Theory. Yes please or a bit of a yawn?

[dlloyd]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1475839947' post='3149098']I'm not interested in improv when playing live largely cos it seems to bore the tits off most punters.
[/quote]

Just to address this... my band plays jazz and of course it's mostly improvised. Most gigs are busy as hell and full of people dancing and having a great time.

[scalpy]

[quote name='zbd1960' timestamp='1476004939' post='3150317']
Indeed it was - I've done several gigs with them on cello. I play in one of the smaller groups on tenor sax as well. I'd do more with them, but I'm the wrong end of Shropshire for it to be easy
[/quote]

Great bloke Ed, I do some am dram pit work with him in Worcestershire. Has perfect pitch but only in Bb, useful as a trumpeter! And knows lots of theory, there back on topic!

[scalpy]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1476006980' post='3150332']
I had an interesting conversation last night - we gigged with a dep drummer who I've played with a few times. He's schooled in percussion and musical theory, and teaches.

He likes my playing, and said he was surprised I hadn't got into to teaching.

I told him my knowledge of theory is minimal, and I wouldn't know where to start. He was amazed... he didn't believe me. He couldn't understand how I do what I do without and in-depth understanding of what's going on.

The point I'm clumsily trying to make is that he has his approach, and I have mine. Both are valid, and although having the theory has clear benefits, going the other route can still lead to good gigs with good players.
[/quote]

You've confused a drummer, well done 😉

As players of a geometric instrument, we can get away with hell of a lot. By this I mean it's not hard for example to learn pentatonic licks that are effective over a number of chords and sound like you have an advanced theoretical knowledge. All we have to do is shift a position. It's relatively easy to reach chord tones chromatically on the guitar and sound interesting. It's perfectly possible to do this without much theory knowledge, but begs the question, what could you do with a little more knowledge?

[Luulox]

Yes please from me. The little bit I have learnt helped me understand chord changes and chord tones which alone increased my playing massively.

[markstuk]

For me Theory is about how music works and why... I can read music, and have done theory exams but I wish this book had been available 30 years ago.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0099535440

[Coilte]

[quote name='scalpy' timestamp='1476009305' post='3150356']
It's perfectly possible to do this without much theory knowledge, but begs the question, what could you do with a little more knowledge?
[/quote]


For me..the above is the key point in this thread. It's hard to argue against this.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='scalpy' timestamp='1476009305' post='3150356']


You've confused a drummer, well done 😉

As players of a geometric instrument, we can get away with hell of a lot. By this I mean it's not hard for example to learn pentatonic licks that are effective over a number of chords and sound like you have an advanced theoretical knowledge. All we have to do is shift a position. It's relatively easy to reach chord tones chromatically on the guitar and sound interesting. It's perfectly possible to do this without much theory knowledge, but begs the question, what could you do with a little more knowledge?
[/quote]

Ha ha.. trust me - I'm not just shifting shapes around the neck. There's a bit more going into it than that.

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1476012368' post='3150389']

There's a bit more going into it than that.
[/quote]
If only there was a recognised international set of terms or a way writing it down to describe it to us all, that would be great

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1476013273' post='3150399']

If only there was a recognised international set of terms or a way writing it down to describe it to us all, that would be great
[/quote]

Yes, if only there was a way to write it down so it could be communicated to others. Youre just going to have to imagine it, as there's no other medium via which it can be conveyed.

[grandad]

[quote name='markstuk' timestamp='1476010711' post='3150372']
For me Theory is about how music works and why... I can read music, and have done theory exams but I wish this book had been available 30 years ago.. [url="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0099535440"]https://www.amazon.c...t/dp/0099535440[/url]
[/quote]

Recently read this excellent book. I'll need to re-read it a few times, (memory not what is used to be).

Edited October 9, 2016 by grandad

[Bilbo]

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1476007688' post='3150342']
Just to address this... my band plays jazz and of course it's mostly improvised. [b]Most gigs are busy as hell and full of people dancing and having a great time.[/b]
[/quote]

Can't be a Jazz gig then.....

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1476013582' post='3150402']


Yes, if only there was a way to write it down so it could be communicated to others. Youre just going to have to imagine it, as there's no other medium via which it can be conveyed.
[/quote]

I'm getting hints of Megadeth with a Janis Joplin undertone?

[scalpy]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1476012368' post='3150389']


Ha ha.. trust me - I'm not just shifting shapes around the neck. There's a bit more going into it than that.
[/quote]

I totally get that, I've watched your review videos and a fine player you are, but you're sticking to diatonic or related harmony and a conventional rhythmic vocabulary like most successful players. (This is meant to be a compliment!) That can be reduced with the bass guitar to shifting patterns around the neck. I'm sure you'd monster a 12 blues, and in doing so employ a myriad of basic theory approaches, that when combined allow you your own signature approach. But a lot of it would be your combination of patterns, rhythmic or harmonic that are still patterns. Your intuition may lead to you to creating interesting lines and grooves etc but you'll be using theory implicitly to achieve this. If you weren't, others wouldn't be able to play with you! My point is that musical theory covers rhythm and structure as much as harmony, and a basic understanding is actually an easier conduit to more variety in playing music than relying on instinct or trial and error.

[lowdown]

Someone with a Cuban cigar, a knowledge of theory and rhythm, went and messed with Beethoven's 5th.
Talk about leaving your comfort zone and getting stuck into some reading.
http://youtu.be/jafWlyfUabw

Edited October 9, 2016 by lowdown

[Coilte]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1476015401' post='3150423']
Can't be a Jazz gig then.....
[/quote]

It was... They were dancing along to "Moondance".

[dlloyd]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1476015401' post='3150423']
Can't be a Jazz gig then.....
[/quote]

Gypsy swing.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='scalpy' timestamp='1476016415' post='3150434']
I totally get that, I've watched your review videos and a fine player you are, but you're sticking to diatonic or related harmony and a conventional rhythmic vocabulary like most successful players. (This is meant to be a compliment!) That can be reduced with the bass guitar to shifting patterns around the neck. I'm sure you'd monster a 12 blues, and in doing so employ a myriad of basic theory approaches, that when combined allow you your own signature approach. But a lot of it would be your combination of patterns, rhythmic or harmonic that are still patterns. Your intuition may lead to you to creating interesting lines and grooves etc but you'll be using theory implicitly to achieve this. If you weren't, others wouldn't be able to play with you! My point is that musical theory covers rhythm and structure as much as harmony, and a basic understanding is actually an easier conduit to more variety in playing music than relying on instinct or trial and error.
[/quote]


No offence taken :-)

If I'm understanding right, you're suggesting that I unwittingly know a bit more theory than I think I do. If I do, it's subconscious, based on feel and experience, and not setting out to learn it first.

You mention harmony, and that I maybe approach this as a pattern. I dunno - I've listened to - and sung - harmony since I was a kid. I just have a decent feel for it. I never think 'Oh, this is the 3rd...'

Truth is, I just don't hang around exclusively with theory fiends. Plenty of players I know are like me.. we just do it and don't think about it.

(Note: please don't take any of the above as a self-declaration of musical genius. There are scores of potential scenarios that more learned BC'ers would sail through, whereas I'd die on my arse. But those scenarios just don't appeal to me or touch my orbit, so I don't lose sleep over it.)

[Marvin]

Music theory just baffles me after you get past the rudimentary stuff. Modes, for example, complete mystery. Keys, chord tones and some other little bits and bobs is my limit.

But then I've never really been in a situation where knowing any more would have been helpful...other band members would have just looked at me blankly if I'd been asking more in depth stuff. It's a struggle to get guitarists to tell you what chord they're playing let alone anything else.

I wouldn't want the gigs that require a better theory knowledge though, or the ones that require you to read, they just don't interest me. People like what I do, I get the gig. If it ain't broke...

[scalpy]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1476025587' post='3150519']



No offence taken :-)

If I'm understanding right, you're suggesting that I unwittingly know a bit more theory than I think I do. If I do, it's subconscious, based on feel and experience, and not setting out to learn it first.

You mention harmony, and that I maybe approach this as a pattern. I dunno - I've listened to - and sung - harmony since I was a kid. I just have a decent feel for it. I never think 'Oh, this is the 3rd...'

Truth is, I just don't hang around exclusively with theory fiends. Plenty of players I know are like me.. we just do it and don't think about it.

(Note: please don't take any of the above as a self-declaration of musical genius. There are scores of potential scenarios that more learned BC'ers would sail through, whereas I'd die on my arse. But those scenarios just don't appeal to me or touch my orbit, so I don't lose sleep over it.)
[/quote]

Exactly. Unfortunately theory is hijacked by the jazz monsters. I don't play much jazz, and if I do I'm the first to hold my hand and admit it'll be more of a pastiche but I use theory all the time. For instance, I very occasionally get asked to do sessions. In one case the client wanted a Dave Matthews type vibe, so out come the headphones and an hour listening to best ofs etc in the morning, quick page of notes on what type of rhythms are used, any harmonic tricks employed, anything of note really and I've got a concrete go to rather than scrambling around in the dark, learning the tunes note for note and hoping something goes in by osmosis.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='scalpy' timestamp='1476036003' post='3150693']
In one case the client wanted a Dave Matthews type vibe, so out come the headphones and an hour listening to best ofs etc in the morning, quick page of notes on what type of rhythms are used, any harmonic tricks employed, anything of note really and I've got a concrete go to rather than scrambling around in the dark, learning the tunes note for note and hoping something goes in by osmosis.
[/quote]

Absolutely... I'd do something similar, but without the writing it down bit.

[grandad]

Looking at GOD ONLY KNOWS for the first time as a possible instrumental for Jazz quintet with sax and trumpet on lead with guitar, bass and drums for rhythm.

The usual web sources all seem to disagree though with some similarities. This link seems to give an authoritative analysis:

http://www.surfermoon.com/essays/mob1.html

A better knowledge of music theory would allow for a greater understanding of what's going on and how I'm going to figure out a decent bass-line. It's been painfully slow progress to date.

[zbd1960]

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1476033682' post='3150656']
Music theory just baffles me after you get past the rudimentary stuff. Modes, for example, complete mystery. Keys, chord tones and some other little bits and bobs is my limit.

But then I've never really been in a situation where knowing any more would have been helpful...other band members would have just looked at me blankly if I'd been asking more in depth stuff. It's a struggle to get guitarists to tell you what chord they're playing let alone anything else.

I wouldn't want the gigs that require a better theory knowledge though, or the ones that require you to read, they just don't interest me. People like what I do, I get the gig. If it ain't broke...
[/quote]
As someone said earlier in this thread, a lot of theory is much easier if you have a keyboard to hand as it makes things much easier to 'see' as well as hear. I think modes is one of those, since if you play a scale of C, then see and hear what happens as you play a scale starting on each degree of the scale, it becomes really obvious what modes are and how they work.

Agree with the comment about jazz theory 'monsters' - I tend to think it is often excessive and I'm not always sure it's that helpful

[chris_b]

[quote name='zbd1960' timestamp='1476045150' post='3150842']
Agree with the comment about jazz theory 'monsters' - I tend to think it is often excessive and I'm not always sure it's that helpful
[/quote]

You can be Dusty Hill or Adam Clayton if you want to, but "theory monsters" would include James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Wilton Felder, Jaco, Tal Wilkenfeld, Nathan East etc etc.

No matter what you're trying to do, knowing more stuff is always going to make your day easier and better, especially if you're playing a bass.

[BigRedX]

I think that unless all you do is play covers by learning the lines exactly from the original recordings, all of us have more than a little bit of theory under our belts. We just don't always know how to describe what we do know.

I think a lot of it comes down to how the other members of our various bands communicate their musical ideas. As someone who has spent most of their musical life playing music I've written myself or in conjunction with my other band members, my little musical knowledge is exactly enough for what I need to be able to create and play the music that I want to hear.

I don't need to know what key a piece of music is in (and BTW how do you tell whether they key is the major or the minor one that uses the same notes?) and I doubt many of my fellow band members could tell me either, because I can hear the bass line I want to play in my head, and then it's just a question of finding those notes on the fretboard.

Even getting the guitarist to tell me what chords they are playing is often only a portion of the overall musical picture. A lot of the time when I'm playing in a band with more than one melodic instrument, a good deal of the time the contribution of the other instrument(s) will completely change what the actual chords are at any given moment, and sometimes it's my bass contribution that will shift the note emphasis from one chord to a different one - something I find myself doing quite a bit.

I think that because a lot of rock and pop music is written by people who don't always know what they are doing, it has a tendency to either be completely obvious, so obtuse that basic theory will no longer help you out.

[ivansc]

I have taught a lot of bass players but never had a lesson. Just scraped in under the wire with Music O level GCE and only ever needed top be a reader for one gig. And the keyboard player taught me to read after I admitted I had faked it at the audition. Still got the job though!"

Unless you have years and years of experience playing lots of different styles/genres being a reader and knowing your theory is always going to be worth having though.
I count myself lucky to have a really good ear and a good sense of harmonic structure, otherwise I would have been forced to learn to read properly and all that goes along with it very early in my "career" as a player. Happily by the time I got into the sort of gigs where you need the technical side, I could get away with my ear and my experiencve.
Very few people get away with it for long enough to be able to do this. Do the work, guys.