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I strongly disagree. What you're suggesting leads to really mediocre practice and that in the long run will get people to give up because they've reached a plat

I strongly disagree. What you're suggesting leads to really mediocre practice and that in the long run will get people to give up because they've reached a plateau they set upon themselves without realizing it. Your teachers know and understand stuff you're years away from grasping as a beginner. Its not about being "professional" but rather having the proper foundations upon which you can build knowledge and muscle memory. Its about spending the least amount of effort at any point in your practice so it becomes actually effective. Its about having a logical progression where each new concept adds up to existing knowledge (music theory is VERY well structured in that regard.) I personally dread that new crop of teachers using MIDI/apps to teach music. This is anything but teaching music - its teaching MIDI and apps. You dont learn to ride a bike by downloading an app or playing "bike simulator" - its just obvious. Saying "endless learning of grammar" and other forms of "oh god, I have to put in effort?!" mentalities show off a very shallow understanding of the domain - this is what you expect a teenager to say when looking at his courses because he's years away from understanding why they're useful. Sorry to sound harsh but its just how it comes out as.

theobon 10y ago
The people you are talking about giving up when they plateau are likely the same people that would have given up when forced to learn the grammar. The net result is a similar number of people at the higher level but the people at the beginner level have more ability to generate music. Down the road an ability to bang off a tune at a party is far more useful to a beginner than knowledge of music theory. Makes people happier too!
- jeremiep 10y ago
  One doesn't prevent the other! I was lucky that my music teachers found it important for us to both learn theory every week, but also a complete song matching our skills level. So while we'd have scales and chords to practice, we'd also have songs to play at parties and whatnot from the beginning. What I didn't realize at the time is that practicing chords and scales not only builds knowledge of how notes sounds and relate to each other, it also builds muscle memory and makes you play with less and less effort until it becomes effortless. At which point the songs you learned really, really start to shine. Its easy to dismiss practice as boring and "only for professionals" but once you start seeing what it yields you realize it is incredibly important to any musician. Much like reading a book from an author who understands grammar and has a large vocabulary is a much richer experience than reading a book from someone who hasn't put the effort in learning it all. Not only that, understanding the grammar makes you appreciate the works of others on a much deeper level. Same goes for understanding music theory - it improves your listening experience.
xraystyle 10y ago
I had two of the world's worst piano teachers as a young kid. Everything was exactly the boring nonsense in the parent comment. There was honestly more focus on posture than on actually making sound come out of the piano. The songs I had to learn were obscure classical pieces. It was all so horrifically boring, and GOD FORBID if I ever just sat down at the piano and played around, making sound that interested me or trying to replicate something I heard on the radio. That was "unstructured time" on the instrument and was counterproductive to "real" practice. I absolutely hated every single second of it, and finally quit in a huge blowout fight with my mom when I was about 9 years old, and just refused to keep playing. As a teenager, I taught myself to play bass, and spent my 20's playing in bands, working in music, touring and all that good stuff. I still play bass and guitar constantly and I've never had any formal instruction in either instrument, but honestly I really wish I had kept playing the piano. The problem was, the way kids are taught, the same way I was, seems designed to make it as repellent as humanly possible. It would be so easy to make piano interesting, and more importantly, FUN to practice and play, but the old-school approach, making kids play garbage they have no interest in, yelling at them over and over about sitting up straight, is the worst possible way to go about it.
- jeremiep 10y ago
  That pretty much sums up what I said earlier: your teachers know and understand things you're years away from grasping. They don't put you through all that out of some perverted wish to make you suffer. They do because they know what's at the other end of that practice. I do agree not all teachers are good teachers (if you get yelled at, you DEFINITELY have a mediocre teacher) - teaching is first and foremost about transmitting a passion, then explaining the theory which holds it up. And in order to do so you've got to figure out what your student's interests are.
  - xraystyle 10y ago
    But see, that's the point I'm trying to make. Having the benefit of hindsight as someone who actually went on to recording records and regularly playing live in front of paying audiences, my teachers were focused on ENTIRELY the wrong things. You get people interested in the instrument first by giving them a taste of how they can actually play things they like. Let them explore and have fun. Point out problems they might have with technique, but do it within the framework of getting them where THEY want to be, playing what THEY want to play. Don't force focus on theory and reading sheet music. When you're a kid who just wants to play something cool that shit is boring and it sucks. Once you get a handle on the instrument and really get passionate about it the theory end starts to become interesting on its own. Seriously, these teachers didn't know a damn thing I don't know now, and there's a much better way to go about this.
woah 10y ago
I think you're mistaking technical virtuosity and hand-eye coordination for musical talent. There's nothing wrong with being an accomplished concert pianist, but most people learning probably just want to be able to play a half-decent melody on a midi controller and lay a sick beat on it. And if you're going to say that that's not worthy, you're getting into the comparative judging of genres, which is just silly.
- jeremiep 10y ago
  I didn't talk about virtuosity and talent, I talked about learning. What you learn is completely independent of musical genres, technical difficulty or even talent. Its the foundation which allows you to reason about these things and build all your knowledge and experiences upon. Even the guy wanting a half decent melody on a midi controller needs to understand to some degree the relations between those notes, both in melodic and harmonic terms. Otherwise the best he can do is hit random notes and hope it sounds good then wondering why it does sound good and being unable to apply that to different situations. If I never learn how to write, how am I going to produce an essay?
  - derefr 10y ago
    > Otherwise the best he can do is hit random notes and hope it sounds good then wondering why it does sound good ...and then experimenting with short snatches of melody in the attempt to replicate the effect under different conditions, gradually reinventing music theory themselves; and then coming later in life to the study that gives names to the library of intuitions they've built, finally being able to talk about them with people—but happy that they did in fact build the intuition first rather than just carrying around the bulky handles to the concepts without first seeing the use. Or maybe that's just me.
    - jeremiep 10y ago
      I find that theory helps you reach intuition much, much faster for whats already out there, and then you're equipped to reach out into truly new areas. Its the same for engineering - if you don't read the existing work in the space of the problem you're trying to solve, chances are you'll spend years doing what could've taken weeks.

theobon 10y ago

The people you are talking about giving up when they plateau are likely the same people that would have given up when forced to learn the grammar. The net result is a similar number of people at the higher level but the people at the beginner level have more ability to generate music. Down the road an ability to bang off a tune at a party is far more useful to a beginner than knowledge of music theory. Makes people happier too!

jeremiep 10y ago
One doesn't prevent the other! I was lucky that my music teachers found it important for us to both learn theory every week, but also a complete song matching our skills level. So while we'd have scales and chords to practice, we'd also have songs to play at parties and whatnot from the beginning. What I didn't realize at the time is that practicing chords and scales not only builds knowledge of how notes sounds and relate to each other, it also builds muscle memory and makes you play with less and less effort until it becomes effortless. At which point the songs you learned really, really start to shine. Its easy to dismiss practice as boring and "only for professionals" but once you start seeing what it yields you realize it is incredibly important to any musician. Much like reading a book from an author who understands grammar and has a large vocabulary is a much richer experience than reading a book from someone who hasn't put the effort in learning it all. Not only that, understanding the grammar makes you appreciate the works of others on a much deeper level. Same goes for understanding music theory - it improves your listening experience.

xraystyle 10y ago

I had two of the world's worst piano teachers as a young kid. Everything was exactly the boring nonsense in the parent comment. There was honestly more focus on posture than on actually making sound come out of the piano. The songs I had to learn were obscure classical pieces. It was all so horrifically boring, and GOD FORBID if I ever just sat down at the piano and played around, making sound that interested me or trying to replicate something I heard on the radio. That was "unstructured time" on the instrument and was counterproductive to "real" practice. I absolutely hated every single second of it, and finally quit in a huge blowout fight with my mom when I was about 9 years old, and just refused to keep playing. As a teenager, I taught myself to play bass, and spent my 20's playing in bands, working in music, touring and all that good stuff. I still play bass and guitar constantly and I've never had any formal instruction in either instrument, but honestly I really wish I had kept playing the piano. The problem was, the way kids are taught, the same way I was, seems designed to make it as repellent as humanly possible. It would be so easy to make piano interesting, and more importantly, FUN to practice and play, but the old-school approach, making kids play garbage they have no interest in, yelling at them over and over about sitting up straight, is the worst possible way to go about it.

jeremiep 10y ago
That pretty much sums up what I said earlier: your teachers know and understand things you're years away from grasping. They don't put you through all that out of some perverted wish to make you suffer. They do because they know what's at the other end of that practice. I do agree not all teachers are good teachers (if you get yelled at, you DEFINITELY have a mediocre teacher) - teaching is first and foremost about transmitting a passion, then explaining the theory which holds it up. And in order to do so you've got to figure out what your student's interests are.
- xraystyle 10y ago
  But see, that's the point I'm trying to make. Having the benefit of hindsight as someone who actually went on to recording records and regularly playing live in front of paying audiences, my teachers were focused on ENTIRELY the wrong things. You get people interested in the instrument first by giving them a taste of how they can actually play things they like. Let them explore and have fun. Point out problems they might have with technique, but do it within the framework of getting them where THEY want to be, playing what THEY want to play. Don't force focus on theory and reading sheet music. When you're a kid who just wants to play something cool that shit is boring and it sucks. Once you get a handle on the instrument and really get passionate about it the theory end starts to become interesting on its own. Seriously, these teachers didn't know a damn thing I don't know now, and there's a much better way to go about this.

woah 10y ago

I think you're mistaking technical virtuosity and hand-eye coordination for musical talent. There's nothing wrong with being an accomplished concert pianist, but most people learning probably just want to be able to play a half-decent melody on a midi controller and lay a sick beat on it. And if you're going to say that that's not worthy, you're getting into the comparative judging of genres, which is just silly.

jeremiep 10y ago
I didn't talk about virtuosity and talent, I talked about learning. What you learn is completely independent of musical genres, technical difficulty or even talent. Its the foundation which allows you to reason about these things and build all your knowledge and experiences upon. Even the guy wanting a half decent melody on a midi controller needs to understand to some degree the relations between those notes, both in melodic and harmonic terms. Otherwise the best he can do is hit random notes and hope it sounds good then wondering why it does sound good and being unable to apply that to different situations. If I never learn how to write, how am I going to produce an essay?
- derefr 10y ago
  > Otherwise the best he can do is hit random notes and hope it sounds good then wondering why it does sound good ...and then experimenting with short snatches of melody in the attempt to replicate the effect under different conditions, gradually reinventing music theory themselves; and then coming later in life to the study that gives names to the library of intuitions they've built, finally being able to talk about them with people—but happy that they did in fact build the intuition first rather than just carrying around the bulky handles to the concepts without first seeing the use. Or maybe that's just me.
  - jeremiep 10y ago
    I find that theory helps you reach intuition much, much faster for whats already out there, and then you're equipped to reach out into truly new areas. Its the same for engineering - if you don't read the existing work in the space of the problem you're trying to solve, chances are you'll spend years doing what could've taken weeks.