Re: Is advanced music theory really required at all for rock/metal guitar?
well, I agree with you and that's basically what I've been saying all along myself. I don't have to get it from a book...that's the difference. If you're (ie..anyone's) out their poring over theory books, attending theory classes etc & I'm out there playing what your learning that way already by using my ears ..well that's just fine by me then (way I look at it)
I personally don't have any interest in how things work in music as long as my ears tell me they work. You (ie...anyone) are most welcome to do whatever the **** you please though...that's your thing...leave me at mine :bigthumb:
I followed the same approach for a long time myself. The elementary school that I went to was in a small community in Northern Ontario. We didn't have music in the school. When I went to high school, there was no music teacher either. Because of this, I picked up guitar entirely on my own. And I was super proud of that. Screw theory. I can do everything myself. By listening to songs and trying to play along, memorizing the shapes of chords, trying to figure out stuff by ear. And it works. Kinda. But only to a point.
Eventually I wanted to write music. Like for a whole band. Not having the musical language to tell a drummer what pattern I want him to play is a huge disadvantage. Not knowing scales/chords and how they go together means that when you go to write a bass part it will take an awful lot longer. I ended up with dozens of cool riffs and song ideas that ended up going nowhere . . . because I didn't understand enough about theory to fit them properly into a song. Trying to learn other instruments (mandolin, harmonica, tenor guitar) was effectively impossible . . . because there just aren't enough hours in the day to figure out stuff by ear and memorize it without developing a giant system to keep track of things. Even if you are a genius and do eventually develop your own system of how sounds work together . . . you know what that system is called? Music theory.
So whatever. I gave up on writing music. That must be for nerds. Maybe I'd just become a great soloist. And not like one of the ones that needs to know how to play lots of weird scales. A great blues soloist. So I memorized a minor pentatonic scale and went to town. I could suddenly play over every blues song ever! And the notes might not always sound great, but they didn't usually sound like ****! Awesome. No need to waste time on theory. Except what I noticed was that no matter how nicely I'd vibrato, slide, and bend notes, every once in a while I'd hit a note that sounded amazing and every once in a while I'd hit a note that sounded kinda bleh. But I couldn't figure out exactly why this was happening. So **** it. The minor pentatonic obviously wasn't the right scale. I memorized a blues scale box. Same damned thing. I wanted to be able to lay into that amazing note at will . . . but to do that I had to understand what was playing in the backing track, and why certain notes would sound a certain way over a certain chord. Just memorizing notes wasn't enough. Just using my ears to pick out something that sounds good was way too slow while in the middle of a fast progression. ****. Music theory again.
So, again . . . **** it. I can become the greatest rhythm guitarist in the world. I just need to memorize a few chord shapes and I can play any song. Easy-peasy. So I memorized barre chords - the A, Am, E, and Em shapes. Then I memorized the notes on the E and A string. Bam. Done. Now I can play any song, just gotta look up the chord chart or spend a few hours listening to it. Wait what the ****. I'm playing the right chords . . . but they don't sound quite right. What is going on. On no. I need to learn about inversions, voice leading, and how the bass and guitar work together to make something greater than the sum of it's parts. There are thousands of chords. Way too many to just memorize. Damned music theory is in everything!
So yeah. Boring as it can be at times, seemingly useless as it can be at times . . . I eventually started to teach myself little bits of theory here and there. And lo and behold . . . everything on guitar got easier. It was easier to learn tunes by ear. It was easier to memorize solos. It was easier to write music. It was easier to pick up other instruments. It was easier to write and figure out cool rhythm parts. I lost nothing, but gained a huge amount. It ended up making me much more creative and productive . . . because so much less time was wasted faffing around guessing at what would sound good.
I'm not an advocate of sitting down and spending weeks/months just reading through a music theory book. What works best is picking one small part of a theory concept, and then figuring out how applying it to the music you like to make is awesome. So, for example . . . I wanted to solo over blues. I had memorized the minor pentatonic box pattern. Then I figured out where the root notes, 4ths, and 5ths were in that pattern. Then I spent some time listening to the chords in the background and figuring out that targeting the root of the chord on the backing track always sounded great. Boom. A small, digestible, completely useful chunk of music theory.
Then expanding the same concept, I figured out where the third and fifth of the chords on the backing track were . . . and realized that targeting them instead of the root note still sounded good . . . but in a different way. Etc. Because I learned these concepts using music theory and not by figuring them out by ear, I was able to apply them to other styles of music. I was able to expand upon them into other areas (chord building/upper extensions, modal concepts, etc.) Then these areas lead to others. My point is that tiny, usable chunks of music theory
are applicable, and really should be something that every musician regularly works on simply to make their lives easier.
It's possible to learn this stuff without a book and on your own, but you're really short changing yourself by doing so because you will miss out on all the crossover benefits that learning proper theory will teach you.
