symmetry and linear design of a keyboard is certainly easier than a guitar fretboard to figure out scales.

My head hurts!