Why you should be mad at theory

[GuyBoden]

I studied Classical Music at college when I was a teenager in the early 1980's, there were too many rules for me, but some good stuff, so I have a very limited knowledge of how Classical Music Harmony was taught.

In my opinion, if you listen to how Classical music evolved from the medieval modal system to the 18th century, the rules of Western Functional Harmony became ubiquitous. Some great music was and still is created using these rules.

As with all rules, they can and are broken all the time.

[CliffR]

A popular sub genre is classical composers appreciating prog rock with theoretical analysis of some kind. Proggers love that stuff for obvious reasons..

I saw one 'reacts to' video recently where a classical musician heard Van Halen's Mean Streets for the first time. Ridiculous! I mean, are we seriously supposed to think she'd gone through life without ever hearing Mean Streets before!?

[grahambop]

I saw one 'reacts to' video recently where a classical musician heard Van Halen's Mean Streets for the first time. Ridiculous! I mean, are we seriously supposed to think she'd gone through life without ever hearing Mean Streets before!?

I have never heard anything by Van Halen, as far as I know. But I stopped listening to most rock music in about 1980. (Although I still listen to some of the stuff I liked back then, still got some of my old vinyl, and bought the odd compilation etc on CD).

[grahambop]

Ur mad at theory.

I’m mad at everything these days.

[CliffR]

Sorry Graham - I wasn't being serious: Mean Streets is a fairly obscure track by the band.

[grahambop]

Sorry Graham - I wasn't being serious: Mean Streets is a fairly obscure track by the band.

haha, well I wouldn’t know either way! Actually I never liked heavy metal much, I was probably the only guy at school who didn’t buy any Deep Purple LPs (actually I did buy one, but only played it a couple of times).

[Christian Miller]

Sorry Graham - I wasn't being serious: Mean Streets is a fairly obscure track by the band.

im afraid it’s pearls before the swine Cliff

I don’t really know what a Van Halen is tbh.

[CliffR]

I don’t really know what a Van Halen is tbh.

You should know this one, Christian. It's a region in the atmosphere full of charged particles from the solar wind.

[grahambop]

Actually I think that’s the Van Allen belt (I’m not an expert, I looked it up!). Unless that was a deliberate misspelling of course.

Not to be confused with Van der Graaf Generator, who actually were a band as well as a thing.

[CliffR]

And not to be confused with noted shredder and vampire hunter Van Helsing

[grahambop]

Or Van Eps, guitarist and string-damper!

[A. Kingstone]

Ted O'Reilly a rather pompous jazz radio host asked Jim Hall upon a visit to Toronto what guitarists Jim found interesting. Jim answered 'Eddie Van Halen'. Poor Mr. O'Reilly nearly blew a gasket.

[Christian Miller]

Tbh by the time I was learning guitar, if you knew who Eddie was, you had to pretend very hard to hate him. Constitutionally it’s still very hard for me to take widdly rock guitar seriously, the 90s has a lasting effect lol.

That intro on Mean Street is pretty baller though.

[pauln]

Probably said that to mess with him, was really liking Camper Van Beethoven

...and it wasn't even Jim Hall, it was Jim Halpert

[ccroft]

Trane could really play the minor pentatonic

Masterful understatement. Both of you :-)

He got more out of it than anyone I can think of. It's all the fourths. And the various side-steppy stuff.

Of course, what I love most about him is the strength of his statements. I think he had a pretty healthy relationship with theory for the most part. I think he got mad at it a few times though. I think he'd say it's OK to get mad at theory now and then.

[pauln]

Masterful understatement. Both of you :-)

He got more out of it than anyone I can think of. It's all the fourths. And the various side-steppy stuff.

Of course, what I love most about him is the strength of his statements. I think he had a pretty healthy relationship with theory for the most part. I think he got mad at it a few times though. I think he'd say it's OK to get mad at theory now and then.

How do you get mad at something like this? Make it a dart board?

[A. Kingstone]

.....
...and it wasn't even Jim Hall, it was Jim Halpert

Well, I was close.

[Christian Miller]

How do you get mad at something like this? Make it a dart board?

Dunno … I think plenty of jazz musicians have raged at Trane changes haha

[supersoul]

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

Funny, this is my favorite John Coltrane "On Green Dolphin Street" solo. It's from the Stockholm concert of the last European tour he did with Miles. Probably a few days before or after yours, March 1960.

[Bobby Timmons]

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.

I think that is the goal when we play jazz - to get to where we can play freely as if we're only playing over a simple 3 chord bluez. It just takes a lot of work to get there. Not less discipline. My teacher told me to only practice one tune, and to play it until I'm green lol. He doesn't advocate doing anything willy nilly in hopes that it comes out good. He stresses having the playing all be drawn from correct theory fundamentals that you've worked out, but to practice the material to the point where you can play freely/artistically/musically with it.

[Bobby Timmons]

I’m mad at everything these days.

Haha yep. I'm in between jobs so I've had a month and a half of vacation. I've been staying away from absolutely everyone and monking out playing Hammond. I have a few moments of contact with people per day. I must say, it's working.

[CliffR]

Funny, this is my favorite John Coltrane "On Green Dolphin Street" solo. It's from the Stockholm concert of the last European tour he did with Miles. Probably a few days before or after yours, March 1960.

Thanks for this. It's very interesting to hear how differently he played, just days apart. I think I spotted a few similar ideas near the beginning of both. (Those are the ideas I'm going to try and rip off for my own attempt.)

[kris]

I think that is the goal when we play jazz - to get to where we can play freely as if we're only playing over a simple 3 chord bluez. It just takes a lot of work to get there. Not less discipline. My teacher told me to only practice one tune, and to play it until I'm green lol. He doesn't advocate doing anything willy nilly in hopes that it comes out good. He stresses having the playing all be drawn from correct theory fundamentals that you've worked out, but to practice the material to the point where you can play freely/artistically/musically with it.

It is not the covering of the world.

[supersoul]

Thanks for this. It's very interesting to hear how differently he played, just days apart. I think I spotted a few similar ideas near the beginning of both. (Those are the ideas I'm going to try and rip off for my own attempt.)

There are probably five or six different versions of On Green Dolphin Street from that tour. They're all different and they're all great. I think Miles had to talk Coltrane into going. I like the weird trilling arpeggios he does starting around 3:30, outlining the chords playfully, then he gets full on sheets of sound where the notes blend into a chordal mass and Coltrane achieves liftoff. (Damn, I should write cheesy liner notes)

[JimmyDunlop]

I think you don't need to be mad at theory. Just listen to music and play what you hear. Try to improve from that point. As somebody said there are some players who know theory but can't play music.