Theory vs. playing by ear

[kris]

David Liebman has great theoretical knowledge, he has a brilliant musical ear and he is a great jazz musician.
This is the ideal of a jazz musician.

[Bobby Timmons]

it’s not a dichotomy. One is necessary, the other is optional.

You can have ears but no theory.
You can have both ears and theory
But no one can operate as a musician with only theory.

That isn't true. You're counting people who know some theory as people who know no theory. What percent of jazz guitarists don't even know the note names of each string but can play well? It's below 1%. So again, why would that be a rule, that hypothetically someone can learn music ferally in extremely rare cases?

[rpjazzguitar]

Speaking of my own experience - if I think about a theoretical concept when playing it always comes out half-assed. I can usually only play stuff that I’ve internalised to a highly intuitive level with conviction and groove. On gigs, less thinking is better. Maybe some high level shaping of what’s gong on. !

My experience as well. As soon as I think to play a particular theoretically-derived device, the solo often heads south. So, if I think to myself, that minor chord is coming up, I'll play the relative major, or move up the scale, or play some m3 intervals, or whatever it might be -- things get less musical.

The challenge is, of course, to recognize that I started thinking about theory because there was something about my solo that was dissatisfying. Usually, I'm thinking, oh, I'm about to repeat myself, what can I do instead?

Typically, the better answer is to start scat singing and let that guide the solo, at least rhythmically. But, for some reason, I have to be very relaxed to do that -- and I don't do it as much as I should.

[Christian Miller]

That isn't true. You're counting people who know some theory as people who know no theory. What percent of jazz guitarists don't even know the note names of each string but can play well? It's below 1%. So again, why would that be a rule, that hypothetically someone can learn music ferally in extremely rare cases?

feral is a bit of a loaded term. Anyway that question would require academic research, and I’m done with that sort of thing haha. Maybe you could go away and research it?

What I can definitely say is that I know and work with a fairly decent number of very adept jazz musicians who have no academic background in music who self identify as knowing little or no theory and primarily as ‘ear players.’ Usually horns or guitar players - for fairly obvious reasons fewer keys players.

In fact regarding guitarists knowing the notes on the neck I would say even more… I know quite a few exceptional working jazz guitarists who really don’t know the notes on the neck, can’t read for toffee etc. I also know exceptional working players that absolutely do. Tbh I would almost say it’s 50/50 on this, perhaps even more weighted to the former category.

But all of them I would say can hear the notes on the neck.

So yeah, life’s rich tapestry etc etc, but it’s possible to distinguish common themes. What these very good players have in common is that they’ve all learned jazz through a similar process which is based around aural learning. It doesn’t matter whether they went to Berklee or not, know the CST syllabus backwards, or if they can sight read fly poo. Or as the saying goes, ‘don’t know a fourth from a rissole’

it also doesn’t mean that theory is useless or not interesting, just apparently not terribly important for learning how to become a compelling jazz player. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

[lammie200]

...What these players have in common is that they’ve all learned jazz through a similar process which is based around aural learning. It doesn’t matter whether they went to Berklee or not, know the CST syllabus backwards, or if they can sight read fly poo...

You know me all too well. Just kidding. I had half a decade of piano lessons as a kid, a handful of guitar lessons afterward, and have a shit ton of books, and a sizeable listening library, and read and learn a lot here and a few other places on the interwebs. Been playing guitar for over 4 decades now and rarely don't play at all for over a few days time. Definitely can't sight read flyin' poo for guitar though. Was never motivated to learn to do it. If I was a pro you can bet that I would have found the motivation long ago though.

[Bobby Timmons]

For me, theory involves thinking, discussing, and writing about music. Playing is a subconscious-like manifestation of that. Or at least improvisation is. However, I would ague that songs evolve from improvisation anyway whether or not parts of them are just built around spontaneous improvisation like a solo.

I read something from Pat Metheny once that went something like this: He equated a musician's journey to a human learning to speak and later developing communication skills.

First babies learn one word at a time and associate it with what it means. Like "daduh" for example. Then they learn that two words can be descriptive like "daduh apple" for example. Then they learn phrases like "want apple daduh." Then they learn full on structure like "give me apple daduh, please." Then they get into dialogue and full thoughts with multiple sentences strung together, and so on and so forth. Then they learn to write, etc. By that time, and even before that, they are communicating subconsciously because a good part of their verbal and written communication skills are ingrained.

The question is how good would they be at verbal and written communication in their lifetimes if they never studied them? I think that answer is that some can be very good at it while others can be competent at parts like speaking, but are illiterate, if not functionally illiterate. Some can't even speak well at all. The same can be said to some degree about those that have studied verbal and written communication skills but there is a better chance that studying would have had positive results versus not studying.

Metheny said that he doesn't think about much especially when he is improvising. It's just there inside of him and formed from what studied and practiced long ago.

This is the correct analogy. Metheny can play intuitively because he internalized his theory studies. The same thing with language. No writer is going to be worse off because he studied language in addition to assimilating it rather than only assimilating it.

[Bobby Timmons]

it also doesn’t mean that theory is useless or not interesting, just apparently not terribly important for learning how to become a compelling jazz player. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

Again, I think this is false and you're making up a rule from extreme exceptions. I'd say the vast majority of the great musicians we listen to know at least chord names. And most know much more than that.

[Bobby Timmons]

Speaking of my own experience - if I think about a theoretical concept when playing it always comes out half-assed. I can usually only play stuff that I’ve internalised to a highly intuitive level with conviction and groove.

What is convincing about that argument? It takes time to internalize theoretical concepts and learn how to use them musically.. the same way it takes time to listen to music and internalize its wisdom. Do you listen to Bird and then immediately start busting out his lines?

[Peter C]

Speaking of 2nd language learning, immersion plus timely "nudges" to draw attention to errors, works for most people, most of the time. The example of a person who has been in daily contact with a language for 20 years and still hasn't worked it out, is exceptional, IME. I personally seem to possess reasonably good 2nd language learning skills and became fluent in two as an adult in very different ways, with the result that in one (Spanish), my non-native accent has always been instantly detectable and the other (Catalan), in which I was able to fool a friend for several minutes that he was talking on the phone to a fellow Barcelonian. He was not amused. Guess which one I learned (mostly) by immersion and which (mostly) by the application of structures.

On the subject of musical illiteracy, I did most of my woodshedding as a kid in the rock genre (sans theory) and since then have never really had sufficient free time to study conventional theory. However, it seems I developed my own visual system which allows me to "hear" relationships between notes by looking at the fretboard. It can take a couple of seconds to identify a chord such as a "G13#11", but I think a certain Mr. J. Pass had a similar problem

[Bobby Timmons]

It isn't the exception that immersion doesn't work with the exclusion of study. I work at Walmart in Santa Fe. None of the immigrants who grew up in Mexico with Spanish as their only language and then moved here and are immersed in English become fluent. It requires study to learn a 2nd language.

And what is this Joe Pass didn't use theory nonsense? Have you ever watched one of his videos? It's a master class spoken entirely in theory. Is he saying now this thing here and that thing there when he demonstrates?

[pauln]

Seems to me that learning in general results in a hierarchy of comprehension. The lowest levels comprise fundamental assumptions and definitions, with subsequent levels above containing attributes, constructions, connections, relationships, and increasing abstractions of categorization and organization of the things comprehended from progress up through the levels below.

But the thing about a hierarchy of comprehension is that if we truly live in the highest level achieved (in spite of employing a "single ideas" at this level which were based on dozens of lower levels of construction and connection of minutia) we may really "let go of" lower levels, as they have served their purpose to get us to the highest level, whose ideas and level itself now stand on their own.

What strikes me most listening to guitarists is not whether their lower levels were comprehended mostly by theory or ear, but the degree to which they are able to "let go of" their lower levels and live in and play from their highest level of their own conceptual hierarchy.

"The dreamer dreamed the dust arose and walked,
But when the dreamer awoke, who told the dust?"

[Bobby Timmons]

Absolutely

[Peter C]

It isn't the exception that immersion doesn't work with the exclusion of study. I work at Walmart in Santa Fe. None of the immigrants who grew up in Mexico with Spanish as their only language and then moved here and are immersed in English become fluent. It requires study to learn a 2nd language.

And what is this Joe Pass didn't use theory nonsense? Have you ever watched one of his videos? It's a master class spoken entirely in theory. Is he saying now this thing here and that thing there when he demonstrates?

Escucha muchacho, estás hablando con alguien que sudó tinta para llegar a dominar tanto el español como la lengua catalana, y sé de qué va esto. La gente inmigrante de que hablas igual acusa, entre otros factores, falta de integración social.

Lo de Joe Pass es una anécdota que leí hace tiempo y carece de importancia. Tú has querido interpretar otra cosa distinta. Fue un genio, y punto, sin discusión.

Ahora, ¡escribe una respuesta en español y dime cómo dirías "nonsense" sin consultar el diccionario para demostrar tus conocimientos de la lengua de Cervantes!

[djg]

Organists are a breed apart for sure

you mean, like this jimmy smith guy who couldnt read music and was winging it by ear?

[kris]

It should not be forgotten that some musicians are titans of work.
There are many music books that prove this.
There is a theoretical justification in these books supported by a large number of practical examples.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Escucha muchacho, estás hablando con alguien que sudó tinta para llegar a dominar tanto el español como la lengua catalana, y sé de qué va esto. La gente inmigrante de que hablas igual acusa, entre otras factores, falta de integración social.

Lo de Joe Pass es una anécdota que leí hace tiempo y carece de importancia. Tú has querido interpretar otra cosa distinta. Fue un genio, y punto, sin discusión.

Ahora, ¡escribe una respuesta en español y dime cómo dirías "nonsense" sin consultar el diccionario para demostrar tus conocimientos de la lengua de Cervantes!

I have to admit that I had to consult Google Translate to read your post (though I speak a little Spanish, learned through immersion, la concha de tu puta madre, carajo! ).

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

It isn't the exception that immersion doesn't work with the exclusion of study. I work at Walmart in Santa Fe. None of the immigrants who grew up in Mexico with Spanish as their only language and then moved here and are immersed in English become fluent. It requires study to learn a 2nd language. […]

After reading your post my first thought was: Are those Hispanos really immersed with good English?

My experience is that many people talk to foreigners like they were talking to idiots. A guy of Turkish descendence once told me that the first sentence his father, new to Germany, was told after starting working in construction was instead of “Please, go and get a crate of beer for us!” – “You, get crate of beer!” (in German: instead of „Hol’ bitte einen Kasten Bier für uns!“ – „Du holen Kasten Bier!“). How could that lead to a good comprehension of the language?

I have studied “German as a foreign language” (“Deutsch als Fremdsprache” meaning how to teach s/o German) for three years and there is of course learning through immersion. The linguistic term is uncontrolled language acquisition.

And I have worked for one year in a nursery school and believe me, when the toddlers grow up together they all learn German well, no matter if their parents are Somali refugees, Russians, Serbians, Japanese or Bavarian.

[Peter C]

I have to admit that I had to consult Google Translate to read your post (though I speak a little Spanish, learned through immersion, la concha de tu puta madre, carajo! ).

Yeah, that's Latin American Spanish. I don't recommend translating that expression literally!!

You have to really know a language before trying to speak it. A personal anecdote I have in German is when I was there with a girlfriend and I was alone in a bar (in Bremen) getting a coffee and two local guys asked me what I was doing there. My German wasn't up to saying GF, so I said I was there with a young (jung) woman (frau). You will know why they couldn't contain their laughter.

[Christian Miller]

Again, I think this is false and you're making up a rule from extreme exceptions. I'd say the vast majority of the great musicians we listen to know at least chord names. And most know much more than that.

I think most if not all players can read chord charts; that is a bit of a prerequisite for being a working player certainly as a guitarist. (Although from Ritchie Hart’s account it did sound like his mentor George Benson didn’t actually know the names of the chords he was using - and who cares if you can play like that, right?)

The thing is you don’t have to know formal theory to read chords on guitar either. You just need to know a few grips for each chord symbol. Guitar fretboard harmony can function as a grips thing and some players get amazing at grips. It’s not my way of doing it, but I can’t say it’s wrong because for some it works really well.

Anyway I’m just putting it out there as something I have basically learned to be the case based on both research and personal experience playing with and chatting to a lot of musicians over the years.

So true, most players now come from a music school background so a strong theory background is certainly common, but it’s certainly not universal. Any reading of jazz history and conversations with older players will reveal that it used to be less universal, and so on.

As a theory oriented aspiring player, its a shocker the first time you get completely roasted by someone who can piss rings around you and yet knows little or no theory, and it happened to me quite a few times, too. there’s something to learn from the experience believe me.

There’s a lot to learn from your fellow players ways of doing things, if your mind is open to it. Not everyone does things in the same way, and I think that’s a beautiful thing.

[Christian Miller]

you mean, like this jimmy smith guy who couldnt read music and was winging it by ear?

i don’t know much about Jimmy Smith’s background tbh. Is this true or meant sarcastically? Sorry hard to work out sometimes.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

In the middle the father (uncle?) is saying “Yes, exactly!”; the end I don’t understand as it is in Romani, the gypsy language.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Organists are a breed apart for sure

LOL I am immersing myself in sentimental gypsy music

[Bobby Timmons]

i don’t know much about Jimmy Smith’s background tbh. Is this true or meant sarcastically? Sorry hard to work out sometimes.

Sarcasm. Or I think disinformation would fit more with the theme of the thread. My teacher, Tony, was mentored by Jimmy Smith - and not exclusively by rote.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Another gypsy learning-by-ear video

[djg]

i don’t know much about Jimmy Smith’s background tbh. Is this true or meant sarcastically? Sorry hard to work out sometimes.

yeah, like i'm ever sarcastic...

Jazz Organ Stories: Jimmy Smith article @ All About Jazz

Talking More Music with George Benson - JazzTimes

Benson: The Autobiography - George Benson, Alan Goldsher - Google Books