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Reevaluating the Way I Learn Guitar


Soul Eater

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Posted

Hello everyone :wave:.

I've been playing guitar for just over 2 years now and am basically self taught. All I've ever really done is learn some techniques and a mountain of my favorite guitar licks. That's great and fun and all, but I can't do anything but play other people's music.

 

I've looked into learning theory but it's intimidating how much/how in depth it is.

I'm not necessarily interested in reading music, but being able to understand what I play and how to create my own songs.

 

Please excuse me if this has been covered elsewhere; I looked in the stickies with no results so I figures I'd make a thread.

 

TL;DR: Could you point me in the direction where I should start learning guitar beyond tabs?

Thanks for the interest. :thu:

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Posted

Music theory is actually really really easy. There's a limited amount of stuff you need to know, especially if you don't want to play anything more complicated than pop/rock.

If you want to learn basic theory just get some kind of rudiments book and read or work through it.

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Posted

I found this site a few days ago. I've decided I want to get lessons off this guy eventually when I can afford it. His main premise is that you need clear goals when you are learning guitar, that is how you improve (and learn to write songs).:

 

http://tomhess.net/CorrespondenceGuitarLessons.aspx

 

Read this, might help: http://tomhess.net/Articles/11DamagingMistakesGuitarPlayersMake.aspx

 

or you can get harmony lessons for free here:

 

http://spytunes.com/practice-guitar.html

 

or

 

just good lessons from:

 

http://www.justinguitar.com

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Posted
Hello everyone
:wave:
.

I've been playing guitar for just over 2 years now and am basically self taught. All I've ever really done is learn some techniques and a mountain of my favorite guitar licks. That's great and fun and all, but I can't do anything but play other people's music.


I've looked into learning theory but it's intimidating how much/how in depth it is.

I'm not necessarily interested in reading music, but being able to understand what I play and how to create my own songs.


Please excuse me if this has been covered elsewhere; I looked in the stickies with no results so I figures I'd make a thread.


TL;DR: Could you point me in the direction where I should start learning guitar beyond tabs?

Thanks for the interest.
:thu:



Personally I believe that when you feel you have no direction, what you really need is a teacher. But I also know that most people feel like they don't have the money (when young) or don't have the time (when older) for that, and strongly want to remain self-taught and self-organized.

So my next suggestion is just to form/join a band. If you've studied mostly technique and licks, it is possible that you have quite neglected whole songs. Playing in a band will focus your efforts towards real applications of what you've studied, and will move you from being a guitar student to being a guitar player, which should be everyone's purpose. This will probably be very useful because it will force you to learn not just "licks" and solos, which are cool and fun but are not so central in songwriting (they are important but they come after the song itself), but instead it will presumably move your attention towards rhythmic part, riffs, chords, arpeggios and any guitar arrangements. These skills, as you start gathering many of them, are in my opinion much more powerful songwriting tools than lead guitar riffs and techniques. But it's understandable that many guitar student (particularly in their beginning years) overlook them; having a purpose (your band's covers to learn from start to finish) will make it so that you cannot avoid them.

Once you have a band, you can also start trying to write your own songs, but it will be much better and much easier (at your stage at least) to have other people to co-write such songs, and inspire each other. It's a big burden to write and arrange all by yourself. And there is no other way to learn songwriting, than just throw yourself into doing it. Just be prepared for the worst outcome, i.e. start assuming that your first few songs will cost a lot of effort and end up sucking hard, so that you won't be disappointed and tempted to quit it.

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Posted

Music theory is actually really really easy. There's a limited amount of stuff you need to know, especially if you don't want to play anything more complicated than pop/rock.

 

 

I absolutely agree. Theory concepts are but a few. The huge problem is that it's hard to find a book or a teacher that presents theory in its simplicity.

 

Every teacher I know that teaches theory to beginners follows the same pattern: they start teaching basic chords and either the pentatonics or the major and minor scale, then they introduce more chords and more scales, then talk about modes... To the student, this makes theory look like a huge mountain of chords, scales and other stuff that somehow works but will take a lifetime to climb.

 

This is almost like someone would teach chemistry by teaching you one chemical element or chemical compound at a time, of which there are thousands of thousands, instead of teaching you the laws by which atoms link into molecules.

 

The laws of music theory are really a few (there is in fact quite a bunch of advanced concepts which are really just a re-mix of the basic ones, but here I'm talking about the theory that 99% of musicians live well with), a good teacher can make you learn them in a few evenings. Only from that point onward, the real work is to get experienced with the sound (i.e. application) of more and more material (chords, scales...) so that you are quicker to find the appropriate one when you need it; this is indeed a neverending process, but before you've studied the concepts, the material itself can only be used in a mechanical, blindfold way.

 

So what should you do to learn the concepts first? Find someone good at it (if not a teacher, a friend who's made music for a long time, possibly someone with some academical studies done) to explain it to you, but let it not be a guitarist. The guitarist will most likely take you once again through the pattern of teaching you major and minor chords and their inversions, penatonics, then 7th chords etc... The non-guitarist (e.g. a pianist, a saxophonist) will not be able to do those on the guitar and can only teach you the real concepts.

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Posted

The laws of music theory are really a few, a good teacher can make you learn them in a few evenings.


The non-guitarist (e.g. a pianist, a saxophonist) will not be able to do those on the guitar and can only teach you the real concepts.

 

 

Could you name them for me so I could look everything up?

 

I have a tough time on guitar lesson websites because there's oftentimes a ton of categories and lesson names, and I don't know where to start.

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Posted

Some good answers here.

 

I have said it before and i will keep saying it because I believe it to be true. Take one on one theory lessons - not guitar lessons - theory lessons. This can be taught by any available musician qualified.

 

Tell them you want to do your theory levels 1 and 2.

 

Theory is quite easy IF you have someone to answer your immediate questions. Trying to learn this online will create a splintered learning. If you really care take the time and make the investment in yourself as a musician. If you dont really care dont bother.

 

This single step was a critical stage in my understanding. With those basics covered you have the ability to teach yourself how to implement those newly learned concepts so that they get in. More importantly when people on forums such as this start talking theory your eyes no longer glaze over. You will at very least have a root level understanding of the conversation - it will no longer be overwhelmingly confusing.

 

Not to be a goof but I expect the usual responses:

 

"I have no money"

"I have no time"

"I have no car"

 

As I said in the past all three of these statements applied to me when I did this (I was around 17ish when i did this)

 

It is a question of how much you want to invest in your guitar playing. For me my need to overcome this hurdle made the inconvenience of it all rather insignificant.

 

Good luck bro!

 

P.S. joining a band is a must for any musician - do that by any means necessary.

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Posted

 

This is almost like someone would teach chemistry by teaching you one chemical element or chemical compound at a time, of which there are thousands of thousands, instead of teaching you the laws by which atoms link into molecules.

 

 

LOL as a one time chemist I can see your point. The easy way to learn about chemistry involves learning about atoms, how the various atoms behave and interact (based on their valences) - then put some together and you can start to see how the characteristics of the individual atoms are projected / reinforced / modified by the functional group.

 

So in musical terms (in my perspective) the notes of the scales are the atoms (each with it's own personality / characteristics based on it's function / degree within the scale), the chords are the functional groups.

 

I agree that music theory in and of itself is extremely simple, but the ramifications of those simple rules and the complexity those simple notes can be combined in various ways in the various keys lead to a vast array of permutations that seem almost chessic in their number. So how best to teach this simplicity?

 

Personally, I'm a firm believer in learning and teaching from the functional perspective - why things work the way they do (from the tendencies of note movement through functional chord pairings to progressions and cadences). Leaving the specifics of various keys up to the student once they are so hopelessly hooked on theory that they can imagine nothing less.

 

But the problem seems to be that to see things in terms of function (in actual songs), one needs to be conversant with the various keys (in order to be able to see the same functional groups being used over and over again - just in different keys). If we follow this though - then the student is lead into 12+ key study which seems to be the kiss of death for most initiates. It's this steep learning curve - the price of admission if you will - that in large part keep so many away from the study of theory.

 

On the other hand, for the student that just jumps in and has the tenacity to struggle through learning all the keys and all the chord spellings (all the while gaining minimal apparent practical knowledge) - the payoff is fast and huge as music theory becomes as simple as it really is. In real life this student is progressing quickly - but the payoff is nearly at the end. Most student seem to need something to "hang their hat on", little measurable successes to keep their spirits up along the way.

 

cheers,

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Posted

Use the link Virgman gave you and study intervals.

Addendum:

Do not go anywhere else.

Study only the concept of intervals, until you understand it.

Send Virgman a Christmas card next Christmas :).

Other than that................do what many do..........seriously surf theory sites! You will soon get the vocab and the essence. It's all cherry-pie easy.
There is a logic to music theory, but it isn't immediately obvious.

Make notes as you surf. And remember..............

Our western music....rock, jazz, blues, country, middle-of-the-road, pop, classical and lots more.........is based on: (surf on these keywords)


equal temperament;

major scale.


The process of the equal temperament of the musical overtones produced by striking divisions of a string gives us the twelve notes of a musical key. From these twelve notes, the western musical "powers that be" (mainly the church, until Bach started kickin' ass as something of a rebel) eventually agreed, over many, many years, to settle for the....

MAJOR SCALE

as the basis for most things musical.

This is so easy to understand, it defies belief. Just find the right site for you. The more you seek, the more you'll find!

If you plan to study theory, you may as well start with the rock-bottom basics.

They happen to be qute interesting in their own right, even if one never had any intention to play any music.


PS: stay with Mike Dodge..........there's little if anything on the web done better.

A personal favourite of mine is:

www.jacmuse.com

but beware...you might end up staying there for a long time! The author is Joe Craig.

Mike and Joe.......all you'll ever need to know!

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Posted

Just to continue...........

So we have the major scale.

Happy, bright, optimistic.

Flat (move down one fret) a few notes of that scale, and we have the minor scale.

Brooding, darker and moodier, in its musical feel.


STOP RIGHT HERE!

The study of theory outlines how one can produce different musical feelings, from one's emotional interpretation of the sounds heard.

It's like the lottery.....with twelve notes at our disposal, there are countless ways to play around with notes.

Start by playing major and minor scales, and try to use them in a musical way....various rhythms, various note lengths....you know, like music. Little tunes.

Once you get a feel for the difference..........you've cracked it! Any further playing around with the notes of a major scale simply produces more nuances along similar lines to the difference between major and minor.

Try choosing any five notes of the twelve..........then mess about until you get something musical out of them. The result could range from the weird to the really weird, or could, by chance, sound quite palatable in a general musical way.

Some musicians abandon traditional theory altogether. If I had a choice between going to a party of theirs, and to one where the guests would be listening to Lady Gaga, I would go to the latter (alcohol-provision assumed :)).

Music theory makes sense gradually......just stick at it and be patient. To understand it requires no magical talent - just a brain and a desire to learn it.

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