Playing with guitarists and the theory disconnect....

[roygBiv]

As noted above, I think the problem is definitely in part because of the different layout. Plus, the tactile feeling strings give you, which lets you emote much more easily (string bending, vibrato, palm muting, etc.). Those things really aren't there on keyboards.

 

Because of those factors, on guitar, once you learn the "box", some basic scale, learn how to bend strings, control feedback, etc., you can play at a higher level (or at least sound like you are) faster than you can on keyboards.

 

And once you learn the note names for the 1st two strings, and your basic cords (power cords, majors, minors, etc.), you can bluff your way through a LOT of songs on guitar. Especially for rock music.

 

Thus, if your rhythm is up to it, that medium-level skill then enables you to play in bands, etc., and convince yourself you are "good enough".

 

However, when you inevitably hit the musical ceiling (ouch!) due to your limited skill set, it is very hard to go back to learn music theory (grammar) to play guitar properly - when you can just figure out the part by ear.

 

I think it might be analogous to what can happen to people that grow up speaking a language natively (or maybe at home because it is their parents native language). Without an education in proper grammar, etc., they can find it incredibly boring to learn the underlying aspect of a language - why bother when you (imagine) you speak it "just fine".

 

Anyway, I'm writing this as a guy who has played rhythm/lead guitar for ~ 35 years. And also is also is the guy that gets in better bands because I also play keyboards (only adequately).

 

The annoying thing for me is that I DO know music theory relatively well (due to both some early training on piano, and a lot of self-study), but I can't solo worth crap on keyboards.

 

In contrast, give me a guitar, and I can solo all night (what guitarists doesn't think he can't?). But i have never gotten beyond the intermediate chord recognition level on guitar, keep hitting that ceiling. b5 or dim 9th, in any key? Can figure it out no problem on keyboards. Same on guitar? Blank stare.

 

Anyway, I'll stop ranting now

 

PS - I am excited to go through the "Jazz Comping Survival Guide" by Fareed Haque (TrueFire course Governor Silver has mentioned in other posts) - from what I've seen online, I think that might be a good escape route from "the box" for a guitar player like me..

[KuruPrionz]

I've noticed now after playing casually with guitarists for years that there is certainly a differing approach to our respective instruments. However, never learning the guitar myself, I can't understand why. Is it the mechanics of guitar? The layout?

 

I know keyboard players typically learn through theory, as guitarists typically pick it up by ear. But when trying to convey simple things to my guitar buddies (including bass players), such as simple triads (for instance, when trying to convey "just arpeggiate the triad"), Or scale numbers (3rd, 4th, 5th, etc), key signatures .... I'm often met with a look as if I'm speaking chinese.

 

Why is this?

 

My experience is similar. In fact, I don't know any guitarists that can correctly find a named note on their instrument (i.e. "play an f note") beyond the open strings. I don't know any guitarists who can play a major scale correctly. I don't know any guitarists who can name the three notes that make up an E triad. I am routinely surprised how what I consider to be even the most foundational bit of musical knowledge is something the guitarist is ignorant of.

 

I attribute this to the layout of notes on the respective instruments. Pianos are laid out very linearly: a-b-c-d-e-f-g- are laid out consecutively going from lower to higher. On a guitar the notes are scattered about the neck. All pianists learn at the very earliest to find named notes and soon there after are taught how to play a chord. Because the pianist knows the note names, they immediately learn what notes make up a chord: pianists see the notes when they arrange their fingers on the keys. Beginning guitarists are taught finger positions that make up a chord, but are generally not taught note names. Similarly, if the guitarist learns to "solo", they are not taught to do so based on a scale or by using chord tones, but by playing "the box". Again, the specific notes within "the box" are irrelevant to the guitarist: so long as the fingers land on the correct frets, everything works.

 

In general, I find it very frustrating to play with guitarists because of the lack of very basic musical knowledge. Mostly, playing with a guitarist for me means having them do what they do, and I will figure out the key and accompany them. I have never met a guitarist who can accompany me. Some try, and then get tripped up when the music calls for a major scale or really anything outside of "the box".

 

I know the name of every note on all of my guitars. There are 5 locations for Middle C on a Stratocaster fretboard. European notation was intended for keyboards, where Middle C is in one place so you know instantly exactly which button to press.

 

While I can play major scales all over the neck, in practice very few songs ever require that I do this. Maybe "Twilnkle, Twinkle, Little Star"? I've been gigging in bands for 45+ years and the most annoying thing I deal with is that ALL musicians tend to overplay EVERYTHING. There is a fear of "air" or lack of arrangement skills that seems to permeate universally. I've seen Ray Charles with his 25 piece ensemble twice, he got it and he had it under control - a true professional. I go to see other bands and listen to the bands I've been in (and am in) and overplaying runs rampant. It has nothing to do with guitar or keyboards although I will note that I've been in a few bands where the left hand of the keyboard player becomes an obstacle for the bassist but neither of them will relent and the bottom end just gets messy.

 

A few years back I joined a band with a keyboard player who was the bandleader. I asked her for charts to speed things along. She gave me charts. Mind you, this was mostly pop music, simple tunes. It seemed like every time she moved a finger (and she had a lot of fingers in motion!!!!), she would write that as a different chord. A bar of G would have 4 different chord voicings written. Once I said to her "Diane, this is a 1-4-5 with a minor 6, how does it have 237 chords in it?" She laughed. I told her I'd lay out and play accents and such.

 

Someone told me a long time ago - "Whatever I play, don't play that." It's great advice.

 

Not here to pick a fight or defend something that shouldn't need defending. Do you think Ray Charles learned to play by reading music? Wes Montgomery did not read either, nor did Glen Campbell - or Jeff Healey.

There's more than one way to skin a cat and more than one cat that needs skinning.

 

Singling out guitarists just strikes me as so "get off my lawn." I mean, there's banjo players and harmonica players and stuff...

[GovernorSilver]

PS - I am excited to go through the "Jazz Comping Survival Guide" by Fareed Haque (TrueFire course Governor Silver has mentioned in other posts) - from what I've seen online, I think that might be a good escape route from "the box" for a guitar player like me..

 

Enjoy the journey!

 

On the rhythm guitar front I'm now working with Tim Stewart's Modern Grooves and Retro Rhythms on JamPlay. There was a time that I looked down on the big time pop stars/entertainers, but now I have great respect for pros like Tim who get hired to record/tour with them - at that level your time has to be on. I like how the course is structured. After every lesson, there's a practice session where you play your newly learned rhythm guitar part along with Tim for several rounds. I figure this will help me create better rhythm guitar parts and fills to go with my, uhh, keyboard dominated music.

 

I also picked up Mark Lettieri's course, because he's in forum favorite Snarky Puppy. I've checked out a couple of lessons. It's not as focused on a particular area of study like Tim's. It's more of a deep dive into how Mark makes music using a guitar - composing, arranging, etc.. I'll have to dig into it later

[Dave Bryce]

Tim Pierce videos for me.

 

dB

[GovernorSilver]

Wes Montgomery did not read either

 

Cannot argue regarding Ray Charles or Jeff Healey.

 

I found this bit regarding Wes. it does not directly address the question whether he could read, but it does address the question of how much theory he actually knew.

 

Here's what Metheny said about Wes in the Jazz Icons DVD liner notes:

 

These few minutes in discussion with pianist Jacobs lay to rest one of the mythologies surrounding Wes and the nature of his musicianship. How often in liner notes and articles have we been dutifully reminded of Wes' supposed inability to read music, the fact that he was "self-taught" and all of the other points of lore trotted out to somehow mystify the genius that is utterly self-evident in the legacy that is his music?

 

 

In a particularly illuminating exchange, we see Wes discussing the harmony with pianist Jacobs. In requesting one of his favorite variations on the tune's descending harmonies we hear a musician not only fluent in the traditional nomenclature of harmony, but one who is thoroughly enlightened, eloquent and direct. (Instead of Bb-7/Eb7/AbMaj7 direct to the following Ab-7/Db7/GbMaj7, Wes requests that an additional II-V anticipating the next change a half step higher be added to set up the next sequence, resulting in Bb-7/Eb7/AbMaj7/A-7/D7/ then onto Ab-7/Db7/GbMaj7 etc.)

It is somewhat of a relief to hear him lay it out in such clear musical vocabulary. It was always apparent in Wes' music that he had devised one of the most detailed harmonic conceptions ever on the instrument, and as a beginner, when I read album notes and magazine pieces that harped on some kind of almost savant-like description of Wes' insight into musical invention, I often struggled with trying to imagine how exactly he might have arrived at some of the amazingly ingenious results that infuse his playing without at least occasionally thinking in these kinds of terms (tritone relationships, substitutions, etc.).

 

Source:

https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/17357-who-some-great-jazz-guitarists-didnt-know-theory-just-relied-their.html#post171595

 

I don't own the Jazz Icons DVD, so I can't confirm what this person shared.

[GovernorSilver]

That reminds me, I saw these Masaya Yamaguchi books on the music stands of some local jazz musos - a sax player and an upright bassist who sometimes plays sax, back when bands were rehearsing at the old Gold Leaf Studios in DC, on 5th and I St. Yamaguchi is not a sax player - he's a guitarist.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081X35Y5J/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0823TGS6D/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i4

 

I have the Pentatonic one and the Complete Thesaurus one. I'm not smart enough to understand his book, even though he's "just" a guitarist. In the Pentatonic book, he goes into Multi-Tonic Axes arranged by Subsets of Limited Transposition. In the Thesaurus, he's got note subsets arranged by Vectors - dunno what the heck Vectors are supposed to be in this book

[CEB]

Piano is linear. Piano is simple. There is only one 'middle C". On guitar depending on the number of frets there are 5.

[GovernorSilver]

Even though there's more than one middle C, there is more than sufficient evidence that an ambitious guitarist who works smart, not just hard, can achieve the highest levels of musicianship.

[jarrell]

I've noticed now after playing casually with guitarists for years that there is certainly a differing approach to our respective instruments. However, never learning the guitar myself, I can't understand why. Is it the mechanics of guitar? The layout?

 

I know keyboard players typically learn through theory, as guitarists typically pick it up by ear. But when trying to convey simple things to my guitar buddies (including bass players), such as simple triads (for instance, when trying to convey "just arpeggiate the triad"), Or scale numbers (3rd, 4th, 5th, etc), key signatures .... I'm often met with a look as if I'm speaking chinese.

 

Why is this?

 

My experience is similar. In fact, I don't know any guitarists that can correctly find a named note on their instrument (i.e. "play an f note") beyond the open strings. I don't know any guitarists who can play a major scale correctly. I don't know any guitarists who can name the three notes that make up an E triad. I am routinely surprised how what I consider to be even the most foundational bit of musical knowledge is something the guitarist is ignorant of.

 

I think the level of musicianship of guitarists or other musicians you play with is primarily determined by 3 things:

 

• Where you live - how big the pool of players is.
   
  
• What style of music you play - e.g. classic blues rock demands less theoretical knowledge than jazz.
   
  
• How good you are - better players attract better players; lesser players not so much.
  

[Baldwin Funster]

Tim Pierce videos for me.

 

dB

I like tim pierce and watch some of his videos...however too many players sound exactly like him these days ,Pete Thorn ect. No offence to pete. I dont want to sound like a second rate version of tim pierce, as cool as that style is. That's also why I NEVER fingertap and avoid SRV like it's the flu. What everyone sounds like is what I avoid. Unfortunately I probably am starting to sound a little like Robben Ford who everyone sounded like 15 years ago.

[ChiefDanG]

I think the level of musicianship of guitarists or other musicians you play with is primarily determined by 3 things:

 

• Where you live - how big the pool of players is.
   
  
• What style of music you play - e.g. classic blues rock demands less theoretical knowledge than jazz.
   
  
• How good you are - better players attract better players; lesser players not so much.
  

 

 

Zackley.

[Mike Warren]

[*]How good you are - better players attract better players; lesser players not so much.

 

This explains why I've never met a guitarist who has more than a tiny smattering of theory knowledge.

 

It's very common for me to have to play less common chords note by note for the guitarist to work it out.

[AROIOS]

I've noticed now after playing casually with guitarists for years that there is certainly a differing approach to our respective instruments. However, never learning the guitar myself, I can't understand why. Is it the mechanics of guitar? The layout?

 

I know keyboard players typically learn through theory, as guitarists typically pick it up by ear. But when trying to convey simple things to my guitar buddies (including bass players), such as simple triads (for instance, when trying to convey "just arpeggiate the triad"), Or scale numbers (3rd, 4th, 5th, etc), key signatures .... I'm often met with a look as if I'm speaking chinese.

 

Why is this?

 

Part of it is because the "language" Western music theories speak in is often utter garbage.

 

Take something as simple and fundamental as intervals for example. If you live in Apartment 1, Johnny lives in Apt 4, and Steve lives in Apt 5, no sensible person in the world will speak utter nonsense like "Johnny lives Minor 3 units down from me, and Steve lives Major 3 units down from me."

 

Anyone whose brain is not yet twisted by the idiotic Western musical "language" can see:

 

1) the "3" in the above example is a misnomer, no sensible person will count herself in when she describe her distance from another person in line. And it's against our intuition from simplest math: 3 + 3 = 6. What do we get when we stack two 3rd intervals together? Anything but a 6th interval!

 

2) the whole Minor-3/Major-3 BS is unnecessary complexity. It was caused by the 7-note relic. None of this complication would have happened if we simply call them 3STs (Semi-tones) and 4STs.

 

And I'm not even gonna get into the whole "#4 is not the same as b5" mumble jumble.

 

If the western music notation speaks in such horrible language even on the most basic things, can we really blame people for not speaking it?

[KuruPrionz]

Wes Montgomery did not read either

 

Cannot argue regarding Ray Charles or Jeff Healey.

 

I found this bit regarding Wes. it does not directly address the question whether he could read, but it does address the question of how much theory he actually knew.

 

Here's what Metheny said about Wes in the Jazz Icons DVD liner notes:

 

These few minutes in discussion with pianist Jacobs lay to rest one of the mythologies surrounding Wes and the nature of his musicianship. How often in liner notes and articles have we been dutifully reminded of Wes' supposed inability to read music, the fact that he was "self-taught" and all of the other points of lore trotted out to somehow mystify the genius that is utterly self-evident in the legacy that is his music?

 

 

In a particularly illuminating exchange, we see Wes discussing the harmony with pianist Jacobs. In requesting one of his favorite variations on the tune's descending harmonies we hear a musician not only fluent in the traditional nomenclature of harmony, but one who is thoroughly enlightened, eloquent and direct. (Instead of Bb-7/Eb7/AbMaj7 direct to the following Ab-7/Db7/GbMaj7, Wes requests that an additional II-V anticipating the next change a half step higher be added to set up the next sequence, resulting in Bb-7/Eb7/AbMaj7/A-7/D7/ then onto Ab-7/Db7/GbMaj7 etc.)

It is somewhat of a relief to hear him lay it out in such clear musical vocabulary. It was always apparent in Wes' music that he had devised one of the most detailed harmonic conceptions ever on the instrument, and as a beginner, when I read album notes and magazine pieces that harped on some kind of almost savant-like description of Wes' insight into musical invention, I often struggled with trying to imagine how exactly he might have arrived at some of the amazingly ingenious results that infuse his playing without at least occasionally thinking in these kinds of terms (tritone relationships, substitutions, etc.).

 

Source:

https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/17357-who-some-great-jazz-guitarists-didnt-know-theory-just-relied-their.html#post171595

 

I don't own the Jazz Icons DVD, so I can't confirm what this person shared.

 

Thanks for that, my signature says it all.

[Tom Williams]

Wow. I should probably check the Onion archives to make sure this wasn't a reprint. If it's a joke, i apologize for missing it. If not a joke, here goes:

 

1) the "3" in the above example is a misnomer, no sensible person will count herself in when she describe her distance from another person in line. And it's against our intuition from simplest math: 3 + 3 = 6. What do we get when we stack two 3rd intervals together? Anything but a 6th interval!

Not so tough. Zero-based, and add one. "I'm the third in line from the potty. Johnny is number three relative to me. Johnny is the fifth one in line."

2) the whole Minor-3/Major-3 BS is unnecessary complexity. It was caused by the 7-note relic. None of this complication would have happened if we simply call them 3STs (Semi-tones) and 4STs.

Why are you picking on diatonic scales, to the advantage of 2^(1/12)? Diatonics were initially based on simple harmonic intervals; Western ears like them a lot. Semitones are arbitrary subdivisions of some of them.

And I'm not even gonna get into the whole "#4 is not the same as b5" mumble jumble.

Thank goodness for that. It would cause me to express even greater defensiveness -- uh, I mean annoyance.

If the western music notation speaks in such horrible language even on the most basic things, can we really blame people for not speaking it?

Well, since the question's premise is some postmodern silliness, it seems unnecessary to answer now.

[El Lobo]

I can read sheet music â standard music notation. In over 50 years of playing in bands, I've never experienced that it was a needed skill. I've played with some very talented and skilled musicians who are very knowledgable about music theory. I learned to play sax, guitar, and keyboard by gigging in bands, not from music theory. I think of it as on-the-job training. I don't think a deep understanding of music theory or ability to read music notation is very practical or necessary for many gigging rock musicians.

[Mighty Motif Max]

I've been eyeing this thread, and keeping from commenting lol. I've worked with guitarists who were great with music theory and highly skilled, who could play detailed sheet music (and play circles around me), and on the other end of the spectrum folks that know 10-12 chords and that's it. I do think there's a difference in the way of thinking about note patterns and harmonic relationships due to the different layout of a guitar neck. I've been fiddling with guitar for a while and it is very different.

 

I think what you need to do is find better guitarists. I do tend to think that it's easier to be a mediocre guitar player than a mediocre keys player, and so there seem to be a lot of guitarists who kind of stalled out at a point. Those are probably the folks you're stuck with. I actually use a mixture of ear and music reading, as I went for extended periods of time as a child between teachers but played heavily and ended up performing a lot. Nothing against ear folks here. A guitarist with a good ear is worth a million dollars. A guitarist who can read oodles of actual notation, but can't read a lead sheet with chords is not as helpful in a lot of situations. A balance is ideal.

[GRollins]

I agree with what timwat said. Don't obsess over who knows what (or doesn't). It's the music that matters, not how you get there.

 

Grey

[stoken6]

Mighty Motif Max +1. It's easy (and unhelpful) to stereotype. I've played with guitarists of all abilities - they've all been able to find notes on their instrument beyond the open strings, although some more quickly than others.

 

One particularly talented guitar player friend is learning piano at the moment. I get weekly phone calls from him along the lines of "I've just realised: the altered scale and the lydian dominant are the same notes!" or something along those lines. It's much more apparent on a keyboard. And I think that's partly why keyboard players skew music-theoretic. (The other aspect is the traditional pedagogy of piano lessons).

 

Cheers, Mike.

[El Lobo]

One particularly talented guitar player friend is learning piano at the moment. I get weekly phone calls from him along the lines of "I've just realised: the altered scale and the lydian dominant are the same notes!" or something along those lines. It's much more apparent on a keyboard.

On the sax forum, older guys (like me) are frequently telling players who are learning about chords and scales and such to get a keyboard and look at it as a way of understanding those things because everything is laid out on a keyboard in a very orderly way. You can see intervals and the relation of chords and movement of notes in a way that you can't see when playing the sax where it's all in your finger muscle memory and you don't have a sense of the notes in a pattern.

[The Real MC]

I've noticed now after playing casually with guitarists for years that there is certainly a differing approach to our respective instruments. However, never learning the guitar myself, I can't understand why. Is it the mechanics of guitar? The layout?

 

I know keyboard players typically learn through theory, as guitarists typically pick it up by ear. But when trying to convey simple things to my guitar buddies (including bass players), such as simple triads (for instance, when trying to convey "just arpeggiate the triad"), Or scale numbers (3rd, 4th, 5th, etc), key signatures .... I'm often met with a look as if I'm speaking chinese.

 

Why is this?

 

As a keyboard player whose 3rd instrument is rhythm guitar, I can understand why.

 

Most non-classical/jazz guitar players (and many guitar teachers) rely on patterns on the guitar neck. Many chords are movable forms on a guitar neck. Thus they never have a good grounding on theory and rely heavily on visible patterns.

 

I agree that a good way to get guitar players to better comprehend theory and chords is to learn to play piano.

 

I have played with many guitar players of various talent and I don't get hung up on guitar players who don't know theory. Those who don't have much theory background can have talents that are valuable, just as those who do know theory. Most of them have things that make them valuable (some are worthless). Their talent drives the song selection - IE I would never suggest a Steely Dan song with a guitar player who doesn't know much beyond barre chords.

 

We have a guitar player now who is a competent rock player and sometimes has trouble figuring out chords or a lead; he's open to suggestions so sometimes I'll strap on my guitar and show the parts to him. No ego is bruised.

 

As for playing in a jazz band... well you better have the chops coming in, because most jazz players are elitists. I don't mean that as derogatory - the art of jazz is so sacred that many non-jazz styles just doesn't fit. IE a SRV player who doesn't know comping technique just does not fit the jazz genre.

[El Lobo]

As for playing in a jazz band... well you better have the chops coming in, because most jazz players are elitists. I don't mean that as derogatory - the art of jazz is so sacred that many non-jazz styles just doesn't fit. IE a SRV player who doesn't know comping technique just does not fit the jazz genre.

It's an old internet argument, especially on the sax forum, that jazz players often can't play rock. I'm one of the people who says that. It goes both ways -- and in other genres. Rock players can't do reggae, classical players can't play jazz or improvise, etc. It doesn't mean that one thing is better than another, only that you're experienced in the genre that you know best and have the musical vocabulary for. Your musical knowledge may not translate well to another genre. I'm not a very good keyboard player, but I've gotten compliments on my solos in blues-rock tunes because I think and feel in that genre â I've lived in it for 50 years. I've seen good jazz players sit in on a blues-rock jam and they don't fit the style. So be it.

[Iconoclast]

Quick back story: Keys since childhood but mostly self taught, Played almost exclusively guitar in bands for about 15 years. Last 6 years or so I play in bands that require both, sometimes changing several times in a song.

 

It's weird. Guitar definitely uses different brain muscles than keys. When I first started playing in bands that required quick switches back and forth between instruments I had a big problem turning on different parts of my brain. Like a simple guitar part became impossible for the first 5-10 seconds after playing keys and vice versa. Like everything else, repetition eventually got rid of this issue, but it was very puzzling to me to, for example, come off of a guitar part and then just stare at a keyboard like I didn't even know where middle C was.

 

While I'm not a great note reader on keys, I'm pretty fluent with charts. But on guitar it's almost impossible for me to read charts. It all comes down to knowing the fretboard. It's MUCH harder to figure out where all the notes are on a guitar and requires an investment in time/effort that I just never was able to get over (yet). And in my opinion there's a whole lot of passable guitar players like me who can't come close to putting the notes on the fretboard. Yet you will never find a keyboard player who doesn't know that an A is an A.

 

Yet guitar has this way of making some things much simpler because the same shapes appear over again up and down the fretboard. Just play enough and these shapes will be hard-wired into your hand and brain and as long as you can find a few of the "money" notes, you can fit your shapes into what you're doing and voila...it sounds like you know what you're doing. In your progression of learning the instrument, this phenomena happens much later on keys than it does on guitar. Possibly this happens because guitar has limited ways to voice chords compared to piano, and in limiting your options it makes it easier to learn.

 

I also think that if you start from zero, as a guitar player it really only takes you maybe a year of diligent practice to be a passable guitar player in a rock or country cover band. I don't think the same holds true for keyboard players. Probably another reason why there are so few keyboard players compared to guitar players out there. So as a keyboard player, I'm frequently running into guitar players who're just much more inexperienced than me. If I'm playing with a guitar player who's been playing since childhood, then he's probably a killer player who can both play and speak music. If he's mostly a hobbyist or just been playing for 6-9 years then he can probably play but may not have the depth of experience to know the "why's" of music.

 

There is a weird part of me that wants to maintain my ignorance on guitar. During the pandemic I've been doing more session work as a guitar player and it's nice to have an approach to music that I don't overthink. It's easier for me to just listen to what I'm doing and not have that part of me that has to put every note into a mode or scale or whatever. Then when I'm stumped I frequently sit down at the piano with the guitar in my lap and start comparing ideas between the two instruments and that will frequently lead me to whatever secret note/chord/change I couldn't unlock on just the guitar.

[Iconoclast]

If the western music notation speaks in such horrible language even on the most basic things, can we really blame people for not speaking it?

 

So of course my first question is what language do you think is superior?

 

You made several good criticism's without advocating for a superior alternative.

[Joe Muscara]

Going back to some of what the OP was probably getting at comes down to being able to communicate. I once had a guitar player who didn't understand the sentence, "it's a 1 4 5 in G." He wouldn't even ask (which was another problem), he'd just keep doing what he was doing without acknowledging I had said anything. When I said, "the chords are G, C, and D" he replied, "okay." Another guitar player I played with always wanted "a sheet with the chords over the words" (like you find on sites on the web) even for 12 bar blues tunes. Fortunately when he played he sounded good enough, but I always found it amazing that people think that's easier for a song like Sweet Home Chicago than four bars of E, two bars of A, etc.

 

In these and other cases, it often takes "us" a moment to figure out a way that people we're working with can understand. It's like a contractor building the structure for a nuclear power plant, or providing tech support for your mother-in-law. They don't need to all the details of what they're doing or how it all works, technical names, etc. They need to know the bits to get done what they're trying or asked to do. Screw A goes into Hole A.

[o0Ampy0o]

No matter what you know, are or do begin with the lowest common denominator, "The restroom is down the hall to the right."

[AROIOS]

If the western music notation speaks in such horrible language even on the most basic things, can we really blame people for not speaking it?

 

So of course my first question is what language do you think is superior?

 

You made several good criticism's without advocating for a superior alternative.

 

I've lived comfortably in the world of MIDI sequencers, piano rolls and my own semi-tone-based documentation, and never once felt the slightest need to be bothered by the much more inferior but universally accepted language of music: Western music notations.

[El Lobo]

I once had a guitar player who didn't understand the sentence, "it's a 1 4 5 in G." He wouldn't even ask (which was another problem), he'd just keep doing what he was doing without acknowledging I had said anything. When I said, "the chords are G, C, and D" he replied, "okay." Another guitar player I played with always wanted "a sheet with the chords over the words" (like you find on sites on the web) even for 12 bar blues tunes. Fortunately when he played he sounded good enough, but I always found it amazing that people think that's easier for a song like Sweet Home Chicago than four bars of E, two bars of A, etc.

 

This has nothing to do with knowing any music theory. A "musician" who doesn't know what "1 4 5 in G" means has no business playing in a band. Same for a guitar player who needs a chord sheet to play a 12-bar blues in E. Those are beginners, amateurs who need more lessons or more experience in a garage band that's learning how to play basic blues or rock.

[BbAltered]

I have no doubt that if guitar players invented (or codified) musical notation that became the standard musical notation for all orchestra instruments, that musical notation would look very different from the standard keyboard-centric music notation. AND, I am guessing a lot of what we think of as relationships between the notes - such as the numerical relationships I-ii-iii-IV etc. - would be very different - and probably highly non-intuitive and very confusing to keyboard players.

 

IOW - I think a lot of the reasons why a guy like myself - trained and familiar with keyboard-centric music notation and music "theory" - find that guitarists seem to so commonly lack what *I think are* fundamentals of musical knowledge, is specifically because I was taught a keyboard-centric type of music notation. Had I as a keyboard-player been required to learn a guitar-centric type of music notation and theory, it would probably be me who is lacking in fundamentals of musical knowledge.

 

Even so, I find it very frustrating to be routinely stymied in my efforts to communicate musical ideas with guitar players. "Play an Fm chord." "I don't know what that is." "Play an F note and the minor third." "What's a minor third?" "Can you simultaneously play an F note and an Ab note?" "Do you mean like this?" (showing me his fingers arranged on the fretboard while playing neither an F or an Ab). Etc.

 

As I see it, the reason to learn to read and write music is to effectively communicate musical ideas with other musicians. If all you are going to do is "porch hootenannies" with other fretted instruments, it really is not important to read and write music. IMO, if you want to play music with other instrumentalists, then it becomes important to learn the language of written music.

[ABECK]

Tim Pierce videos for me.

 

dB

Tim has great enthusiasm, a wealth of experience across the musical board and is a good teacher. That last one is so important! I've watched tutorial vids from some guitar greats like Mayer and Bonamassa and was thoroughly confused. Not everyone can teach effectively (and that's fine.) I was listening to Wolfgang Van Halen recently in an interview. He said he would ask his dad to help him learn certain things...at which point he say "do this" and then proceed to play like Eddie Fucking Van Halen. Thanks dad....LMAO.

 

A few effective guitar teachers I've watched online are Dweezil Zappa on Truefire and Paul Gilbert on ArtistWorks. In addition, check out Tomo Fujita - his accent is so thick it's hard to understand, but his method of teaching results in a lot of "a-ha" moments for me.