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Joined: Oct 2018
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Hi David,
Loved your post.
I did say in the second part of my original message - wanting to clarify, lest I be taken wrong - that is the format of some ways of being classically trained that is the problem (and not music theory itself).
My experience has proven that.
Not disputing any of what you said - except you are misidentifying Paul having acknowledged that 'Blackbird' was inspired by 'Bouree' as that somehow being in support of Western Classical Music training.
Sure, we might not have that amazing song without Bach having existed - but we also probably would not have had the greatest canon of popular song and the incredible innovations The Beatles made if they had been trained - McCartney has been crystal clear throughout his life that learning theory is not for him, and might inhibit his creativity.
Bach - obviously hugely influential, but I find him too 'mathematical'; gets in the way of me enjoying his music.
Learning various aspects of theory has been helpful to me, but has not been the basis of me being able to perform and jam with people; whereas, as I pointed out previously, it clearly has inhibited some of the people with whom I have jammed (not all of them, though).
And they were all far better musicians, technically, than I am.
So, we will have to agree to differ.
And as I have also said previously, I think that people on this forum, by their very nature, are able to transcend the kinds of limits that I describe having encountered.
Looking forward to more songs from you.
"If The Beatles or the 60's had a message, it was 'Learn to swim'. And once you've learned - swim!"
John Lennon
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I am going to disagree that classical training gets in the way of anything.
I can play straight up classical just sighting reading away on some pretty complex pieces and I can also improv my butt off with the best of them--and have--and can write a pretty good song in 15 minutes.
My classical training has only enhanced my ability to let me go into Carlos Santana free fall when I am given a solo.
I can pull the hell out of my whammy bar on the strat, hold it up to the amp and make it feed back and howl, make the girls scream, and all the while be pulling my notes straight out of a Bach violin piece.
<...smip...>
--The Artist Formerly Known as David Snyder
I can't agree more. IMHO if someone says classical training hurt them they probably either didn't do it right, lack talent, or are lying. It's like saying, "I'm a great motorcycle mechanic, but going to school to learn to fix V8 truck engines ruined my motorcycle skills." Learning something new, does not take away from what you already know, it just adds. Rock musicians have borrowed themes from classical composers, and a few of them have even written their own classical pieces: John Lord of Deep Purple, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney (with help), and so on.
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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It's the person and not the theory. A person whom has limited themselves in only one genre, whether it be classical, country, rock, etc limits their musical knowledge.
For example, I am wearing a guitar t-shirt while getting fitted for new glasses one day. The lady fitting me went on about how she plays violin in a classical orchestra as well as string ensembles and such and has done so for many years. She wants to start to improvise as she has never done it before. When I told her the golden rule of improv, that is if you land on a wrong note just move up or down a semi-tone and you will be golden, she was flabbergasted. She had never heard of that before. She only had played the music that was in front of her. She never had jammed before.
My point is that is not classical training or theory's fault. She just never ventured outside the realm of her chosen music. YMMV
Love is grand.
Divorce is twenty grand!
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Exactly, Bob. And to say Paul McCartney doesn't know theory is silly. He knows it like the back of his hand. He just says that to be cute. I have heard him talk theory on countless interviews. He may not know it in the the "college" way but it is in his DNA. When they were practicing for his current tour, they said the band got tripped up on an old tune (I think it might have been Hard Day's Night) because Paul couldn't remember if he was playing a ii, a IV or a vi on the bass at a certain spot and the recording was muddy. So they sat there and kept listening over and over and over until he was sure he had found the EXACT note he had been playing. He is OCD as all get out about the precision of notes and harmony and that's kind of what theory is, no matter how you learn it. What drives me crazy when I am jamming with some people is when they play the same old tired blues scales over and over and over, and they shoot the cannon off in the first minute. No build. No strategy, just musical porno. Classical sensibility (which the Beatles have in their DNA whether they admit it or not) is just that--a sensibility. It is all about the FEELING. The slow build. The foreplay if you will. Mediocre guitarists just have sex with their instrument, in the crudest way. Great guitarists make love to their instrument. It's the difference between...well, strike that, strike that too...night and day? If you are a genius you can feel free to do it naturally, but if you aren't, hey a few classical lessons won't hurt!!
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Hi Guys, At the risk of re-re-stating what I have already said, I am certainly not saying that knowing music theory is harmful. If you go back to my posts and re-read them, you will see I did not state or imply that. And, David, to say, "And to say Paul McCartney doesn't know theory is silly", is a silly statement itself, because, as with what I refer to above, I am talking about Macca not knowing how to read and notate music according to the Western Classical way of doing that. As he has said, he can see the movement of notes going up and down (on the staff), but that is about it. As Notes noted (to be alliterative about it) in his post above, McCartney has worked within the Classical world "with help" - part of that help was to have Clive Davis (and others) be his guide, and part of it was to have one of the tracking programmes produce notation - because (unlike Elvis Costello) he did not want to learn how to write notation for fear of it limiting his creativity (I do not think that it would have). Paul is not as "OCD" as you say about getting things 'right' - not only does he play songs in different keys now (probably a necessity because of his voice), but some (such as 'Her Majesty') he plays differently live than on record, and he is very 'loose' (i.e., non-"OCD") about getting right down to the right notes (e.g., 'Every Night' in which he consistently now plays the descending figure on acoustic guitar differently than he did). MarioD, when you talked about the violinist who "...just never ventured outside the realm of her chosen music", that is exactly what I am saying, and what I think is common to many who have had a Western Classical Music training. I am not blaming the theory here, rather the sensibility that the teachers of that theory often instills in people. Thankfully, we have places like Berkeley. David, The Beatles' sensibility was to break the 'rules' in so many ways. Macca still does this occasionally - I remember a friend saying about 'Here Today' "Who starts a song with a diminished chord?" How many people do you encounter in the Classical world who experiment in the ways that The Beatles did (either on their recordings, or in concert)? David, I love your metaphor, and agree "Great guitarists make love to their instrument". I also completely agree with what you said about some people "shoot[ing] the cannon off in the first minute. No build. No strategy, just musical porno". For me, being somewhat technically and theoretically 'challenged' with regard to my knowledge of music theory and my ability to perform technically well, I think that a 'less is more' approach to building solos can help to counter that tendency - to a large extent, I think that, it is not what you do, but how you do it; as you say, it is about feeling. I am loving the exchange of views here. 
"If The Beatles or the 60's had a message, it was 'Learn to swim'. And once you've learned - swim!"
John Lennon
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It's all good man. These conversations are fun. We aren't really arguing after all. We are just "conversatin'" as they say in the hills of North Carolina. Now I gotta go play my banjo...and drink some shine....
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