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I think it's worth mentioning that theory need not be learned in a formal setting. I, like practically every guitarist, followed the same learning pattern. Ear
by thomastjeffery 10y ago
I think it's worth mentioning that theory need not be learned in a formal setting.
I, like practically every guitarist, followed the same learning pattern. Early on, I learned the pentatonic scale, so my noodling was more structured. Later on, I learned about scales and modes. Those two elegantly simple constructs are the most useful, extensible points of knowledge I learned, but I learned then from friends, and even from the internet.
To contrast, through high school, I learned scales, and a lot of theory. I was forced to practice specific aspects of performance, learned about breathing, embouchure, sight reading, etc. I learned how to have a good ear, and work together with the rest of the band.
The only things I learned from formal education, that I likely couldn't reproduce independently, were physical. Things like breathing, embouchure, etc. This, I believe, is where the analogy falls apart. In music, especially as a performance art, most of what you do is physical. That simply is not the case with software. Everything I learned about programming, I learned on my own. I learned theory and implementation. I learned several languages. I learned how to interface with the operating system.
Programming is not a performance art; in fact, it is the opposite. The computer is the performer. You are the composer. The most wonderful aspect of writing is that it is only information, and with the internet, information is really available, no matter what setting, formal or not.
- cyberferret 10y agoYes - I think to expand upon my post above and your excellent reply, it all boils down to "context matters". I think learning theory and concepts (in both guitar playing and programming) is far more interesting to me when applied to 'real world' situations. Basically, instead of learning and memorising the various keywords of, say, SQL, if you gave a student a dataset with several tables and thousands of rows of data and said - "Now extract X for me from these tables", then they will see that there are several ways of doing so, with different benefits and downsides. Similarly, if you gave a guitarist an unusual chord progression with, say a diminished or minor chord in the mix and said "Work out a solo that sounds good over that", then there will be some interesting learning in there without having to memorise every single scale that they could use. Many ways of coming up with a solution to the problem. Another anecdote that relates to my favoured method of learning - When I was in high school, I disliked trigonometry, and never really got to grips with soulless diagrams and charts on the page. But when I graduated and went to flying school, and had to learn spherical trigonometry (several fiendish levels harder than standard trig) in the context of learning navigation on a globe, I absolutely fell in love with it, and indeed I think the first time I ever got 100% in a maths test was in one of my first spherical trig classes at flight school.