Theory vs. playing by ear

[Marinero]

"Its highly philosophically questionable to compare music theory to the laws of physics."
Christian Miller

Hi, C,
Music Theory within the Western Intellectual tradition was/is, only, intended to explain the nuts and bolts of a language which began with rudimentary notation(tabs) and developed into a pedagogy by which a musician can understand this craft/Art--much as the rules of Algebra and Geometry. And, by developing this musical grammar, composers were not only able to understand/develop musical traditions but also to develop "Studies" for the varied instruments which aurally reproduced these principles in musical form. However, unlike Physics(Nuclear/Atomic/Quantum Mechanics/AstroPhysics) which is fluid and ever-changing, Music Theory, once developed, is stable, and reliable and has not produced any Black Holes nor will there be any Worm Holes in the future. So, in that sense, I agree with you.
As far as there being a re-invention of Music Theory by 20th/21st Century Jazzers, this is absurd as principles used in Jazz music--diminished, augmented, minor, cadences, inversions, etc. are the meat and potatoes of traditional music theory.
Marinero

[John A.]

Its highly philosophically questionable to compare music theory to the laws of physics.

I’m terms of objective validity and productivity, that’s true. But academic music theoreticians strive for it not to be, as do theoreticians of most subjects other than natural sciences (says the son of an economist and a political scientist).

Anyway, I think my larger point holds. And I think that you agree, that most of what gets discussed around here is more like the craft of composition and improvisation than it is like "theory" at its most abstract and academic, and that understanding it in formal terms is not necessary (even if helpful for some).

[Marinero]

I’m terms of objective validity and productivity, that’s true. But academic music theoreticians strive for it not to be, as do theoreticians of most subjects other than natural sciences (says the son of an economist and a political scientist).

Anyway, I think my larger point holds. And I think that you agree, that most of what gets discussed around here is more like the craft of composition and improvisation than it is like "theory" at its most abstract and academic, and that understanding it in formal terms is not necessary (even if helpful for some).

Hi, J,
Can you explain the difference between "abstract and academic"/"formal" theory vs. general music theory? Are not composition and improvisation explainable by music theory? And, if so, why would that be "abstract?" I'm confused.
Marinero

[Jimmy Smith]

^ Yes, composition, improv, and deeper levels of music are explainable by theory. The difference is that there is less or no pedagogy for them. This leads some to the 2 misnomers that 1. there's no theoretical way to approach musical applied concepts and 2. that the applied concepts are not theory and only the raw academic theory is theory and therefor theory is less useful because it is by nature academic and non musical.

[Jimmy Smith]

so what I’m proposing is that there’s might not be that much difference in the learning process for those who know theory and those who don’t.

The main difference is whether or not they know the common practice labels for the things they’ve learned, and I think both the theoretically schooled and unschooled players get a bit hung up on this. The latter in particular can get quite insecure about it and dismissive about their own often very extensive tacit knowledge which is sad. (Culturally we tend to value academic knowledge over practical know-how.)

But in practice there might not be a lot of difference in the way I, as a theory nerd, might do actual playing compared to someone who’s gone down the ‘ears and grips’ route, like a lot of Manouche style players for instance.

Take chords. I know how to construct chords from theory, but when I comp, I’ll reach for those internalised, familiar (to me) grips first and moves (the same as anyone else I suspect) because there simply isn’t time in music to do things that aren’t intuitive and fully embodied. I know how to finger them without thinking and perhaps more importantly I know exactly how they will sound.

The more I learn the more options I might have, but it’s not like I’m ever computing intervals through a scale or whatever.

Over time we may all broaden our vocabulary and internalise less familiar grips and movements. Perhaps I might use theory to derive them, but they might equally come from hanging out with another guitarist and asking ‘hey what’s that?’, or by listening carefully to recordings. In all cases the learning/internalising process is the same. And by the time I can use them on gigs, they are familiar to me.

Everyone’s bodies and brains work in a broadly similar way.

That's true but this:

Again theory vs ear is a false dichotomy. Theory is not an excuse for not putting in the time for developing ears. There is nothing about theory that prevents one from developing their ears.

In fact, theory should make it easier to develop ears by providing an organization for music. For example, it makes it easier to learn harmony by ear if you can first identify chord categories (Dominant, major, minor, diminished or Tonic, subdominant etc).

And this:

Hm. How many players complain "oh, I spent so much time on learning theory... total waste!" ?

...exactly as much who were complainig "oh, I spent so much time on trying to train my ear... total waste!" :-).

zero, so what?

[pauln]

Again theory vs ear is a false dichotomy. Theory is not an excuse for not putting in the time for developing ears. There is nothing about theory that prevents one from developing their ears.

In fact, theory should make it easier to develop ears by providing an organization for music. For example, it makes it easier to learn harmony by ear if you can first identify chord categories (Dominant, major, minor, diminished or Tonic, subdominant etc).

My reading of this; you disavow a dichotomy by asserting differences, relative advantages/disadvantages, you suggest learning by ear does not provide an organization for music because it does not name things, you equate "recognition, understanding" with "naming", disregarding the musical organisation of the ear player. Am I reading too much into this?

Does diagramming a sentence reveal if the speaker was smiling, or crying, or swinging a fist?

[Marinero]

My reading of this; you disavow a dichotomy by asserting differences, relative advantages/disadvantages, you suggest learning by ear does not provide an organization for music because it does not name things, you equate "recognition, understanding" with "naming", disregarding the musical organisation of the ear player. Am I reading too much into this?

Does diagramming a sentence reveal if the speaker was smiling, or crying, or swinging a fist?

Hi, P,
You pose an interesting question. So, yes, "learning by ear does not provide an organization for music." The "ear players" concept has been an excuse for undisciplined guitarists to forego the considerable effort of formal training. You never hear this from pianists, woodwind players, violinists/cellists, etc., and to use names like Wes, Errol, Louie Armstrong is equating the average guitar banger with a field of musical savants at a different time in history. For every savant, there are millions of bangers in varying levels and degrees and the lion share of Jazzers today have certainly had considerable formal training in a music program or conservatory with plenty of on-the-job experience. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was dead in the water creatively as a musician in my early 20's until I got the formal training I needed from advanced musical education which opened a pathway to a different way of thinking creatively. And, even in my ripe old age, today, there are new ideas that develop from dusty exercises in piles of old manuscripts, notebooks, and music paper scribbled with ideas from years past--some good, some laughably funny. However, let's not be deluded into believing that formal training, alone, will get you where you want to go since your level of innate talent will be a roadblock at a certain time in your development. Great musicians are born . . . not made. Remember that guy who started learning guitar when you did and a year later . . . well, you know the story.
Marinero

[Tal_175]

My reading of this; you disavow a dichotomy by asserting differences, relative advantages/disadvantages, you suggest learning by ear does not provide an organization for music because it does not name things, you equate "recognition, understanding" with "naming", disregarding the musical organisation of the ear player. Am I reading too much into this?

Does diagramming a sentence reveal if the speaker was smiling, or crying, or swinging a fist?

I'm disagreeing with the implications of the thread title that ear and theory are alternative, mutually exclusive paths of musical development.
To the contrary every serious musician regardless of their educational background develops conscious musical mental constructs and aural skills.
I'm not saying that ear training requires a formal musical organization. I'm saying that learning a musical organization is not an anti-ear stance to music, if anything it may help ear training.

Sent from my SM-A536W using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

"Its highly philosophically questionable to compare music theory to the laws of physics."
Christian Miller

Hi, C,
Music Theory within the Western Intellectual tradition was/is, only, intended to explain the nuts and bolts of a language which began with rudimentary notation(tabs) and developed into a pedagogy by which a musician can understand this craft/Art--much as the rules of Algebra and Geometry. And, by developing this musical grammar, composers were not only able to understand/develop musical traditions but also to develop "Studies" for the varied instruments which aurally reproduced these principles in musical form. However, unlike Physics(Nuclear/Atomic/Quantum Mechanics/AstroPhysics) which is fluid and ever-changing, Music Theory, once developed, is stable, and reliable and has not produced any Black Holes nor will there be any Worm Holes in the future. So, in that sense, I agree with you.
As far as there being a re-invention of Music Theory by 20th/21st Century Jazzers, this is absurd as principles used in Jazz music--diminished, augmented, minor, cadences, inversions, etc. are the meat and potatoes of traditional music theory.
Marinero

Music theory is constantly in flux.

One key point is that the music theory we use to discuss the classical style of the eighteenth century - such as functional harmonic analysis or Schenkerian analysis or Schoenberg’s ideas on the musical sentence and period which have become very common - did not exist at the time the music was being written as they all products of the later 19th and early 20th century. So theory is certainly subject to evolution even where the music it describes is already a century or more old. Even the concept of an inverted triad was alien to Bach’s training (and he rejected Rameau’s ideas when he became aware of them.)

[pauln]

I'm disagreeing with the implications of the thread title that ear and theory are alternative, mutually exclusive paths of musical development.
To the contrary every serious musician regardless of their educational background develop a conscious musical mental constructs and aural skills.
I'm not saying that ear training requires a formal musical organization. I'm saying that learning a musical organization is not an anti-ear stance to music, if any thing it may help ear training.

Sent from my SM-A536W using Tapatalk

As far as I understand, we are in agreement. I am surprised by Marinero's answer, "learning by ear does not provide an organization for music."

[Christian Miller]

As far as I understand, we are in agreement. I am surprised by Marinero's answer, "learning by ear does not provide an organization for music."

Yes, the assumption seems to be that people who don’t get spoonfed music theory at school are too thick to notice patterns and categorise information of their own accord.

[rpjazzguitar]

I can't even tell exactly what people mean by "theory".

If I know that I can play a note and get a certain sound by playing the next note 4 frets higher on the neck, do I know any theory?

I can't tell where it starts. I can't figure out how much "theory" ear players know.

For great playing, I think the player has to be in the moment with the music and not thinking about it in linguistic terms. But that's my taste and assumption. When Coltrane played 1235 against a bunch of chords was that theory based?

OTOH, a lot of great players apparently utilized theoretical constructs in the course of mastering the instrument and then don't think about it when the play (per Mr. Parker). Maybe they all did. I need better definitions to have an opinion. And, that might not be possible.

[Christian Miller]

I can't even tell exactly what people mean by "theory".

If I know that I can play a note and get a certain sound by playing the next note 4 frets higher on the neck, do I know any theory?

can't tell where it starts. I can't figure out how much "theory" ear players know.

that’s such an important question

Django knew this four frets trick and used it all the for instance. Did he therefore know theory?

(I assume he either learned it by listening to other players, was shown it by another guitarist, or chanced upon it one day and liked the sound.)

So it’s a trick, a rule of thumb I guess. A lot of the old subs approach was rule of thumb based. Like the tritone sub. ‘This is what it is, do it and it sounds hip. Get used to the sound and how it moves to the next chord.’ That isn’t theory to me because it’s just a bit of street knowledge, a useful move that leads directly to expanding your vocabulary as an improviser.

later people fit it more into an overarching theory of altered scales and so on. But the thing is you still have to learn how to use that theory to make music and the theory on its own doesn’t get you there.

So, the old sub tricks still work great and continue to be taught, albeit accompanied by an explanation based around theory. ‘Do this because you will be playing the altered tensions on the dominant chord’

so the the explanation aspect is for me the bit that is more academic, more theoretical if you like. Whereas a more practical artisan approach is more interested in results than underlying reasons.

And what does that explanation add? Is it necessary or important for a player to know? Or is it more an artefact of our present education system?

(if that makes sense.)

[ccroft]

Yeah, this topic always comes down to what is meant by theory. And I don't get the VS part of it. The mutually exclusive part anyway.

I played almost entirely by ear for the first few years. Spent most of my time playing along with records. Those old huge plastic discus things.

I did have to learn where the notes on at least 2 strings where so's I could play in G if somebody told me to. I did learn some 'grips' and note patterns from guitar friends. Skip ahead a few decades and I know where all the notes are everywhere on the fretboard in a given key. I know several grips for most chords. I know major, minor, dominant, diminished etc. I know my modes. I can read. I know what voice leading is. I know what is meant by II IV I and other such forms.

Is that stuff theory? I think of it more like fact.

Am I an ear player or a theory player? I don't think of the actual note names when I'm improvising or trying to build a chord. I see patterns of intervals and scales. Maybe I'm some sort of CST guy, but I don't really know for sure what that is, or what a Lydian Dominant is. (I probably do, but I don't know how to say what it is.)

If this stuff is theory, it's 'Small Theory'. I feel like there's some sort of 'Big Theory' out there. Probably the stuff my composer friend was studying at Manus. He did tell me about 'Amen' dissonance and resolution, but at the cost of that education there's got to be more :-)

Or maybe it's that stuff in threads about what the name of any given clump of notes should be called. I don't get the importance of that. I guess I'm an ear guy?

[Jimmy Smith]

And what does that explanation add? Is it necessary or important for a player to know? Or is it more an artefact of our present education system?

My stance is that it is at least partially theory in almost all cases of good players throughout history, therefore it is necessary to know. Some have a small base of theory and are able to integrate and play creatively utilizing that structure, some have a comprehensive foundation of theory. All good players have developed the skill to harness their knowledge but play artistically in the moment how pauln described.

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?"

[Jimmy Smith]

I can't even tell exactly what people mean by "theory".

It's any guideline that helps in the conscious aid of constructing your music apart than just hearing what you want to play and executing it.

[Jimmy Smith]

And what does that explanation add? Is it necessary or important for a player to know? Or is it more an artefact of our present education system?

Take the example of Kurt Cobain. Typical example of a musician who shouldn't have known any theory. Did he know zero theory? No. He played drums in middle school band, then took guitar lessons for less than a year his freshman year. In clips you hear him talking about chords, scales, and keys - that is probably the base of what he knew for theory. He probably did not have a conservatory theory ability to analyze how his dissonant chord progressions worked tonally or how his melodies fit over the chords - he probably just made them up creatively. But he still relied on his base theory to help him make music. He couldn't have done it without it.

[rpjazzguitar]

My take is mixed.

When somebody explained how to move a stack of fourths through a melodic minor scale and that the resulting grips could be used interchangebly for any one of the chords generated by that scale -- well, that was immediately useful knowledge. It produced the single biggest change in the way I comp of anything specific principle I ever studied.

When a poster on another forum recommended trying every possible combination of two triads (maj, min, dim, aug, etc?) to form different hexatonics, then try each one of the resulting hexatonics over every bass note and then try to find applications for the resulting 7 note scales -- it occurred to me that it might be better to spend that time (decades? eons?) doing something like learning tunes. I could not imagine getting anything useful out of this suggested avenue.

I also think a theory should predict something useful. If "try playing a quick V7 in the middle of 8 bars of Imaj, it will probably sound good" is theory, great, that's a useful prediction. But, the general theory of modal interchange, if I understand it, is flawed. Some borrowed chords sound good, some don't and, as far as I can tell, you just have to try them to know which are which. I fail to see how that theory is helpful. I'm confident that someone will explain why I'm clueless about this and I hope they include specific examples that I can consider.

Say you hand a theorist a transcription and ask for an analysis. You're likely to get an explanation of every single note. Now, suppose you change a note or a few notes at random. Will the theorist say, "I'm sorry, I can't explain that". My guess is that they provide an equally compelling analysis of both versions, or any other you might supply. If you can explain virtually anything, is the theory helpful?

If I were still teaching I wouldn't discourage study of theory at all. But, it would take its place behind ear training and repertoire.

[kris]

This discussion is about the same over and over again.
Mixing education with theory and hearing.
I think that eminent jazz musicians, not amateur musicians, would talk about it more interestingly.

[Jimmy Smith]

^ Like my teacher, Tony?

It's only about the same thing over again because people keep making a false dichotomy about it ad infinitum like Tal said. Theory only helps you when you use it effectively. And it never prevents you from developing you ear. In fact, it helps you develop your ear because you understand the structure of music. What if you put in countless hours transcribing and it didn't add to your playing? Would you then be mad at transcribing?

[Christian Miller]

Take the example of Kurt Cobain. Typical example of a musician who shouldn't have known any theory. Did he know zero theory? No. He played drums in middle school band, then took guitar lessons for less than a year his freshman year. In clips you hear him talking about chords, scales, and keys - that is probably the base of what he knew for theory. He probably did not have a conservatory theory ability to analyze how his dissonant chord progressions worked tonally or how his melodies fit over the chords - he probably just made them up creatively. But he still relied on his base theory to help him make music. He couldn't have done it without it.

if you could find the link that would be interesting. I don’t know much about Kurt’s musical background but it wouldn’t surprise me if he knew more theory than people suppose.

the second half of what you are saying reminds me a bit of what I was saying about Django. This is a broader definition of theory as ‘having a working model’ in this case that might have been intuited or worked out privately.

It’s obviously hard to say, part of the value of theory is it allows one to communicate how we think to others who understand the terms.

we kind of need different terms for the different types.

im also not ruling out that some people may play more or less completely intuitively; in fact the flip side of what I’m saying is actually everyone has to get to this point whatever music we play and whatever learning process we favour.

[pauln]

[Jimmy Smith]

Yeah they were obviously players that took the leap of creativity beyond structuring things out.

Article on guitar: https://sixstringacoustic.com/when-d...playing-guitar

Drums: In middle school, Kurt Cobain began playing the... / Kurt Cobain'''s Notes | Kurt cobain young, Kurt cobain, Nirvana kurt cobain

Interview touching on his music education at 2:00. Apparently he was mad at theory too lol. He says he doesn't know anything about music theory but he knows what major and minor chords are and what dorian mode is. So he probably had somewhat of a foundation but valued the creative aspect more.

He knew what keys are:

His solo on sappy is in dorian

[Jimmy Smith]

This is a broader definition of theory as ‘having a working model’ in this case that might have been intuited or worked out privately.

im also not ruling out that some people may play more or less completely intuitively;

It’s obviously hard to say,

It is hard to say. I think it is possible that some people play completely intuitively. I don't think that's very common though. My hunch is that most either have a working knowledge base or a comprehensive one.

in fact the flip side of what I’m saying is actually everyone has to get to this point of playing completely intuitively whatever music we play and whatever learning process we favour.

That's true.

[pauln]

Hi, P,
You pose an interesting question. So, yes, "learning by ear does not provide an organization for music."

If you had qualified that along these lines, then we could agree...

"learning by ear does not provide an organization for music like that of the canonical music theory."
"learning by ear does not provide an organization for music necessarily comprised of named things with verbal relationships."
"learning by ear does not provide an organization for music based on a foundation in standard music notation."
"learning by ear does not provide an organization for music of formal concepts developed from books, methods, and lesson plans."
"learning by ear does not provide an organization for music that I recognize and understand from my experience being trained in theory."

Otherwise, well... "Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here?"