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Music degrees are usually designed to train musicians that can perform, compose, transpose and teach. Playing every scale is a fundamental step in learning to

Music degrees are usually designed to train musicians that can perform, compose, transpose and teach. Playing every scale is a fundamental step in learning to transpose, that is to play music in more than the key you learned it in. It's a necessary step for when a guitar player has learned some piece in say, C major and then they need to perform that piece with a singer that can't physically sing in that key.

williamcotton 3y ago
Luckily for the vast majority of guitarists who don’t know much of any theory there are these magical devices called a capo! And digital keyboards have a transpose by semi-tone feature! It is entirely possible to learn to teach, play, and create new music in many styles without any knowledge of music theory. It’s really hard to get very good at live ensemble music performance without learning some theory as a byproduct of the necessity of communicating with other musicians. It’s really hard to get good at playing singing and playing songs on instruments like the piano or guitar without learning the names of some chords because reading at least chord and lyric sheets will accelerate your learning process. I definitely know guitarists who know basically zero theory but who could hear a song a couple of times and then accompany a singer in any key based on playing by ear and interpreted and performed in a way that the original songwriter couldn’t have been imagined. The entirety of the Nashville music industry is based around a notation system called the Nashville notation. 1s, 5s, diamonds, bars. The keys are left out and depend on which singer is recording with the band. Five note scales, bends, and capos and you’re talking about half of the popular recorded music in the USA in the 20th century, from rock to blues and country and everything in between.
- ludston 3y ago
  Playing with a capo sounds different to playing without one, and digital keyboards don't sound the same as acoustic instruments. Sure you might make a career as a musician playing everything by ear, and there is nothing wrong with that. But a university trained viola player can join an orchestra, be handed violin sheet music and then perform having never heard or practiced the music before. You don't really need to go do a degree in music at all if your only goal is performance and you have intuitive aptitude, but if your plan is to teach, you're going to be a pretty awful teacher if you only can teach students to ape your specific methodology rather than being able to introduce them to the lingua franca that most musicians are using.
  - watwut 3y ago
    I could be handed piano sheet music and play it straight away in elementary school. It is not that hard to read sheet music and it does not require scales which I never bothered to learn. I was not some kind of prodigy either. It is just that if you play enough, music sheet becomes like normal reading - you just know what is written there. The rest is manual dexterity. Ability to play from the sheet without preparation if completely orthogonal to anything in this thread. Especially to ability to play all the scales in all variations to the perfection for the practice test.
    - ludston 3y ago
      Musicians need to know the sharps and flats in different keys in order to transpose, and musicians need to be able to play something they have rehearsed accurately, and musicians need to be able to play all across a large range. Testing scales tests all of these things, and more simultaneously. I fail to see the problem. If you're as good at sight-reading as you say, you can just read the scales off the sheet music and play them all perfectly the first time, so what's the problem?
      - watwut 3y ago
        Like, none of what you wrote here has nothing whatsoever with the actual concrete practice test this particular guitarist complained about. Testing scales does not test any of these, actually. It is just absurd to claim that playing scales at practice test is done in order to test how you play "something you have rehearsed accurately" or "ability to transpose". > If you're as good at sight-reading as you say, you can just read the scales off the sheet music and play them all perfectly the first time, so what's the problem? So basically, you do not know anything about the test the guitarist complained about.
      - toast0 3y ago
        > Musicians need to know the sharps and flats in different keys in order to transpose > Testing scales tests all of these things I don't see how testing scales tests knowing the sharps and flats really. If you're playing all the (major) scales on a string instrument, it's all about starting on the right note, and then doing the scale pattern: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. On a guitar, half is one fret and whole is two, and you need to know how to jump to the next string if you don't want to just walk the length of the fretboard. I've never played a wind instrument, but I understand those tend to be tuned to play in certain keys and it can be akward to play in others, and keyboards are setup for c-major, so it takes some practice to get the sense of where the whole and half tones are for other keys, but the example of guitar is not hard. If you can play guitar and have a week to practice it, you should be able to play any major/minor scale on demand. If you can play the scale, you can probably take the time and think the sharps and flats, but that doesn't really mean you know them, IMHO.
watwut 3y ago
The quitarist in question was looking for soloist career, so singer wont be an issue. Plus, it is not exactly as if he ever needed to do that quickly on the fly. He does not need to know when all in all variations for that either. Being able to understand and look up scales in that unique situation is useful, but that does not require being able to "play all scales in all keys with all possible variations of articulation for his practical." I am not saying that school does not have right to put in such task, but I am saying that it 100% makes sense that student does not like it. And second, it is not like you would pass practical just by knowing which notes and chords are in it. You need to play in tempo, with accents and all that jazz. It does require training even if you know exactly what you are supposed to do. Except that this training is brain dead boring.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  I disagree. One can read without knowing how to recite the abc’s (ie alphabetic order), sure. But anybody that is a competent reader will have little problem learning the abc’s if they were forced to recite it for a test. You claim to be a competent musician who doesn’t know scales. I can imagine half-diminished and other intermediate level stuff being non-essential but at the very least major and minor scale knowledge is needed to read music. Being able to sight read implies playing in all keys, which requires knowing the major/minor scales.

williamcotton 3y ago

Luckily for the vast majority of guitarists who don’t know much of any theory there are these magical devices called a capo! And digital keyboards have a transpose by semi-tone feature! It is entirely possible to learn to teach, play, and create new music in many styles without any knowledge of music theory. It’s really hard to get very good at live ensemble music performance without learning some theory as a byproduct of the necessity of communicating with other musicians. It’s really hard to get good at playing singing and playing songs on instruments like the piano or guitar without learning the names of some chords because reading at least chord and lyric sheets will accelerate your learning process. I definitely know guitarists who know basically zero theory but who could hear a song a couple of times and then accompany a singer in any key based on playing by ear and interpreted and performed in a way that the original songwriter couldn’t have been imagined. The entirety of the Nashville music industry is based around a notation system called the Nashville notation. 1s, 5s, diamonds, bars. The keys are left out and depend on which singer is recording with the band. Five note scales, bends, and capos and you’re talking about half of the popular recorded music in the USA in the 20th century, from rock to blues and country and everything in between.

ludston 3y ago
Playing with a capo sounds different to playing without one, and digital keyboards don't sound the same as acoustic instruments. Sure you might make a career as a musician playing everything by ear, and there is nothing wrong with that. But a university trained viola player can join an orchestra, be handed violin sheet music and then perform having never heard or practiced the music before. You don't really need to go do a degree in music at all if your only goal is performance and you have intuitive aptitude, but if your plan is to teach, you're going to be a pretty awful teacher if you only can teach students to ape your specific methodology rather than being able to introduce them to the lingua franca that most musicians are using.
- watwut 3y ago
  I could be handed piano sheet music and play it straight away in elementary school. It is not that hard to read sheet music and it does not require scales which I never bothered to learn. I was not some kind of prodigy either. It is just that if you play enough, music sheet becomes like normal reading - you just know what is written there. The rest is manual dexterity. Ability to play from the sheet without preparation if completely orthogonal to anything in this thread. Especially to ability to play all the scales in all variations to the perfection for the practice test.
  - ludston 3y ago
    Musicians need to know the sharps and flats in different keys in order to transpose, and musicians need to be able to play something they have rehearsed accurately, and musicians need to be able to play all across a large range. Testing scales tests all of these things, and more simultaneously. I fail to see the problem. If you're as good at sight-reading as you say, you can just read the scales off the sheet music and play them all perfectly the first time, so what's the problem?
    - watwut 3y ago
      Like, none of what you wrote here has nothing whatsoever with the actual concrete practice test this particular guitarist complained about. Testing scales does not test any of these, actually. It is just absurd to claim that playing scales at practice test is done in order to test how you play "something you have rehearsed accurately" or "ability to transpose". > If you're as good at sight-reading as you say, you can just read the scales off the sheet music and play them all perfectly the first time, so what's the problem? So basically, you do not know anything about the test the guitarist complained about.
    - toast0 3y ago
      > Musicians need to know the sharps and flats in different keys in order to transpose > Testing scales tests all of these things I don't see how testing scales tests knowing the sharps and flats really. If you're playing all the (major) scales on a string instrument, it's all about starting on the right note, and then doing the scale pattern: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. On a guitar, half is one fret and whole is two, and you need to know how to jump to the next string if you don't want to just walk the length of the fretboard. I've never played a wind instrument, but I understand those tend to be tuned to play in certain keys and it can be akward to play in others, and keyboards are setup for c-major, so it takes some practice to get the sense of where the whole and half tones are for other keys, but the example of guitar is not hard. If you can play guitar and have a week to practice it, you should be able to play any major/minor scale on demand. If you can play the scale, you can probably take the time and think the sharps and flats, but that doesn't really mean you know them, IMHO.

watwut 3y ago

The quitarist in question was looking for soloist career, so singer wont be an issue. Plus, it is not exactly as if he ever needed to do that quickly on the fly. He does not need to know when all in all variations for that either. Being able to understand and look up scales in that unique situation is useful, but that does not require being able to "play all scales in all keys with all possible variations of articulation for his practical." I am not saying that school does not have right to put in such task, but I am saying that it 100% makes sense that student does not like it. And second, it is not like you would pass practical just by knowing which notes and chords are in it. You need to play in tempo, with accents and all that jazz. It does require training even if you know exactly what you are supposed to do. Except that this training is brain dead boring.

2devnull 3y ago
I disagree. One can read without knowing how to recite the abc’s (ie alphabetic order), sure. But anybody that is a competent reader will have little problem learning the abc’s if they were forced to recite it for a test. You claim to be a competent musician who doesn’t know scales. I can imagine half-diminished and other intermediate level stuff being non-essential but at the very least major and minor scale knowledge is needed to read music. Being able to sight read implies playing in all keys, which requires knowing the major/minor scales.