Theory vs. playing by ear

[pamosmusic]

breaking news: 1st time through the form i hear ivmaj7 at the top - so my apologies to whoever i insulted with regards to that. Each subsequent time after the turnaround however, i hear imaj7.

I guess that’s not really news although it shows i’m subconsciously aware of the prevailing key in the song and just need that little shove the subv/iv provides to recenter my ear. Neat trick.

gasp

[Chris236]

gasp

it’s exciting, right!?!

[Christian Miller]

Speaking of gravity, that’s another one that a physicist would say isn’t quite so well-understood as high school science class would like us to think.

Most things in high school physics fall into the ‘lies to children’ category.

I prefer ‘description’ to ‘explanation’ for physical theories. Einstein’s understanding of gravity is a model of observed phenomena borne out by repeated observation much to the annoyance of everyone. The concept of curved spacetime results in mathematics that describes phenomena more exactly than Newtonian physics. Unfortunately for ambitious physicists, seemingly to the limits of available experimental and observational measurement. (So no new physics dammit.)

In terms of understanding what gravity ‘is’ - you can think about marbles on a curvy surface, but really it’s not like that. What it is actually like is it is like the math, and nothing else. Your brain will break if you try to picture it in human terms. (There are better visualisations though.) Same with quantum stuff, iirc most physicists don’t bother. They do the math. The math works extremely well.

At least GR is pretty. The same with the completely incompatible Standard Model which everyone regards as dog****, butt ugly but WORKS. Particle physicists are desperate to get rid of it, but the experiments refuse to play along. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Music theory is at best a model. Unfortunately these models are not held to a very high standard, so they are more like vague sort of descriptions, which may nonetheless have some use.

[Chris236]

And even if music were physics, just ask someone about “time” and you pretty quickly lose the immutability of the whole thing.

music is much closer to language(from my perspective) although there are usually some simple physical explanations - there’s a ‘nature’ to it or it wouldnt be universal.

[John A.]

You have not lived until you try blood squidge and cockenballs. If will make you grateful for all those other moments in your life.

But seriously do Americans beat their chest about their food? I suppose most haven’t traveled much.

Which is not to say I ate badly in the states, but I wouldn’t say there’s much difference to here.

I also object to the suggestion that Brits eat British cuisine. It’s all disgusting apart from the puddings and fish and chips. The latter is now so expensive that no one can afford it and the former is available only at posh schools and ‘Modern British restaurants’ who employ all the culinary arts of Paris to render our traditional faire palatable. For everyone else it’s the nosh of our former vassal nations.

Americans beat our (their? as a NY’er, it’s not clear which pronoun applies) chests about most things. We seem unable to process the idea that acknowledging that another society might do something better than we do doesn’t invalidate everything we are and do. I think whatever we say about cuisine is a relatively minor instance of that.

I lived in England (Cambridge) for a total of about a year and half as a kid between 1968 and 1971. What I remember about food is that in people’s homes it was generally good and not much different from what we would have in US homes, but restaurants were disgusting.

For a period of time I had to eat school cafeteria food. It was like the workhouse scenes in Oliver Twist. School food in the US is usually pretty bad, but this was another world entirely.

That was a long time ago, though and England has since developed a vibrant foodie culture built on (as you say) the cuisine of former colonial vassals. You could say something similar about food in the US. In the late 60s or early 70s dining out in most places was pretty bleak, but nowadays you can find a good non-burger meal almost anywhere. I think I’m going to go watch “Posh Nosh” now …

[Christian Miller]

Americans beat our (their? as a NY’er, it’s not clear which pronoun applies) chests about most things. We seem unable to process the idea that acknowledging that another society might do something better than we do doesn’t invalidate everything we are and do. I think whatever we say about cuisine is a relatively minor instance of that.

I lived in England (Cambridge) for a total of about a year and half as a kid between 1968 and 1971. What I remember about food is that in people’s homes it was generally good and not much different from what we would have in US homes, but restaurants were disgusting.

For a period of time I had to eat school cafeteria food. It was like the workhouse scenes in Oliver Twist. School food in the US is usually pretty bad, but this was another world entirely.

That was a long time ago, though and England has since developed a vibrant foodie culture built on (as you say) the cuisine of former colonial vassals. You could say something similar about food in the US. In the late 60s or early 70s dining out in most places was pretty bleak, but nowadays you can find a good non-burger meal almost anywhere. I think I’m going to go watch “Posh Nosh” now …

Well New York obviously has a great internationally renowned food scene, world leading chefs etc, and local cultures. Like London it’s a meeting place for so many world cultures.

(Actually there are many communities here which don’t hail from former colonies as well.)

Other UK cities are broadly similar in my experience, but once you get a bit off the beaten track things become way more traditional. Coffee is where I really notice it haha.

Tbh the main thing I thought about New York is that it was by and large basically the same as the UK when it came to food. There are some cultural differences - pizza is quite different for example, and half and half isn’t a thing over here sadly, but so much foodie culture is international and a lot of what used to called hipster culture (IPA’s and fancy small batch coffee) is directly imported from the US anyway. Street food stalls too? Otoh One bar was even screening European football. And got a very good curry in the Village.

Sprouts are put to a different and imaginative use in NYC I would say. As a fan of the sprout I approve.

This also reminds me of the couple of times I’ve been to Paris working and on holiday. I found the people to be incredibly helpful and friendly. I suppose everywhere is losing its identity haha. Obviously French food culture is obviously highly valued by the French, while here we never really had much… but there are some UK dishes which are actually great.

[Christian Miller]

I have to say after drinking little else apart from American style beers in the 10’s I’ve now gone back to the traditional English/British style beers. I’m not sure if thats something non Brits can get their head around… we like it tepid haha! And that is one culinary tradition I think is really special, though the ENTIRE WORLD may beg to differ…

But I’m really glad the US style IPA boom in this country came about. It was certainly an improvement over the continental lager thing. The US has produced some really nice beer. There seem to be more places that care about beer in general now and I put it down to the microbrewery thing. Suddenly the Campaign for Real Ale had a new lease of life….

[pamosmusic]

New York is the bomb for food. More specifically outer borough New York. I lived out in Bay Ridge for a few years and nothing beats deep Brooklyn for awesome food.

[Chris236]

One final thought on theory.

There is a misconception that theory is a set of rules that the student must employ to get better….And at times your ‘teacher’ might or may have enforced this misnomer. In the beginning it can be necessary, like the needle that helps remove the splinter(or maybe there’s a better analogy). But the truth about good theory is that it’s like a still life painting….subject to the painter’s ability to articulate, and a snap shot of something that is alive…as opposed to ‘rules’.

While memorizing a few still life’s might help you get a better picture, ultimately getting in touch with that reality is what’s necessary for any musician in my book, but especially for the improviser. And before you say “everyone’s reality is different!” , I say not so different that the 7th resolving up a half step to ‘1’ in a V I cadence doesn’t in fact sound like a resolution.

If you’ve read all this, you have much more patience than me. Haha.

[John A.]

New York is the bomb for food. More specifically outer borough New York. I lived out in Bay Ridge for a few years and nothing beats deep Brooklyn for awesome food.

Except maybe Astoria. I’d say Manhattan has lost a lot food-wise in the last decade-ish.

[Jimmy Smith]

You have to do both - grasp the reality of the music, and follow some theoretical rules. They're not at odds with each other. Keep the form, play in time, outline the changes, etc. While yes, some are guidelines rather than unbreakable rules.

[Chris236]

You have to do both - grasp the reality of the music, and follow some theoretical rules. They're not at odds with each other. Keep the form, play in time, outline the changes, etc. While yes, some are guidelines rather than unbreakable rules.

i’d argue that if you feel pressure to follow any “Rules“ there’s a weakness there that needs to be addressed or at least an unresolved question you need to answer for yourself.

[Jimmy Smith]

Lol sure. You have to play things correctly, it's a rule. It doesn't mean one's musicality is lacking. If you don't grasp that you have some unresolved learning.

[Chris236]

Lol sure. You have to play things correctly, it's a rule. It doesn't mean one's musicality is lacking. If you don't grasp that you have some unresolved learning.

Correctly, can have many layers and many different meanings, to many different people, but I can hear from a mile away when a deep understanding of harmony and melody is lacking. Which isn’t to say you necessarily need book knowledge. Wes was a perfect example of this. Learned to surf from jumping in the ocean!

I’ve come full circle

[princeplanet]

It's cool to tell everyone you don't care about Theory - "I just play what I hear, man ". That's what all the greats did, right? At least that's what they say....

Until you actually transcribe Bird, or Trane, or Wes, or Brecker etc... Hmm, so these guys just happened to "hear" complex harmonic substitutions and sophisticated, highly nuanced melodic devices where chord tones and chromatic embellishments all just happen to appear in perfect order as if by magic? Yeah that's it, these guys must just be true Magicians, so that's why you can never be like them. Hey Wes, how do you know how to play all that stuff, you sure must practice a lot! Nah man, every once in a while I just throw a piece o' meat in the ol' guitar case, y'know...?

Or Bird - Yeah well, you just learn your instrument well enough and then just forget that shit and just wail. Just hear it, feel it and play it, you don't need no theory...

But we know it's their trick, most of them learned their theory real good, for years and years and years. They either never liked to admit it, or they just clean forgot the thousands of hours of headaches it took to join the club of the elites. Just 2 rules to know once you're in the club - Rule #1, never tell them how hard you had to practice. Rule #2, don't you ever, ever, ever dare mention anything about theory, ever!

[Jimmy Smith]

^ 100%


Like I said in my original post. There are certain fundamentals that are rules while some are only guidelines. You have to play in time with good feel. You have to follow the form. You have to have an understanding of the harmony so that you can play off of it. How you approach the harmony is up to you. That isn't a rule that you have to play such and such scale over a chord. If you don't follow any of the rules, usually it's just nonsense. Good music comes from following some rules but being musical and creative with what is negotiable.

[RLetson]

About language and perception (to stay within my area of competence), the language-shapes-perception argument (AKA the Sapir-Whorf argument*) that had some life left in it when I started teaching English fifty-plus years ago is pretty much out of favor these days. It's probably better to see a push-pull relationship between language and perception. If a phenomenon is important or common enough, we will figure out a way of talking about it. And ways-of-talking-about can color or channel our perceptions, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately (think propaganda). Labels can elide or obscure features of the things labeled. And language is not an absolute map of "reality"--back when I was teaching, I would point out that there are things that we have words for that we don't have things for. (Unicorns, anyone?)

Which does have a back-door connection to the musical part of this long conversation, since I take "theory" to be the organized body of observations about what's going on in a musical environment--which observations can be used to generate or modify new musical entities. Or new entities can require modifications to the body of observations. Push-pull. Squirming facts, squamous mind, etc.

My own suspicion is that innovations drive "theory" more often than the other way around--though I suppose we have to deal with, say, the 12-tone system and other attempts to devise algorithmic music-generators.

* There's a nice Wikipedia summary in the "Linguistic relativity" entry.

[pamosmusic]

Except maybe Astoria. I’d say Manhattan has lost a lot food-wise in the last decade-ish.

This is objectively correct. South Brooklyn or Astoria are the only acceptable answers.

Astoria’s been starting to drift hip the last ten years though.

South Brooklyn is still crusty (in the best way).

[pamosmusic]

i’d argue that if you feel pressure to follow any “Rules“ there’s a weakness there that needs to be addressed or at least an unresolved question you need to answer for yourself.

It’s interesting but I think maybe your insistence on fundamental realities of melody and harmony are kind of at odds with this devil-may-care attitude toward rules.

What you describe as fundamental, sound an awful lot like rules.

[princeplanet]

Correctly, can have many layers and many different meanings, to many different people, but I can hear from a mile away when a deep understanding of harmony and melody is lacking. Which isn’t to say you necessarily need book knowledge. Wes was a perfect example of this. Learned to surf from jumping in the ocean!

I’ve come full circle

Although I liked your post, I didn't mean to click on the "like" button (not even sure how it happened). I've never clicked on a "like" button in my life! (not sure about how that happened either...) Just don't want the good folks on the forum to be thinking "hey, how come he liked that post and didn't like mine!" - oh wait, no one cares... ah ok, well in that case, carry on...

[Chris236]

It’s interesting but I think maybe your insistence on fundamental realities of melody and harmony are kind of at odds with this devil-may-care attitude toward rules.

What you describe as fundamental, sound an awful lot like rules.

is gravity a rule?

you can jump, fly, float under the right circumstances and every other thing, but, (whatever it is) it’s still there pulling you back to the ground whether you agree with it, forget about it, or make a conscious decision to fight it.

[Chris236]

It's cool to tell everyone you don't care about Theory - "I just play what I hear, man ". That's what all the greats did, right? At least that's what they say....

Until you actually transcribe Bird, or Trane, or Wes, or Brecker etc... Hmm, so these guys just happened to "hear" complex harmonic substitutions and sophisticated, highly nuanced melodic devices where chord tones and chromatic embellishments all just happen to appear in perfect order as if by magic? Yeah that's it, these guys must just be true Magicians, so that's why you can never be like them. Hey Wes, how do you know how to play all that stuff, you sure must practice a lot! Nah man, every once in a while I just throw a piece o' meat in the ol' guitar case, y'know...?

Or Bird - Yeah well, you just learn your instrument well enough and then just forget that shit and just wail. Just hear it, feel it and play it, you don't need no theory...

But we know it's their trick, most of them learned their theory real good, for years and years and years. They either never liked to admit it, or they just clean forgot the thousands of hours of headaches it took to join the club of the elites. Just 2 rules to know once you're in the club - Rule #1, never tell them how hard you had to practice. Rule #2, don't you ever, ever, ever dare mention anything about theory, ever!

No magic - a lot of these folks arrived where they did VERY organically and definitely with the aid of talent. Many ways to skin a cat(feel like I’m hearding them at times) and again Wes is the perfect example of this. Big ears lead to great places. I’ve personally had a few young kids who (despite lacking instrumental proficiency) could hear through complicated changes. Lol. It’s real.

[pamosmusic]

is gravity a rule?

you can jump, fly, float under the right circumstances and every other thing, but, (whatever it is) it’s still there pulling you back to the ground whether you agree with it, forget about it, or make a conscious decision to fight it.

Ask Newton how the laws turned out.

[Chris236]

Ask Newton how the laws turned out.

when you jump, do you float into space or return to the ground?

[Jimmy Smith]

It's exactly analogous. There are natural laws in nature the same way there are in music. You can work with them but you can't break them.

Taking this to the mad-at-theory thread. Everyone else can continue talking about food.