4 ms·

> You have to hear and feel the theory, it's not only intellectual. This is the most important part, for sure. The theory needs to get into your body. I'd als

> You have to hear and feel the theory, it's not only intellectual. This is the most important part, for sure. The theory needs to get into your body. I'd also suggest to the OP to find a teacher that specializes in jazz, because the practice of improvisation requires you to embody that theory. A good teacher that focuses on improvisation will help you navigate through all the different building blocks you need, which happens to be theory. I studied your typical classical piano as a kid, abandoned it in college, and later in life came back to it with a jazz improvisation teacher. It's amazing how little you actually learn about music when all you're doing is reading sheet music as a kid. Now when I go back to play, say, Bach, I can see so many other things going on since I've spent so much time hearing and feeling the improv theory. There's also a great YouTube channel I've been watching, based around the teaching theory of Barry Harris: https://www.youtube.com/@thingsivelearnedfrombarryh2616 https://www.youtube.com/@thingsivelearnedfrombarryh2616

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
> It's amazing how little you actually learn about music when all you're doing is reading sheet music as a kid. I would add that historically, most musicians did not read music or theorize. They were practitioners who picked up the skill by listening to others, practicing, and improvising. Improvisation was what historically characterized musicianship, not theory, not sight-reading. As the philosophical joke goes: anything you can do I can do meta. Theory is about music; it is not the practice of music. You can learn as much theory as you want, but theory is not practice. Theory can, of course, later sharpen or lead you to certain insights that can shape the music you produce, but practice is what produces facility, familiarity, and understanding, whereas theorizing produces knowledge. Learning theory too early is a pedagogic mistake. By analogy, consider speech. You don't begin to speak by learning grammar first. You begin by practicing. Only later can some knowledge of grammar help, perhaps. The way you become good at speaking is by practicing, and what is speech if not some combination of recitation and improvisation? Reading is entirely incidental and secondary.
- mtalantikite 4y ago
  Totally agree. The practice is what's important. My teacher won't let you look at sheet music for songs at first, he'll make you listen to Donna Lee 1000 times, sing it and work it out yourself before you check your work with the sheet music. Which reminds me of an anecdote in Hampton Hawes' autobiogrophy [1] where some famous teacher convinces him to take a lesson, after which Hampton writes he didn't really care for all of that theory stuff, he learned from playing with people like Mingus and Charlie Parker. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes
  - analog31 4y ago
    I'm a jazz musician, and have likewise learned very little theory. On the other hand, there is a lot of attrition in jazz, so watch out for survivor bias. And it depends on what you want to do. Everybody I know who is active in composition and arrangement is fluent in theory. Being able to create original material is super cool and valuable. And there were certainly theory experts among the greats.
    - mtalantikite 4y ago
      Oh absolutely, there's always the anecdotes of Coltrane carrying around Slonimsky's thesaurus, or George Russel claiming Miles used his lydian chromatic concept. But personally I find none of it really makes much sense until I sit down with the theory and practice it on my instrument. Memorizing theory with flash cards, like the OP mentioned, I don't find to be all that helpful.
- jdiez17 4y ago
  Your last point is one of my long-standing pet-peeves about language teaching methods. It seems the universally accepted practice is to give students mountains of vocabulary to study, grammar rules that make no sense, and a little bit of speaking practice. It is no wonder that native speakers of language X have a characteristic accent when speaking in a different language. When they try to read a word in the foreign language, they default to their native language's pronunciation heuristics. That is completely backwards from how children learn languages. They are exposed to the sounds and intuitively figure out the rest.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

> It's amazing how little you actually learn about music when all you're doing is reading sheet music as a kid. I would add that historically, most musicians did not read music or theorize. They were practitioners who picked up the skill by listening to others, practicing, and improvising. Improvisation was what historically characterized musicianship, not theory, not sight-reading. As the philosophical joke goes: anything you can do I can do meta. Theory is about music; it is not the practice of music. You can learn as much theory as you want, but theory is not practice. Theory can, of course, later sharpen or lead you to certain insights that can shape the music you produce, but practice is what produces facility, familiarity, and understanding, whereas theorizing produces knowledge. Learning theory too early is a pedagogic mistake. By analogy, consider speech. You don't begin to speak by learning grammar first. You begin by practicing. Only later can some knowledge of grammar help, perhaps. The way you become good at speaking is by practicing, and what is speech if not some combination of recitation and improvisation? Reading is entirely incidental and secondary.

mtalantikite 4y ago
Totally agree. The practice is what's important. My teacher won't let you look at sheet music for songs at first, he'll make you listen to Donna Lee 1000 times, sing it and work it out yourself before you check your work with the sheet music. Which reminds me of an anecdote in Hampton Hawes' autobiogrophy [1] where some famous teacher convinces him to take a lesson, after which Hampton writes he didn't really care for all of that theory stuff, he learned from playing with people like Mingus and Charlie Parker. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes
- analog31 4y ago
  I'm a jazz musician, and have likewise learned very little theory. On the other hand, there is a lot of attrition in jazz, so watch out for survivor bias. And it depends on what you want to do. Everybody I know who is active in composition and arrangement is fluent in theory. Being able to create original material is super cool and valuable. And there were certainly theory experts among the greats.
  - mtalantikite 4y ago
    Oh absolutely, there's always the anecdotes of Coltrane carrying around Slonimsky's thesaurus, or George Russel claiming Miles used his lydian chromatic concept. But personally I find none of it really makes much sense until I sit down with the theory and practice it on my instrument. Memorizing theory with flash cards, like the OP mentioned, I don't find to be all that helpful.
jdiez17 4y ago
Your last point is one of my long-standing pet-peeves about language teaching methods. It seems the universally accepted practice is to give students mountains of vocabulary to study, grammar rules that make no sense, and a little bit of speaking practice. It is no wonder that native speakers of language X have a characteristic accent when speaking in a different language. When they try to read a word in the foreign language, they default to their native language's pronunciation heuristics. That is completely backwards from how children learn languages. They are exposed to the sounds and intuitively figure out the rest.