Jazz Guitar Soloing Without Music Theory

[destinytot]

Would that be Walter Carlos or Wendy Carlos? names can be so confusing...

That would be the most sensitive engineer to record one of my heroes, João Gilberto.

[pushkar000]

I speak as a no-theory player, although I am working on changing this status. I speak from my own no-theory experience and from conversations with friends of great theoretical endowment.


Some great players start out as no-theory players, Wes Montgomery and Charlie Parker for example. Wes was just a guy who sat on his porch goofing around with a guitar. When he finally sat in with a band, he could not follow when they modulated keys to test him - he really didn't know anything except his own idosyncratic stuff. If he had studied in a formal guitar program to start with, had such a program existed at the time, there probably would have been no Wes, just some other generic Jazz guitarist, but one who might have been able to follow the band. Charlie Parker got booted off stages initially, either because he was really terrible or because what he was doing was too different and maybe really terrible, too. A trained Charlie Parker probably would not have been Charlie Parker. Innovation does always not develop from being trained to be like everyone else. Both Wes and Charlie did become knowledgeable players by necessity - you have to be able to play with others, and if you are doing something different, you need to be able to explain it and sell it. I do not believe Wes and Charlie would have become great without theory, nor do I believe that theory made them great - it helped to develop and expose their greatness which would have languished otherwise.


If you play without any theoretical knowledge (which as docbop as pointed out does not need to be formally schooled knowledge), you can sometimes be really innovative because you are not blinkered by rules and conventions. But more often than not, you are usually just at a serious disadvantage. You can play well, really well, as long as you stay with what you know. You can solo with variations, not always the same solo, as long as you stay within a familiar and predictable harmonic environment. You can play stuff that sounds like Jazz, and maybe it is Jazz. You can learn new things, but the process is more laborious, much more extensive trial and error, than if you can recognize meta-patterns, such as chord progressions, triads, arpeggios, scales, etc and use them as predictors to speed up the trial and error of learning something unfamiliar by ear. You can also use fake books but the process is slow and hard, really hard. And like illiterates, who are often really intellegent, you develop ingenious coping skills to hide your disability; the last resort among these skills is quiting before you are found out.


But as a no-theory player, what do you do, say for example, when the group leader, say a pianist, really digs something the bass player did in a solo, picks it up and starts to improvise on it and takes the tune out of the tune and off in a new and unprepared exploratory direction, reharmonizing on the fly? Or what do you do if you are invited to join or sit in with a group fronted by some cool and cantankerous, elderly horn player, who holds no rehersals, has no set lists, and does not ever call tunes before launching into them in what ever key strikes his fancy at the time, and who knows and can play each and every popular tune from the 1920s onward? Hmmm... I don't think trial and error is going to work quickly enough here in either situation. Big ears/wide-listening experience, lots of playing experience, and applied theory (theory beaten so hard into your brain by study, practice and use that you know it without having to know it consciously any more) are the only things that are going to save your butt.

Just my no-theory opinion.

Sorry I have to disagree with the overall premise that no-theory contributes to creativity.
Wes, Parker and other players of that ilk do not owe their greatness and innovations to the fact that they started out not knowing theory. If Wes had been schooled from day one, he would've been just as innovative. On the other hand, he probably would not have used his thumb so much.

Theory(whether conscious, intuitive, school-taught or home-made) will never stop a creator from creating. The ability to create stems from the sense of judgement. The sense of judgement comes from the ear. "Does it sound good? Damn, it does. I'm so hip!" The sense of judgement does not come from the theory. "Does it sound good? Yes, but its not a ii-V-I...well I guess I wasn't so hip after all since I didn't follow the rules."

Frankly if anybody were to "bow down" to the so-called "rules" of theory(seeing as there are in fact no rules), then they really wouldn't have the willpower/conviction to pursue their vision anyway, and theory or not plays no factor in this.

As far as I am concerned, theory is an organisational system. It is not a set of rules. It is music - expressed in words and symbols. I have never ever ever encountered any book, article, teacher or other exponent of music theory that has ever told me or anybody else, "X is not allowed. Do not do X." (at least as far as I know in jazz). The closest would be - "In Y genre, X is not allowed. Do not do X. If you do X, it is not Y genre. It is now Z genre. " Which is totally legitimate. Unless anybody here wants to call Anthropology "disco music".

A relevant story here would be the story behind Philip Glass' "Music in Fifths" (Glass wrote it for his teacher who kept pointing out fifth intervals in Philips work.)
___________________

Here is one more point I'd like to raise. I contend that just like Wes and Parker, everybody is a "no-theory" player at first. Why?
I believe that the ear needs to know and understand something before the mind can apply a label onto it.
If I do not know, understand and cannot hear a I-vi-ii-V, then the mind cannot possibly apply this label onto it. It is just not possible. I will always without fail forget it until I aurally and intuitively absorb I-vi-ii-V.
A short example - I have explained the diminished chord, its components, its properties and its usage to my friend no less than 3 times(and seeing as we are students of a conservatory, I'm sure he's encountered it many more times with other people/his teacher/in a class). Each time he completely forgot everything about it. I think he still doesn't get it. It is not that hard to mentally understand. It just isn't. Anybody can visualise a looping series of minor thirds and then make the connection that this chord repeats every 3 notes. It is just not a difficult concept to get. It's not rocket science, its not C++. But he didn't get it (and presumably still doesn't) because his ear has not absorbed this chord deeply enough. The day he hears this chord, understands it intuitively, he's going to come to me and say, "Hey, I get it now."

Now once somebody is familiar with any X sound or concept, he/she is ready to label X for recall. Here the name doesn't matter. "Oh, I-vi-ii-V", "Oh, the first 4 chords of I Got Rhythm", "Oh, Carlos"
It makes no difference in the world what this thing is called. One just needs to know, understand and hear it. And label it in whatever way they deem appropriate to their purposes.

In that sense, is theory(all the official names and symbols) required to be successful/skilled/etc? No.
But is the knowledge and understanding that theory represents required? Yes. Absolutely essential - especially in jazz where there is so much musical content.

[mr. beaumont]

Wes started playing with his thumb so he could practice quietly at night while his family was sleeping.

[pushkar000]

I am not disagreeing with you except in that no-theory contributes to creativity is not my overall premise.



Would Wes have played with his thumb, if he had gone to school?



Is this fundamentally different from what you are saying?

1. I must have misunderstood the overall premise of your post.
2. Presumably not, but I would hasten to add that his thumb was only a small part of his genius. I added this in my original post.
3. This particular line, no, but there are other lines in your post which I disagree with. I will list them below. (On the other hand, I do agree with many of your other points)

"If he had studied in a formal guitar program to start with, had such a program existed at the time, there probably would have been no Wes, just some other generic Jazz guitarist, but one who might have been able to follow the band."

"A trained Charlie Parker probably would not have been Charlie Parker. Innovation does always not develop from being trained to be like everyone else. "

"If you play without any theoretical knowledge (which as docbop as pointed out does not need to be formally schooled knowledge), you can sometimes be really innovative because you are not blinkered by rules and conventions."

[pushkar000]

Wes started playing with his thumb so he could practice quietly at night while his family was sleeping.

If this was the case, then I think the case can in fact even be made that Wes would have developed his thumb even if he had received formal training. After all, all the formal training in the world won't stop the family from waking up at night.

[Jonah]

Hi,

raisin d'etre... you probably missed the post about 'Wendy Carlos - Dorian Gray - wives' concept?

Just the case of Wes I think...

[Jonah]

you can sometimes be really innovative because you are not blinkered by rules and conventions, but more often than not, you are usually just at a serious disadvantage.

It's an old story...

you see, you cannot choose...

If you come to the point that you think of learning or learning theory. Nothing to think about! Just learn it.

Parker and Wes would have learned if they had chance at their time.
They used all the tools they had...

I had a friend at the university who used to write poetry - and once I wrote a poem (those days I did some) after reading some great poet... and he said: you should not do that because he can 'blinker' your own talent and spirit...
I said: what's the worth of my spirit then if it can blinkered so easily?

So what is the worth of the musician who is afraid that theory could blinker his innovative and creative powers? These personal creatove resources - when true - are always stronger than any tool...


I do not mean you of course... and historically looking back we can say: yes he did something becasue he was not familiar with rules... but it is only retrospective look... it cannot be practice for perspectve

[pushkar000]

I am still not disagreeing with you.





My possibly flawed understanding is that he arrived on the bandstand more or less fundamentally Wes, tone, timing, phrasing in place. But perhapbs I am wrong. Would he have been the same Wes? I wonder.







In my blear-eyed morning haze, I botched the second sentence here. It should have read: Innovation does not always develop from being trained to be like everyone else. I don't know if this makes a difference. Would he have been the same Charlie Parker?





Does it change things if I add italics bolding and punctuation?


If you play without any theoretical knowledge (which as docbop as pointed out does not need to be formally schooled knowledge), you can sometimes be really innovative because you are not blinkered by rules and conventions, but more often than not, you are usually just at a serious disadvantage.

Yes, I think Wes and Parker would have been by and large, Wes and Parker. My belief is that why they were who they were has really nothing significant(not going to say it has zero relevance) to do with training or theory or other such concerns. The only way to change Wes and Parker would be to change all their influences, experiences and beliefs, creating a different person who would be a product of an entirely different world. But in this world, even with formal training, Wes and Parker would still innovate and hear their own vision as a result of how they comprehend music. I'm making the assumption here that the only thing we are changing about Wes and Parker is their training. Both would still listen to and be influenced by largely the same music. Wes would still practice quietly at night. Parker would still go to that fateful jam session which inspired him to practice 15 hours a day.
(I feel like this is a reasonable enough assumption to make)
So I think we would still have roughly the same Parker and Wes, whether they learnt their stuff formally or not. This is because beneath all the names, the important thing is the understanding of music represented by the names. In both situations(theory/no theory), they end up gaining this knowledge, and I don't see why the outcome should change by a significant amount. Sure it wouldn't be exactly the same, but they would still be the greats that they are.

As for the second point, my disagreement is not with the "sometimes", but with the "rules and conventions".

[Jonah]

Despite your most ungentlemanly suggestions to the contrary, I am not afraid of theory; I can lie down and sleep beside the books all day long.

Hm... Did not I write: 'I do not mean you .. of course' ?

[pushkar000]

LOL. No. It was funny.

Round and round. I disagree with nothing pushkar000 has to say.

Despite your most ungentlemanly suggestions to the contrary, I am not afraid of theory; I can lie down and sleep beside the books all day long.

But if I want to play in the way that I would like to play, if I want to be able get out of the harmonic dead-end corners I so often paint myself into in my attempts at composition (Sorry Sonny, you can't get there from here; you have to start from some place else!), and if want to be able to transcribe my compositions, I need to open the covers of the books.

Yeah I do agree with many of your points in your post. And I had misunderstood your main premise of the post earlier. We are by and large in agreement.
All the best in your learning of theory. I am myself a beginner and trying to get everything in order.

I had a friend at the university who used to write poetry - and once I wrote a poem (those days I did some) after reading some great poet... and he said: you should not do that because he can 'blinker' your own talent and spirit...
I said: what's the worth of my spirit then if it can blinkered so easily?

So what is the worth of the musician who is afraid that theory could blinker his innovative and creative powers? These personal creatove resources - when true - are always stronger than any tool...

Thank you Jonah - this is a great story.

[pushkar000]

@ pushkar000

I modestly suggest that we might agree that the list of trained/educated (self or otherwise) innovators is longer than the list of accidental innovators. The trained/educated ones smash (dare I say it) the rules and conventions fully aware of what they are doing.

Indeed!

[Pocket Player]

My no theory approach to playing guitar for 33 years !!! Only picking up the little bits and pieces, we all !!! pick up along the way ,as we learn a new chord,or tune. or in the conversations we get to have with others in life, along the way. maybe the 1/2 theory approach lol. has never left me feeling like i cant play music ! or i was missing anything musically. I was just learning to get better the whole time happy happy !!

Now ! i've spend the last 10 years learning my theory ! and to be honest,im surprised how deep a understanding,i now have now. Cause i'm not a good student. it's taken me a long time to understand,and even absorb any of it...
But i do now. (disclaimer) !

That been said !!! as a new person to the community ! i joined the practical standards thread . a basic jumping off point. Here's a Basic,basic,basic,basic,standard chart !!! Now play it ! and lets talk. any experience level.... prefect a good starting point ! Now if you can'T look at that chart ! , and even just stum those chords, like NOW ! were playing it in 5 mins.... or see that repeat symbol.. telling to not to keeping playing on... Your so lost!!!! you don't even know it !!! (Truth) I Understand 90% of everything being said by you good jazz players ! soooo thats awesome for me...

Well i got my Basic,basic,basic,basic,basic chart for the month ! sorry to repeat so many times, but some people just aren't understanding. In all kindness and I,m still lost !!!!! with a few week practice on 1 chart. and might not even have anything able to post...that's worth listening too...SADDDDD and i understand my theory !! and put 1000's of hours on to my guitar... playing jazz NO... cause that would be impossible !!! I'm actually ready to play this stuff. and im sooooo lost..... Where are you all ????

If i could go back in time !! and actually be there, when that Guy threw the symbol at Parker. Id bet every guitar i own... he was yelling " Get your head out of you ass" after all !!! the guy practiced. everyday, all day! after that... Why? cause he was right. if you been playing guitar for a few years and enjoy it. you are excused. its a ton of fun... i hope you play it for the rest of you life

P.S if thats you enjoy !!! and rock hard. im all for it. have a great day and practice if this isn't you..... please read on

if, your hanging out in a jazz guitar forum ! and been playing 10 +++ years and think you don't need to know the language of music... Your LAZY, and you care, so little for your instrument..and the you've time spend learning it. You didn't even care enough to even bother..... That reflect on YOU as a person. and really where you at as a musician ! which you are not. And now you look like a idiots !!! put the guitar down ! or get busy learning know your guitar.Just think of the Hours and $$$ you spent wasting your time,a lot of time.. cause Really you don't want to learn to play music(guitar). you've already proven that. with your actions and fruit you produce. be happy strumming along !

all love and friendship !