“Massive waste of time”
“Sucks all the fun out of playing”
“Wait until you have a reason to know it”
I’ll give the music theory a go (as well as ear training), let’s hope I don’t go insane . Justin is amazing at teaching guitar so must be the same with music theory, right? That’s what makes my interest (also because I’m at the end of Grade 1 so now I have to consolidate everything and it’ll take some time. Some things I changed on the consolidation curriculum).
I remember seeing on another forum platform, and if I remember correctly someone were saying that he learned to play guitar just by hearing and figuring out, but people kept telling him to learn theory, so he learned it. What happened? He said he couldn’t play anymore (I guess figuring out songs) because he kept thinking if it was right. If that’s true that’s a red flag for me.
I’m glad I learnt to play by ear. Started playing in '75 and didn’t take any music theory until I found Justin PMT course about 10 years ago.
I was amazed how much theory I actually knew just by learning to play by ear.
For example if you can hear intervals you will understand them, but it you learn intervals from studing misic theory you may not hear them.
Learning music theory hasn’t made me a better musician but I do understand the why music works better.
And you see it in these forums as well, being aimed at people who can barely play a D chord yet.
My take is there’s little point learning the whatever scale if your playing skills aren’t good enough to do anything with it.
I’m 2+ years into playing and now I feel is the right time for me to start learning some theory and some scales. I can play my basic chords and make changes without relying on looking at the fretboard. Now when I pick a scale such as a minor scale, I can find the root and then play up and down the scale without looking at the guitar because I’ve spent a couple of years getting my two hands onto the same wavelength and I’ve gained some spatial awareness of my guitar. My ear also knows what to listen for in terms of whether I’m playing a scale correctly.
I’m now in a position where learning theory has value to me. If a beginner asks me about theory then my answer will be to go and learn how to play your guitar first, have some fun, learn some simple songs and then the theory can start.
It is and it is very well thought out. Justin is also a big advocate of transcribing by ear and using your ear to learn music.
What I am saying is “I’m glad I learnt to use my ears to learn how to play guitar before studing Theory”
Music Theory doesn’t teach you how to play guitar it teaches you how to understand music. In my experience (51 years of playing guitar) learning how to play first is more important than music theory.
It make learning music theory easier.
People are all different and therefore we learn in different ways. For those who are more academic and thorough, music theory is important. Many famous guitar players didn’t learn music theory until they were already very famous (e.g. BB King). Most of them have also said in hindsight that it would have been better if they had done it earlier (based on BB King’s biography “Blues all around me”). If learning music theory pushes you away from music, by all means, stop. If it, in turn, fuels your interest, keep learning it.
Personally, I find it very useful and something to keep developing in parallel to my guitar skills. Justin’s approach is very practical and works for most people if you take it seriously. Learning music theory will make you a better musician and it will also enable you to pick up multiple music instruments more easily (as has been my case).
The teacher really makes a difference. I remember when I was in school, I had an amazing math teacher; he made us want to learn and enjoy math. And I don’t even like math.
You don’t have to know ‘everything’, but knowing the basis can certainly be a big help. But of course, you shouldn’t let it ‘box you in’. Use it as a tool, not as a law or something that sets boundaries. Whatever music theory says, the old mantra stands: if it sounds good, it is good.
I am always amazed when I hear people say that they just “learned to play by ear”. Did you just figure out chords on your own? Did you just figure out which chords were in key on your own?
I’m asking because I am definitely not a learn by ear type of person and I wonder what I am missing?
For me it has definitely been a process of learn the theory → hear it → feel it → forget it → play by ear.
I learnt some open chord from chord diagrams, barre chords and power chords by mostly trial and error but quickly figured out that once you know one in a shape you know all of them and by then I was already playing bass in a band.
Learning songs I’ve always learnt by listening to recording and practicing with a band. Learnt scales by transcribing solos.
No need to know what chords are in a Key. Learn enough songs and you figure out the these chords always seem to be together and then there’s song like Hey Joe which don’t fit in any Key so it doesn’t really matter why they sond good together.
It all comes back to “If It Sounds Good It Is Good.”
Music theory doesn’t teach you how to play music. Music theory explains how music works and just like driving a car you don’t need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive you kid to soccer. You just have to learn to drive.
If you are going to transcribe a song then as @stitch says, you need to train your ear - there is no way around that. If you understand theory it can make the process much easier, but theory on it’s own won’t be enough to transcribe a song.
Here’s my process and where I use both …
Firstly find the key - play a note - any note. Does it sound good against the track (ear training). If yes, then there’s a good chance it’s in the key. Try a note a whole tone high and lower. If both sound good then you have a good chance they are either root, 2nd and 3rd, 4th 5th, 6th or 5th, 6th, 7th. If you find notes a semitone apart then there’s a good chance to have 7th and root or 3rd and 4th. This is obviously a lot of music theory (but you have to have a good ear too) and will most often give you the key. You can find the key using ears alone, but personally I find it quicker and more accurate to use some theory.
Once you have the key, music theory (or just learning lots of songs) suggests the most common chords in modern music are likely to be I, IV, V, iv. So these are good candidates for educated guesses - again ear training will be the quickest approach here - after a while you’ll start to hear the progression and know where it’s going. Music theory will help though, knowing a V chord often moves to a I, knowing a Major 3rd (out of key) often moves to the iv (is the 5 of 6), knowing the Beatles love a major IV to a minor iv move. All this stuff can be achieved with ears alone, but theory helps a lot.
Ears will always beat theory - if you can have only of these, then I choose ears every time, but my theory knowledge makes life much easier
It seems overwhelming, but if you take it bit by bit, it will be easy.
The difficult part is starting.
Take a look a Justin’s pmt course. I did it years ago and found it to be very usefull. Especially now, when attending school in the evenings, justin’s lessons came in very handy, because they gave me a headstart.
That’s interesting. If I don’t get the key with my 1st guess, I’ll play the major scales on the E string - at some point you hit the major scale where all notes sound good. That’s the key. I tend to start with the G at fret 3 and keep going until I’ve found the key. Or at least this is what I do on a bass, but it should work on a guitar too. Other than knowing a major scale pattern, this removes the theory.
I keep thinking i could be a bit more focussed by applying some music theory. E.g if G sounds close, but one note is “out” then it’s probably in C or D. If G doesn’t sound close, then try A. If it’s close but a note is out then it’s probably E (not D, as its kind of removed with G not being close). I’ve never actually done this though .
@mattswain@simon_plays_bass
Both you guys are missing the most important step.
When I was learning to transcribe songs by ear in the 70s and 80s a lot of bands where tuned to Eb or song where sped up/slowed down after recording.
So the first thing you do is play the harmonic at the 12 fret A string and tune that note to the song. If the song isn’t in A 440 this will give you a starting point to tune your guitar to it. Then tune all the other strings to that note. Back then we didn’t rely on tuners we relied on our ears.
If you guitar isn’t in tune to the music you’ll never get the transcribing right.
This is something music theory will never teach you.
Thanks for sharing your experience as it is so different from mine. As someone that started learning at age 50 and having played almost entirely on my own, I don’t think that I would have gotten as far as I have, without some music theory to help me organize what I am hearing. In addition to the hours and hours of work that you put in transcribing solos and learning songs from records, you also were playing with others and picking up a lot of information indirectly.
I could see how that could probably be a better path to becoming a musician, but as someone who started later in life and balancing many other responsibilities I have, that’s not really a path that’s open to me right now.
For me, learning how music works has helped me better hear what I am playing. When I’m figuring out a song, it’s a huge help to know, for instance, how the six chord feels in relation to the one. Now that I have this knowledge, I’m just starting to be able to move to the correct chords in a song just by feel, rather than strict memorization - and this is something that I never thought I would accomplish. I can just start to see how this feeling will creep into my soloing as well but I’m still very early in this part of the process. Again, I’m not sure I would have gotten here with some theory to help me hear it.
Anyway thanks for sharing your experience. I do hope that as I get older, I will have more time to play with others and be able to become a better player just by playing and sharing with other musicians - that is definitely the dream for me.
. Justin is amazing at teaching guitar so must be the same with music theory, right? That’s what makes my interest (also because I’m at the end of Grade 1 so now I have to consolidate everything and it’ll take some time. Some things I changed on the consolidation curriculum).
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