Why you should be mad at theory

[Christian Miller]

not true at all. Ben Monder, Pat Metheny, Scofield and Kreisberg

Nope it’s just Larry Carlton all the way down FACT

You can tell it’s a fact because I wrote ‘fact’ in capital letters.

[Christian Miller]

Because it's part of the discipline of learning. Theory is dirt simple. Guitarists are lazy. 99% of guitarists can only play barre chords.

Learning theory and reading is simply part of basic musicianship. Learning to spell the chords in maj, min, 7th, dim, aug should take someone 3 months.
Basic scales another 3 months.

I learned that in 6 months when I was 14 years old.

Once you understand the basics it opens the doors to some areas of understanding what people are playing that you might not understand at first.

That's why you you really learn theory. Even guys who didn't study theory formally like benson and wes could tell you all kinds of details of jazz chord substitution.

In theory (no pun intended) that could be considered theory but it's an advanced building block. If you can't spell your basic chords, you will struggle to understand bebop. Not impossible though.

thats nice, but not terribly connected to the OP

[rpjazzguitar]

Dirt simple?

Once again, I can't tell what people include under the heading "theory" or who they accept as knowing it.

If theory, as suggested on another forum, involves working through every possible triad pair against every possible bass note in every key, and then learning every possible modal interchange of every type in every key and every scale/chord type in multiple harmonic situations etc etc, then if it's dirt simple, at least grant me that it's outerspace tedious.

Why be mad at theory? Because you can't figure out what it is and what it isn't, there are a mulititude of approaches despite the murky definition, it looks like, at times, that it would take more than this lifetime, and you can't ignore it because sometimes it's really helpful.

OTOH, if it's just knowing basic scales and arps and how to juxtapose them over different harmonic situations based on the vocabulary of jazz, then sure. Simple enough. But, someone is going to chime in and explain that it has to be much more than that. And, soon enough, I won't be able to participate in the discussion unless first I read everything they've read.

[stratology]

Dirt simple?

Once again, I can't tell what people include under the heading "theory" or who they accept as knowing it.

If theory, as suggested on another forum, involves working through every possible triad pair against every possible bass note in every key, and then learning every possible modal interchange of every type in every key and every scale/chord type in multiple harmonic situations etc etc, then if it's dirt simple, at least grant me that it's outerspace tedious.

???

But it is 'dirt simple' (weird way to put it), and your example is a good example just for that.

The one thing to really learn to get started is intervals. Not terribly difficult.


Once you have that: stack two thirds to get your triads. Add one more note to add a bass note. Nothing more to do, all the variations are a repetition of the same super simple basic steps. And when you understand intervals, you understand all the resulting chords, because you understand the function of each note in the chord.

So, very simple basic building blocks, that can be used to build more complex things.



And, again, if you reduce a piece of music to just pitches and pitch relationships, that actually says very little about that piece of music, if you look at the bigger picture of everything else that is going on.
But it is easy to teach.

[pauln]

I'm really looking forward to reading some folks' definitions of "note" and "interval".
After that we might have a more informed position of what is simple or dirt simple.

[rpjazzguitar]

???

But it is 'dirt simple' (weird way to put it), and your example is a good example just for that.

The one thing to really learn to get started is intervals. Not terribly difficult.


Once you have that: stack two thirds to get your triads. Add one more note to add a bass note. Nothing more to do, all the variations are a repetition of the same super simple basic steps. And when you understand intervals, you understand all the resulting chords, because you understand the function of each note in the chord.

So, very simple basic building blocks, that can be used to build more complex things.



And, again, if you reduce a piece of music to just pitches and pitch relationships, that actually says very little about that piece of music, if you look at the bigger picture of everything else that is going on.
But it is easy to teach.

Fine we'll stack thirds to get triads. Maj Dim Dim Aug. Now, we'll combine every one of those against every other in every key. Then, we'll take all the hexatonics and play them with every bass note. This is what one theory proponent recommended.

At the end of that, you might have identified some scales you like, but you don't know how to use them. That's another crazy number of potential combinations. Meaning every one of those zillion scales against every potential harmonic situation.

And, if you succeeded at doing all that, you still wouldn't know a tune. And, if you kept reading theorists you'd find out that there's all kinds of stuff, highly recommended, that you have not yet done.

So, sure, doing finding the triads and bass notes and making scales is straightforward. Getting all that to the point where it's helping you make better music doesn't seen simple to me, dirt or otherwise. In fact, I think there's a strong argument that it's a massive waste of time for a handful of nuggets that you could get from transcribing a solo you like in a half hour.

[Jimmy Smith]

thats nice, but not terribly connected to the OP

Ur mad at theory.

[Jimmy Smith]

Because it's part of the discipline of learning. Theory is dirt simple. Guitarists are lazy. 99% of guitarists can only play barre chords.

Learning theory and reading is simply part of basic musicianship. Learning to spell the chords in maj, min, 7th, dim, aug should take someone 3 months.
Basic scales another 3 months.

I learned that in 6 months when I was 14 years old.

Once you understand the basics it opens the doors to some areas of understanding what people are playing that you might not understand at first.

That's why you should really learn theory. Even guys who didn't study theory formally like benson and wes could tell you all kinds of details of jazz chord substitution.

In theory, that could be considered theory but it's an advanced building block. If you can't spell your basic chords, you will struggle to understand bebop. Not impossible though.

Also my view on it point for point.

[ccroft]

Ur mad at theory.

I'm mad at you and your mad at theory trope :-)

[kris]

If you are serious, you have to learn and develop your whole life.
There are only a few serious players on this forum - it's sad.

[Jimmy Smith]

That is the worst straw man I've ever read lol. Who is it directed at?

[kris]

That is the worst straw man I've ever read lol. Who is it directed at?

To all guitarists, not to organists...

[Christian Miller]

This thread has gone boring.

It had a good innings though, a few pages of people actually responding to the OP video

[Gabor]

...because this is a very good thread, always when I notice it popping up in the new posts, I always hear in my head:

"why you should be mad at all?"

or more specifically: why should I mad at all? It always turns out, - in case I give minimal chance this thought to be developed and bloom -, at the end it turns out, there is no reason (taking and weighting all considerations) When I reach this conclusion, it really feels good. Unfortunatelly it last no more than a half hour.

If anyone have a recipe how it prolong (not using any drog) please let me know.

[Christian Miller]

...because this is a very good thread, always when I notice it popping up in the new posts, I always hear in my head:

"why you should be mad at all?"

or more specifically: why should I mad at all? It always turns out, - in case I give minimal chance this thought to be developed and bloom -, at the end it turns out, there is no reason (taking and weighting all considerations) When I reach this conclusion, it really feels good. Unfortunatelly it last no more than a half hour.

If anyone have a recipe how it prolong (not using any drog) please let me know.

Well it’s a joke. I can’t for the life of me figure out if JS is trolling or actually thinks people are mad at theory … which makes him an effective troll I guess haha.

(When I started out I thought pretty much everything he said was tongue in cheek… I think I was wrong? So who knows.)

most jazzers have a fairly healthy relationship with theory - if they can actually play. Which means they understand its uses and limitations and have spent time with the music using their ears. We all improvise and many of us compose music so we put the knowledge to use.

That was not what the OP was about at all - it was about the way theory in classical music (according to Gjerdingen) had become estranged from the construction of the music and the methods used by the great musicians of the past and developed towards a form of pseudo-scientific music appreciation you can sell to the middle classes (in C19).

you do actually see this tendency in jazz and pop/rock. Beato is essentially a music appreciation class. People want to be told why music they already like is good. There’s money in that!

[kris]

I wonder if blues musicians think about theory at all, and you can see that playing gives them great pleasure.
...although Robben Ford knows the theory very well and likes to play solos over three chords.

[Christian Miller]

I wonder if blues musicians think about theory at all, and you can see that playing gives them great pleasure.
...although Robben Ford knows the theory very well and likes to play solos over three chords.

I remember reading somewhere that BB King was relentless about improving his level of knowledge and was actually pretty knowledgable about theory.

[kris]

I remember reading somewhere that BB King was relentless about improving his level of knowledge and was actually pretty knowledgable about theory.

I know from my experience that when I played blues on three chords a long time ago, theory bothered me.....perhaps the feelling was the most important thing for me.
I was at a jam session a week ago and played blues in G on three chords - I admit I didn't think about theory at all.The audience response was great....

[Christian Miller]

I know from my experience that when I played blues on three chords a long time ago, theory bothered me.....perhaps the feelling was the most important thing for me.
I was at a jam session a week ago and played blues in G on three chords - I admit I didn't think about theory at all.The audience response was great....

isn’t that how it’s meant to feel when we play jazz?

I’m not saying it’s how I feel. Maybe sometimes.

Forgetting to ‘worry’ about your note choices is very hard. I do wonder if our way of teaching jazz today makes it harder.

One of the classic bits of advice on pedagogy is - don’t say what you don’t want, say what you don’t want. Jazz books are full of ‘don’t’s (all of which are violated in the solos of the greats of course, but that’s a seperate issue.) this is something they have a bit in common with classical books.

DON’T THINK OF A GREEN ELEPHANT!!

(DON’T WRITE A PARALLEL FIFTH!
DON’T PLAY THE MAJOR SEVENTH ON THE DOMINANT CHORD!)

Interesting thing about the old Italian sources is how little time they spend telling you to not do things. Compare to a modern book on Bach harmony.

[CliffR]

The grammar book The King's English (suddenly relevant again) is full of don'ts. The authors avoid trying to describe good grammar and instead just list examples of common mistakes, mostly taken from The Times.

[CliffR]

People want to be told why music they already like is good. There’s money in that!

To be fair, you could use that stuff to learn to appreciate new music. I strongly believe that taste can be acquired, especially for more sophisticated examples of an art. Only now, after working on On Green Dolphin Street, am I starting to appreciate Coltrane, in particular his live 1960 solo on the tune.

[pauln]

I remember reading somewhere that BB King was relentless about improving his level of knowledge and was actually pretty knowledgable about theory.

Well, he invented the 1 3b 4 5 6 pentatonic (melodic minor (ascending version) with no 2 or 7). Have you ever seen this? Talks easily about keys and changes, knows his note names up the neck, refers to ninth chords, dominant sevenths, does some "reaching out" improvisation near the end...

[Christian Miller]

Well, he invented the 1 3b 4 5 6 pentatonic (melodic minor (ascending version) with no 2 or 7). Have you ever seen this? Talks easily about keys and changes, knows his note names up the neck, refers to ninth chords, dominant sevenths, does some "reaching out" improvisation near the end...

I did see a vid like it if not that specific one. He was talking about Charlie Christian.

[Christian Miller]

To be fair, you could use that stuff to learn to appreciate new music.

I don’t get the feeling that is a primary factor in the success of these videos. A popular sub genre is classical composers appreciating prog rock with theoretical analysis of some kind. Proggers love that stuff for obvious reasons.

I strongly believe that taste can be acquired, especially for more sophisticated examples of an art.

that’s true. I’m not sure how theoretical a process that is though. Partly I think it’s exposure to a genre. Once you’ve heard a hundred accomplished but unsurprising c18 symphonies and sonatas, Mozarts Jupiter sounds a whole lot more interesting. Otherwise it’s just inoffensive ‘nice classical music’

Only now, after working on On Green Dolphin Street, am I starting to appreciate Coltrane, in particular his live 1960 solo on the tune.

It’s funny… I got into Coltrane listening to him play the minor pentatonic scale

Trane could really play the minor pentatonic

Just the sound and hypnotic rhythm.

[CliffR]

Good points! This is the solo I was thinking of: