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Pentatonic scales
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Mirth



Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 160
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So after looking at this topic for the last week. I've wanted to respond, but after seeing Liquidtensions recent post, I really don't have anymore to say.

So great post LT!! and thanks for the link, cool print out!!

Cheers.
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BostonJohn



Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 12:13 am    Post subject: WOW! Reply with quote

Never expected this to go all over the board!


Had to print this Email out!


But great information anyway!! Thank you very much..

I'm sailing through this information!


Thank you again

JohnDenner

http://www.sitstrings.com/endorsees.php?id=153
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scimitar



Joined: 21 May 2005
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Location: Wales, UK

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok here's my idea on it all.

Intervals ARE what you should learn FIRST. If you're trying to learn chords and scales without understanding intervals its like trying to spell words and write sentences without understanding what letters are and how they sound phonetically!!!

As a rule, I've slowly come to discover that generally guitarists are the laziest and worst musicians on the planet, mainly due to a lack of understanding of these basic principals. Theres a reason why the joke "How do you get a guitarist to shut up.... Stick some sheet music in front of him" joke is rampant in music colleges up and down the country Wink . I think its the responsibility of people who teach guitar to ensure they themselves have a good understanding of these principals before damaging students. A good friend of mine who teaches has talked to me about the amount of times he has had to go back to square one with students because a previous teacher didn't have a clue what they were teaching Razz

You may agree, you may not and i don't really care but thats my view on the situation Smile
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frankus



Joined: 13 Sep 2004
Posts: 1100
Location: Chelmsford/Arachnipus

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

scimitar wrote:
Intervals ARE what you should learn FIRST. If you're trying to learn chords and scales without understanding intervals its like trying to spell words and write sentences without understanding what letters are and how they sound phonetically!!!


and then:

scimitar wrote:
Theres a reason why the joke "How do you get a guitarist to shut up.... Stick some sheet music in front of him" joke is rampant in music colleges up and down the country Wink


yup, there is.. few people learn to sight-read; they learn their intervals first and then decide they'll be improvisers or compose their own music.. "so they don't need to sight read".

scimitar wrote:
I think its the responsibility of people who teach guitar to ensure they themselves have a good understanding of these principals before damaging students.


Surely it is the responsibility of the student to choose a good teacher? No diploma is really going to show anything but that the teacher can regurgitate the facts required to get the diploma. So they might be a great student but a poor teacher how is that tested? How do you find a metric for someone's ability to teach? You don't. Word of mouth and your own experience is all you can rely on.

scimitar wrote:
You may agree, you may not and i don't really care but thats my view on the situation Smile


I choose to disagree. It's not that I choose to be disagreeable or simply to disagree by default. Sad ... However I don't feel contrite, given you don't care what anyone else thinks Wink kinda implies that you're opinion is inflexible so, contradicting it, can only annoy you, or be ignored by you.
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scimitar



Joined: 21 May 2005
Posts: 63
Location: Wales, UK

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fair, but to suggest its a pupils responsibility to find a teacher who know what they're talking about is absurd in my opinion!

Also, are you suggesting that because someone can sight read they're purely interested in playing someone else's music?
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Mirth



Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 160
Location: USA

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When you say intervals, are you saying, the way they sound? Or the way they look on paper? or the way they are fingered? Or all of the above?

Are you suggesting teaching a new student all the intervals, then teach them scales and chords? You say that teaching some one scales and chords before intervals is like teaching someone how to read or speak with out teaching them the sounds of the alphabet.

How many kids that are born learn to say "a- ahh) first? No people don't learn well that way. They learn words before they learn to speak. There is no use in teaching someone the sounds before the meaning. So what if "a" makes the sound "ahh" or "ay". It means nothing really. People associate a sound with a word to mean something.

So I think it perfectly viable to to teach some one chords and scales first. They are like words, and are something people can relate to. Plus try keeping students by teaching them something abstract like intervals first. Most students will say; But I just want to learn a couple songs, I'm not interested in this crap. When you teach you have to throw in the theory slowly. Some people soak it up, but most would rather not be bothered. You try your best to get them interested, but in the end you can't change why they want to play. And who's to say they are wrong for wanting to learn a few simple songs and call it a day?

Anyways, just trying to clarify what you meant, and how you believe it should be taught?

Cheers,

Tim
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frankus



Joined: 13 Sep 2004
Posts: 1100
Location: Chelmsford/Arachnipus

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

scimitar wrote:
Fair, but to suggest its a pupils responsibility to find a teacher who know what they're talking about is absurd in my opinion!


You are entitled to your opinion, but a child of 8 is best served going to a music teacher who teaches at a school and ha been vetted. A teenager would be wise to go to a music shop or someone he trusts who plays and ask for some names of good teachers. An adult will need to make their own mind up as to whether the teacher is any good for them as their brains and personality aren't as malleable as younger people.

scimitar wrote:
Also, are you suggesting that because someone can sight read they're purely interested in playing someone else's music?


No, you are suggesting that. You took one premise and reversed it, to clarify what a silly thing that is to do, it's equivalent of this:

Frankus: There are sharks in the sea.
Scimitar: Are you saying turtles, mermaids, nuclear subs and ocean liners are sharks? That's simply preposterous!!

Wink
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liquidtension



Joined: 09 Mar 2005
Posts: 92

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, a few thoughts, which will probably be put best in the form of a confession. I hope I don't get slaughtered for this, but here's to sticking my neck out there...

About the whole sight reading thing...I am really torn on this issue. A little bit of background first. I grew up originally playing saxophone, in which 95% of my playing was reading sheet music. I later took up piano for a short time, and then finally settled upon guitar. I can (and have) sit down and score out a full orchestral arrangement from scratch, but my sight reading skills for guitar are essentially nil.

On the other hand, I can visualize, for example, "#11", "b9" and other chord tones in the middle of jamming, but I don't really associate a note name with them. I've felt that any limitation of ideas has really been the result of a lack of listening and transcribing others' music more than anything.

Having read a fair amount in both jazz and classical theory as well as having an appreciation for all good music, I can definitely see the need to develop sight reading skills; it truly makes a person a more complete musicians. I can also see the need for reading skills to make use of more kinds of learning materials. Further, I can see the need to be mentally in tune with the chord tones by visualizing the actual notes on the fretboard. But given all that, if someone is able to learn the same things, though mentally visualizing "#11 of V7#11" rather than "G# over a D7#11", is there really that much of a difference? Don't get me wrong, I would not encourage avoiding the discipline of reading, but sometimes I have a hard time seeing a great divide between guitarists who read vs those who don't except in the scenario of a studio situation.

Thoughts, comments? I have the feeling that at least one moderator is loading up the heavy artillery ready to fire away with some loaded prose Very Happy
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frankus



Joined: 13 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

liquidtension wrote:
Thoughts, comments? I have the feeling that at least one moderator is loading up the heavy artillery ready to fire away with some loaded prose Very Happy


Am I really becoming a pariah? Sad

liquidtension wrote:
Okay, a few thoughts, which will probably be put best in the form of a confession. I hope I don't get slaughtered for this, but here's to sticking my neck out there...


Good for you for sticking your neck out. What lights my fuse is people trotting out "received wisdom" and then feeling comfortable mocking anyone bucking that trend. Sticking your neck out is what it should all be about, in my opinion.

liquidtension wrote:
About the whole sight reading thing...I am really torn on this issue. A little bit of background first. I grew up originally playing saxophone, in which 95% of my playing was reading sheet music. I later took up piano for a short time, and then finally settled upon guitar. I can (and have) sit down and score out a full orchestral arrangement from scratch, but my sight reading skills for guitar are essentially nil.


I'm acquiring sight reading skills on the guitar and it's augmenting my fretboard knowledge.. which is making me happy. My wife is a 100% sight reading pianist and pretty good at it. Her view is: why do you need to learn loads of chords just get the music and sight read it? She doesn't improvise as we'd call it and doesn't feel the need to.

I totally appreciate that site reading skills and playing are a far subtler version of improvisitation by interpretation, like story telling.

But the whole sight reading thing popped up because someone wheeled out the old muso cliché, and frankly it ran contrary to everything they were saying.. it'd be like me saying how wonderful drummers are, how it's not fair that they're stereotyped as low brow losers and ending up saying which is highlighted by the fact that you know when a drummer is at the door because the knocking speeds up at the end... and when you get to the door, what do you do if there's a drummer at your door? Pay him for the pizzas, of course... but do you know what's the difference between a drummer and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four.

I dunno from the age of four I've had to keep track of convoluted logical arguments with my Dad Wink .. and I'm probably inflicting them on my 8 year old son Sad

liquidtension wrote:
On the other hand, I can visualize, for example, "#11", "b9" and other chord tones in the middle of jamming, but I don't really associate a note name with them. I've felt that any limitation of ideas has really been the result of a lack of listening and transcribing others' music more than anything.


I envy you that.. I sometimes get spots where a whole group of chords fall into place but most times it's grip chords.. I think the chords that fall together are variations on the ones from Ted Greene's modern chord progressions. I'm working on chord scales to improve that at present.

The only time a name pops out for a set of chords is when someone asks or I'm programming a standard into my head.. I'm really pushing to just have a sound and know there are 4 or more functions for it. So an F7 chord can be thought of as Am+13, Am/F, C6sus4, E alt, Dmin9, Db aug and so on... but there's no value to knowing the names without the sounds.

liquidtension wrote:
Having read a fair amount in both jazz and classical theory as well as having an appreciation for all good music, I can definitely see the need to develop sight reading skills; it truly makes a person a more complete musicians. I can also see the need for reading skills to make use of more kinds of learning materials. Further, I can see the need to be mentally in tune with the chord tones by visualizing the actual notes on the fretboard. But given all that, if someone is able to learn the same things, though mentally visualizing "#11 of V7#11" rather than "G# over a D7#11", is there really that much of a difference? Don't get me wrong, I would not encourage avoiding the discipline of reading, but sometimes I have a hard time seeing a great divide between guitarists who read vs those who don't except in the scenario of a studio situation.


Like I said, the truth behind the joke is that most guitarists can't read sight music so put it in front of them and they'll shut-up as Scimitar's joke said. I've looked at learning sight reading intervalically but the virtue of staves is they're hard coded reference points whereas X frets up and across doesn't correspond to X ledger lines up.. because things like key signature, incidentals and such can shift it up or down.

Basically whatever works for you is the best thing. It might not work for others unless it's NLP it's not likely to have consistent results across a large number of people Wink
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liquidtension



Joined: 09 Mar 2005
Posts: 92

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Am I really becoming a pariah? Sad


Na. I've just glanced at a couple of other threads on related topics that you've replied to which, for a second, made me think "what am I about to get started?!?" It's all in good fun, though. Smile


Quote:
I'm acquiring sight reading skills on the guitar and it's augmenting my fretboard knowledge..


This is the single greatest reason I've contemplated actually developing sight reading skills. I must confess that even though I feel confident moving all around the fretboard, there's something unique about watching guys like Guthrie "see" the fretboard differently when they play, which I think is visually noticeable in his navigation in his videos.


Anyway, thanks for your kind reply Very Happy
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adrianclark



Joined: 22 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've kind of lost the gist of where this thread is going, but some random observations (YMMV, etc)...

Being able to read music (not the same as "sight-reading") is a useful skill, but its usefulness varies from person to person. For some, its only purpose lies in feeding notes verbatim from paper to brain, while for others (including me) it provides an extra sensory element to music. When I'm learning a piece of music, I get the best results by using as many senses as possible... listen to the sound of the notes, look at the patterns on the fretboard and on the paper, feel the patterns under your fingers. And if you subscribe to the latter approach, you'll get the same sensory benefits from both Tab and standard notation.

I've seen several people on web fora promoting "intervals" as some sort of universal panacea. It just makes me think of trainee architects being encouraged to memorise the exact size of inches, centimetres and leagues Wink

Different teaching methods suit different people, and I've no doubt that learning intervals is the key for some people, but I'd recommend starting with pentatonics and chord tones... solid theoretical concepts that provide instant results in lots of popular styles. Intervals can come later, as can modes.



adrian
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Yeah but guthrie



Joined: 04 Dec 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"I'm not a guitar guru"

I am. Very Happy

I think the original post has been lost somewhere here. And the long words people keep using in a guthrie-esque way are hurting my head, so I am gonna write like a cockney. My advice to the original post is:-
Just jam along wiv tings, and eventually you will see fings what sound good, then, as Gufrie Guv'nor and Steve Vai said, once you hav fand them things what saaahnd sweet as a nut, try and find aaaht what they are all about.

In the alloutguitar.com interview with guthrie he said that he built up a big bank of obscure and interesting chords by playing along with old wes montgomery records and things, then found out what they were and worked out where and when he could use them, as did vai. I do this sometimes but not with jazz as much as I dont really like most of it. This is a good method because it doesent make you see everything as scales or whatever everyone is so upset about, but it starts to build your vocabulary of licks, chords, different modes etc. It is handy to know what notes on the neck you can play while in A lydian, and that the lydian contains a #4 etc, but it is also nice to know that it should sound a little like this bit of a dream theater song or that bit of a Vai song or another lydian based lick.

But then again it depends what you are willing to learn, I only used to strum Aminor-Cmajor-Gmajor for about a year because I liked the way it sounded!!!
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frankus



Joined: 13 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah but guthrie wrote:
"I'm not a guitar guru"

I am. Very Happy


What kind of a guru are you [cue sardonic brass section] Laughing
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FusionJazz4ever



Joined: 23 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Pentatonic scales Reply with quote

BostonJohn wrote:
Staring to write my own songs and when it comes time to learning scales I get very bored!

I like to play by ear and it has worked out ok until now...

I will be sitting in with a Guitarist who want;s me to play a 12 bar blues progression in the key of my choice....

Any tips to help an old DOG learn new tricks???


Thank you,
John Denner


Purchase don mock from rock blues to jazz that will open your mind ten fold!!
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BostonJohn



Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:28 pm    Post subject: The gig went great! Reply with quote

Just to follow up on this old post...


The gig went great learning scales and modes was not as boring as i once thought it would be?
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