okay, theory...now what is that exactly?

You know when you really want to play a solo, right off the hat without any practice? Thats theory, you need to know what scales to use in a certain situation. Otherwise you'll be playing duff notes everywhere, and it'll sound rubbish.

You know when you want to create a nice chord progression? Thats theory, the harmonising of notes, resonance/dissonance, which notes make up chords and then which scales go with those chords for the melodies, thats theory too!

In fact, every aspect of the guitar is theory. If its not musically theory, its physics (harmonic intervals, harmonic picking), or at a push, ergonomics (theory of posture and comfort)! :)

It's "why" something sounds right or wrong. It's "why" E7 is the dominant chord of both A major and A minor. It's "why" power chords work in either major or minor keys. It's "how" you work something out when you're playing along to the CD.

Every time you strum a chord or pick a single line of notes you're applying music theory to the guitar.

A :-)

You know when you really want to play a solo, right off the hat without any practice? Thats theory, you need to know what scales to use in a certain situation.

nah, that's having good ears and experience. i'm often quite a few notes in before i can see what scale i'm in. but then it opens up a bunch more.

Theory is just the accumulated experience of musicians over a couple of thousand years: "Oh man, that sucks! I don't ever want to do that again!" "Man, that's killer! Wish I could remember how to pull that off again!" Some of 'em figured out why it sucked or sounded great and wrote "rules" to help 'em keep it straight. Smart musicians nowadays take advantage of what they've done.

Music theory is the nuts and bolts of music. It's how music works and why it works.

Music theory is to music as grammar, syntax, spelling, parts of speech, analogies, tense, interjections, etc. are to English speech.

It's the difference between "Harry and Sally the market go to" and Harry and Sally go to the market"

It's the difference between "Harry went to market tomorrow" and "Harry is going to the market tomorrow"

It's the difference between "Market yesterday will go Harry" and "Harry went to the market yesterday"

It's the "rules" and "regulations" that have been devised by centuries of musicians in order for us to "speak" a common language. Of course, the rules get broken and sometimes they evolve, but without knowing the rules, you can't consciously break them to evolve the art form. For example, there was a time when playing a tri-tone (flatted fifth) would have you put to death, burned at the stake. Now, in the right context, a tri-tone sounds good. That's musical evolution. On the other hand, in the wrong place a tri-tone sounds bad.

Just as it is possible to speak English without ever knowing English theory, it is possible to play music without knowing music theory. But just as you will never be a Shakespeare, Clancy, or a Hemmingway without English theory, you will never be a Beethoven, Segovia, Joe Pass, George Benson, EVH, Brian May, Jimmy Page or any other of the world's greatest musicians without music theory.

IMHO Knowing music theory is the difference between being someone who plays music and a real musician.

Notes

i can't help but think of all the smart, talented, successful, legends, who never saw a need to learn a lick of theory. :roll:

i'm not saying it's not important to learn theory, i believe exactly the opposite.
i'm just wondering if suggesting that people who don't, aren't smart musicians? :?
seems kinda insulting and elitist to me. 8)
at this stage of my life i just don't have the time or motivation to spend the next year or so of my life starting from the beginning learning basic theory, etc, just so i can read what i'm playing, or understand "why" i'm playing it that way.
i know that isn't really a fair example of why you should learn theory, but as it applies to my needs that about sums it up.

the RSoG is working for me to cajol my process in the right direction, and for folks like me, systems like RSoG help us bypass a lot of stuff to get us playing now. along with a way of understanding how it all goes together.

by all means tho, if you are just starting to play an instrument, do yourself a favor and learn theory.
i wish i had. :wink:

I never said people who don't learn theory aren't smart. I did say "smart musicians will take advantage of it." It is the height of foolishness to ignore it by choice. If that's elitist, so be it. I'll say it more clearly: Deliberately choosing to ignore music theory is stupid. It can't help you. That there are people who have overcome a disadvantage and succeeded doesn't mean it's a good idea to similarly handicap yourself.

I never said people who don't learn theory aren't smart. I did say "smart musicians will take advantage of it." It is the height of foolishness to ignore it by choice. If that's elitist, so be it. I'll say it more clearly: Deliberately choosing to ignore music theory is stupid. It can't help you. That there are people who have overcome a disadvantage and succeeded doesn't mean it's a good idea to similarly handicap yourself.

that's why i didn't quote you.
i just wanted to make a few points, not ruffle feathers.

there are plenty of people who have had very successful careers in music without having first learned theory.
most of them were probably able to pick it up along the way.
Lennon, McCartney, Tommy Emmanuel, come to mind as people who never learned to read music but still probably picked it up along the way
i agree that if you have the choice to learn theory then you should.
we all do not have the same choices in life. a fifty something year old may not have the time (me)
so my little referance to the RSoG was mentioned as an alternative for beginners who start at a later time in life.

I think a quote here serves to explain this the best.

"If I have seen further, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants" (Isaac Newton, but paraphrased from others)

Music theory is cumulative knowledge of music. The truth is, you cannot be a great musician without having a grasp of music theory. The ones who "don't know music theory" and are great, just don't know the name for what they've learned to do. They know that playing a certain progression, or playing a certain scale or arpeggio over another progression sounds good, while others sound bad. They know how to count 4/4, 6/8, 11/8, whatever, even though they may not know the terminology.

Music theory is a funny thing. As you learn it, you look back on all the things you've done and all of a sudden know why it sounded good/bad and it "clicks". Some great musicians claim to know nothing of theory, the fact is that they do, they've just figured it out themselves.

My opinion would be not to reinvent the wheel. Most of the general outline of what will sound good is written down somewhere in a music theory book. Rather than spend ages trying to figure it out yourself, learning the "building blocks" will allow you to concentrate more on actually creating music, and will open a huge door for you. Music will come easier, you will be able to compose more effectively and see genius in music you previously shunned.

A final example. It's like Math. You might be able to memorize the multiplication tables with relative ease, but say you memorize up to 9x9. What if someone asks you what 10x10 is? Once you realized that 3x3 really meant (3 + 3 + 3), it made a lot more sense and you could extrapolate that knowledge to any multiplication problem. It's the same with theory.

At the absolute minimum, having a solid grasp of basic theory will never hurt you. In reality, it will be indispensable.

Music isn't math. In music, most people might agree at one time that 3x3=9 but believe that at later points 3x3=10. The advantage of theory is that it creates a whole bunch of words that allow people to talk more in-depth about music. That's cool because some people have something usefull to say but might otherwise be unable to explain. That don't mean you can't figure it out on your own, depending on your goals. But to state the obvious: if you have any plans of writing a full-blown hour-long concerto you might get there a bit faster if you learn the language great composers and teachers have used and probably will use during our lifetime. And on the other hand: music came before theory. You *must* have music to have music theory but you don't strictly need theory to have music.

So in short: do you need it? Not really. Is it helpfull? Probably. Will it hurt? Nope.

when i started to play i had no prior musical experience. i didnt want to learn scales and theory - i couldnt see the point, i was doing fine learning chords and songs and then writing my own songs with the chords that sounded good together.

i learned other peoples solos, but found them difficult to remember. I also tried to come up with my own solo's but couldnt. This frustrated me and i realised that i NEEDED theory. I dont know a lot, but enough to get by now in what i do.

Theory not only makes it easier for me to write my own lead parts, but it makes it easier for me to remember how to play other peoples licks and solo's because i can visualise on the fretboard where they fit in with the scale im playing.

I am glad though that i got to the point where i realised i needed to learn theory before i started to learn it. it made the studying far more interesting and revealing because i was much more motivated.

i also had some good teachers (you lot). thanks

NOTE: this is a response not only to this post, but a flurry of posts in the past few months on this forum and a number of other forums I visit (warning - minor rant ahead)

Musicians who don't know theory may or may not be smart, but musicians who don't know at least basic theory are not complete musicians. I don't mean that to sound elitist, but it is simply a fact.

If a music player doesn't want to learn theory, that's fine with me. I figure that since music is competitive I can easily out-do the less motivated to get the better gigs.

The people that get me are the music players who try to rationalize or defend the position of ignorance and musical illiteracy as the better way. It's not. It is simply better to know theory than not to know theory - period.

Most often, the real reason why people don't want to learn theory is either they don't want to invest the time or the effort. And that's OK. Everyone makes choices in their lives and everyone has their priorities.

But don't try to point out the few musicians who made it without studying theory (although most of them learned a good amount of theory along the way) because for every great musician who didn't study theory, there are thousands of them who are as good or better who did study theory. Also, the greatest musicians in the world know theory, you cannot be the greatest without it.

Don't try to say you don't have the time, because almost everybody who reads this forum watches at least one mindless, inane TV show per week (they aren't all mindless, but most of them are). If you turned off the inane show and read a book on theory for that one hour per week, you would know quite a bit by the end of the TV season.

But if you would rather watch the boob tube instead of bettering your musicianship, that's OK, it's your choice, it's your life.

Admittedly, I am looking at these things from the point of a career, professional musician, and anything that I can do to make me play better increases my worth as a musician. But I have always been like that, even before I turned pro. I just have a love for music and everything about it. If I live to be 140 years old, there will still be more for me to learn about music, and as far as I'm concerned, that is the beauty of music. No matter how much you know, no matter how many musical roads you have traveled, there is a new adventure ahead. A new tidbit of information that will make me play in a different way and delight myself.

This guy says the same thing in a nutshell, "Music is enough for a lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music" ~ Sergey Rachmaninoff

If you want to be a better musician, learn more. Learn more theory and more technique. Listen to more recordings of all kinds of music until you digest how each person and each instrument expresses itself, and internalize that, it will come out in your playing when your theory and technique are far enough along. Even if it takes you all day to learn one little thing, that little thing will last you for the rest of your life, and it will help you learn the next little thing. But if you don't want to do all of this, it's OK. Music is competitive, I've been working doing music and nothing but music for the majority of my life, and I managed to do so using both my "God-Given" talent and the time and effort I've put into it. Of course, I could have/should have put in more time and effort, as there are others my age who know more than me, so I don't pretend to be perfect. But I found what is my own personal balance, and it has served me well.

Insights, incites and a minor rant by Notes

I'll throw in my two cents here...

Music theory is a taxonomy - a sorting system. And that's really all it is.

There are lots of sounds in nature, but we sort out the ones we use in music and call them "tones". Then we give those tones names so we can describe the sounds we want to use.

We take a smaller set of those tones and find we can make nice melodies with them. So we call those "scales" and we give them names - it helps us remember what sounds worked for us in the past, and it lets us communicate pretty quickly: "D harmonic minor" rolls off the tongue a lot faster than D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C#.

We notice that when one instrument plays one tone and another does a different tone, it sounds good (or bad) to us. So we name those interactions. That gives us intervals and chords, and we keep going; ultimately we get all of counterpoint and harmony.

Music theory is not a set of rules. Sure, if you study it in school there are things they'll take off marks for, like using parallel perfect fifths. But the "rules" are really guidelines - stuff that hasn't been promising for most composers. But lots of composers break the rules. And if pressed, even the professors will tell you there are "except for..." addendums to those rules - because every time we're blessed with a Debussey, a Stravinsky, or a Schoenberg we have to re-think the "rules". They're actually more like guidelines - stuff that most composers have followed.

Knowing theory won't automatically make you a better musician. But it will help you become a better musician faster - because the labels theory uses lets you compare sounds quickly and easily to other sounds you've heard.

Music theory is basically just a big filing system for a musical experiences... it lets us store things away so we can find them again quickly when we want them. If you don't use a filing system you can still recall and use those experiences, but on average it will take you a lot longer.

Nice post NoteBoat
<...snip...>
Music theory is not a set of rules. Sure, if you study it in school there are things they'll take off marks for, like using parallel perfect fifths. But the "rules" are really guidelines - stuff that hasn't been promising for most composers. But lots of composers break the rules. And if pressed, even the professors will tell you there are "except for..." addendums to those rules - because every time we're blessed with a Debussey, a Stravinsky, or a Schoenberg we have to re-think the "rules". They're actually more like guidelines - stuff that most composers have followed.

Yes, remember the dominant 7th chord was once "The Devil's Chord" and you really could be burned at the stake for writing a tri-tone (b5 or #4). If it weren't for the rule breakers we would still be playing the same thing we did centuries ago. But you can't consciously break the guidelines if you don't know the guidelines.
Knowing theory won't automatically make you a better musician. But it will help you become a better musician faster - because the labels theory uses lets you compare sounds quickly and easily to other sounds you've heard.

Plus it will make it easier for you to communicate with other musicians. Theory gives us a common language so if I want to communicate something to another musician on a piece we may be working on, even something as simple as "Let's take this tune up a minor third" that involves music theory, because intervals like minor thirds are part of the fundamentals of music theory.

I firmly believe that ALL musicians, and that includes Guitarists, Percussionists and Vocalists should know at least elementary music theory (and yes, vocalists and drummers are musicians too <grin>). At least as much as you will find in books like "An Idiot's Guide To Music Theory", "Music Theory for Dummies", or many other entry-level music theory books for the uninitiated.

I've been in bands where the guitarist, vocalist, and drummer knew music theory, and I've been in bands where one or more of those musicians did not know music theory. In the bands where everybody knew at least basic music theory, songs got learned quicker, communications were more understandable, and because there were less misunderstandings, there were fewer needless arguments (you know the kind, where both sides argue for the same point but because they say it differently, they don't understand they both mean the same thing).

Elementary music theory is actually very easy, that's why they can package it in a "dummies" type book. One I recommend to my beginning students is, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0028643771?tag=nortonmusic-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0028643771&adid=09467CVWXE5ZV0DA5TM3& (Note: if you get it from Amazon by this link, I get a tiny commission - you should also be able to get it at your local bookstore or have them order it).

There are also a few more here: http://www.nortonmusic.com/mom_edu.html (again, I get a tiny commission if you order it there - but you of course are under no obligation - I don't make a living on my Amazon links).

To paraphrase NoteBoat and add a bit, learning basic music theory won't make you a better musician, but it will let you become a better musician faster, plus it will give you the keys to the common language that most musicians share -- and that will allow you to communicate effectively and on an equal level with other literate musicians.

And you can learn basic music theory by giving up one season of an inane TV show and substitute that with reading the elementary theory book. At the end of the TV season you will have given yourself a gift that will last you the rest of your life.

Insights and incites by Notes