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Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Understanding what you're playing (in reply to Daniel108)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Daniel108
This topic has become an all out discussion of theory, it wasn't my original intention but I suppose it was bound to happen :P
My original intention was (perhaps mysteriously) about improving practice. The idea being that having repeated the same piece 1000 times at a slow tempo and still doing the same mistakes, something was wrong. Different mistakes have different diagnoses, but one such diagnosis from my teacher was that I was just mechanically repeating things without understanding what I was playing. That touched a soft spot since my life is full of failed attempts at coming to terms with the guitar fretboard and harmonic construction.
But nevertheless, some interesting points here. In summary sounds like the advantages of learning theory are -communicating to other musicians -increased speed of learning a given piece -knowledge can help playing become creative
At the end of the day, I think the only honest answer as to why not to learn it is that it is a long term time investment. So it either has to be added on to practice time or to replace some part of existing practice, and there's already so much to practice.
Practice makes PERMINANT, not perfect. So based on your new input, if you want help in fixing things we need to know specifics of what you are trying to do....what style what piece etc. If this is flamenco you are talking about, its as Lenador said, compas drilling. That's where knowing the rudiments comes in. Dance class is the training tool, but there are ways to get started with a metronome.
Here is a method I use for learning and practicing material that needs to be performed, and I think it could work for any style of music.
RE: Understanding what you're playing (in reply to Fitz63)
quote:
I don't think it was ego stopping me, although some of the things you say make sense, it was just rules without meaning that was the problem.
Yeah I was making a pretty big generalization there . Ego may not even be the right word for what I was trying to say. I just think perfectionists have a harder time learning languages because they want to get everything right. A good thing is that contemporary foreign language courses no longer just focus on grammar and pronunciation but are designed to put people in a conversational settings. I think that helps a lot. The problem is that grammar rules sometimes really don't have any particular meaning. We slap some interpretation on it to make it easier to learn but often that interpretation is erroneous. Like saying use indicative for what is objective/certain and use subjunctive for what is subjective/possible, uncertain. That may work 70% of the time, but if you want to nail it everytime you just have to learn the list of grammatical situations that call for the subjunctive. There's no way around it. And it's tedious to say the least.
@Daniel108 It's not really possible to tell what the problem is without having a specific example of what you're talking about. So you say you play something 1000 times and still make the same mistake. But that means you know what the mistake is, right? Which means that you also understand what you should be doing instead? Or is it that your teacher is telling you that you're making a mistake and you can't figure out what it is?
RE: Understanding what you're playing (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
quote:
Despite having taking lessons in classical guitar for about 3 years i was not able to read notes nor was i familiar with chord names, the theoretical difference between minor and major, or even how to name a 3/4 or 4/4/ beat
Umm… Did you consider changing your teacher?
When your teacher is Hans van Goch ??????????
He was just wise enough not to force me into learning things that had not my interest and kind enough to play everything to me patiently so i could pick up the pieces by ear rather then by reading. On top as a 12 year old i did not know how to NAME things but i sure as hell knew how to apply them in actual playing since my harmonic scene and understanding was excellent, even at that age. On top, like i said, in knowing what to play i generally beat way older guys at campfire sessions, guys who knew how to name all chords but also needed a book (or me) to tell them which chords to play along with the songs. So obviously if you completely depend on others to tell you which chord to play it is evident to know the chord names mentioned in the book. But chord names had no practical use for me since i didn't need a book to tell me which chords to play since i could find them instantly without thinking just by listening to the melody. Now, that's what i call teaching :-).
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The smaller the object of your focus the bigger the result.
RE: Understanding what you're playing (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
quote:
i translated a score of a Harry Sacksioni from standard notation to tablature once only to find out the publisher left out all the difficult notes to make it playable for more people, so i decided ear playing it myself was way better then those kind of crap scores
You surprise me: I bought a book of Harry’s music after seeing him in Antwerp with Herman van Veen (in 1977), and it seemed absolutely accurate. I think the publisher was Harlekijn Holland, so the pieces may have been transcribed by Ad.
Anyway, they seemed to me to be remarkably accurate. They included (if I remember correctly) Lappenballerina (which I found an excellent warm-up exercise), Huiswaarts and Goofy.
Perhaps you got something different…
That's the same book or at least the same publisher/series (like chord names i was not interested in song names). At the time i might not have know how to read/name the notes but i sure as hell noticed a couple of notes were missing in the score :-). 30 years later Harry published his "method" which was the second time i looked at another persons score as my fathers. The tab notes in that method book are written so big they almost overleap, making it the worst tab i ever saw from a "lay out" point of view. But he is a fabulous player.
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RE: Understanding what you're playing (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: Erik van Goch
I just remembered that when we started the flamenco department at Rotterdam Conservatory the classical based teachers in music theory and the history of music were not able to feel Soleares as being E-Phrygian, not even the ones teaching us about the old church modes like dorian, mixolidian, phrygian etc. To them soleares felt like A-minor ending on the dominant chord and they strongly felt soleares should end with an A-minor chord. Although this seems ridiculous to a flamenco trained ear don't forget we do a similar thing in Granainas were we tend to end with E-minor (although i remember discussions with my father putting that in a more nuanced perspective).
No, granainas ends on the iv chord!
That's an interesting discussion. We could argue that since we somehow feel the need to add that final Em chord in granainas we at least seem to flirt with the idea to feel it's tonality as Em rather then B-phrygian in which case that Em chord would be the I chord :-).
Unless i'm mistaking it seems comparable with ending soleares with a finishing Am chord and to us that Am chord might be IV in the key of E phrygian, but if you mistakingly think soleares is written in Am (like above teachers of music theory were thinking) then TO THEM ending soleares on E feels like ending on the dominant V (in the key of Am).
Still i remember a discussion with my father about that subject, comparing soleares and granainas and all i remember from that discussion is that somehow to him it was a different situation.
_____________________________
The smaller the object of your focus the bigger the result.
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Understanding what you're playing (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Erik van Goch
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: Erik van Goch
I just remembered that when we started the flamenco department at Rotterdam Conservatory the classical based teachers in music theory and the history of music were not able to feel Soleares as being E-Phrygian, not even the ones teaching us about the old church modes like dorian, mixolidian, phrygian etc. To them soleares felt like A-minor ending on the dominant chord and they strongly felt soleares should end with an A-minor chord. Although this seems ridiculous to a flamenco trained ear don't forget we do a similar thing in Granainas were we tend to end with E-minor (although i remember discussions with my father putting that in a more nuanced perspective).
No, granainas ends on the iv chord!
That's an interesting discussion. We could argue that since we somehow feel the need to add that final Em chord in granainas we at least seem to flirt with the idea to feel it's tonality as Em rather then B-phrygian in which case that Em chord would be the I chord :-).
Unless i'm mistaking it seems comparable with ending soleares with a finishing Am chord and to us that Am chord might be IV in the key of E phrygian, but if you mistakingly think soleares is written in Am (like above teachers of music theory were thinking) then TO THEM ending soleares on E feels like ending on the dominant V (in the key of Am).
Still i remember a discussion with my father about that subject, comparing soleares and granainas and all i remember from that discussion is that somehow to him it was a different situation.
Well, wasn't going to get into it but to put it simple....Solea singing is "in phrygian", where as Fandangos forms "flirt" with relative keys, both major and minor at times. So there is a difference. However, in the specific case of granaina, you have a situation where we transpose all of the malagueña forms into different keys such as Taranta, minera, etc, and key of E Arriba is used, as well as "por granaina" in B, essentially all the same form but different tonalities for accompaniment. NONE OF them end on iv EXCEPT granainas, and even then only sometimes. Why? Because RAMON MONTOYA did it....it's that simple. It was a little personal thing he did, and to boot he would put his fancy falseta AFTER the cantaor finished, sort of like "check me out!!!", but in a way it was a charming old school thing. Almost all modern players end their granaina on B for cante, UNLESS they want to deliberately harken back and "remember" montoya.
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. Ego may not even be the right word for what I was trying to say. I just think perfectionists have a harder time learning languages because they want to get everything right. A good thing is that contemporary foreign language courses no longer just focus on grammar and pronunciation but are designed to put people in a conversational settings. I think that helps a lot. 
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