jonno - Posted - 01/09/2011:  08:51:53

There are a lot of hours each day when it's just not possible to be playing the fiddle. But, ask me what I'm thinking about and chances are it will have something to do with music. It's like a drug addiction with no bad side effects!

My wife sometimes feels like music is a mistress... so maybe it is more like a relationship. You know how when you're attracted to someone, there's that wonderful time as you get to know each other. What you learn about each other feeds the attraction. In turn, the attraction grows and makes you thirsty to learn more. The exchange of ideas and thoughts can go on forever.

Unfortunately, my curiosity about music is much stronger than my ability to understand it. Even so, I keep reading, watching, listening to whatever I can (just one of the reasons I love FHO).

Over the past four years, I've been reading lots of books and listening to a lot of music theory podcasts, and youtube. I cover the same ground over and over and over again in an attempt to grind it fully into my brain. The slow, repetitive, baby-steps are necessary for me because it takes time for me to understand a concept clearly.

Like the dawn, it takes a while for the sun to rise. If I don't allow time for this to happen, then the concept stays dim and barely visible in the shadows and when I encounter the same concept in a different context, I don't recognize it. However, if I allow enough time for the dawn, I'll know the concept and benefit from all the clarity that that brings.

The problem I have with most of the music books is that they introduce a concept and then, within a paragraph or page, they move on to the next concept. To switch metaphors, they plant the seed and maybe even water it with examples, but the format and structure of the lesson allows no time for the seed to sprout and emerge from the soil, much less grow into a mature plant.

If anyone here in FHO community has the same addiction (or the same paramour), this website has a music theory course, that is the best I've found in terms of introducing concepts and providing exercises to drill them in. I'm moving slowly through it - on the intervals, chords, scales, and harmony sections now: cnx.org/content/col10363/1.3 It's free and you can download it as an ebook, but the online version makes it easy to play the audio examples, and switch between the exercises and the solutions. It is a comprehensive basics courses and a LOT of sections so you can jump to whatever catches your eye.

J

richdissmore - Posted - 01/09/2011:  09:37:37

for me music just happens some times some one shows me how to play other times i get the feeling and it just happens

tboudre - Posted - 01/09/2011:  10:02:46

I feel the same way - I can't take my fiddle to work but I take books and cds to study or listen to over my lunch hour. I'm always trying to learn something to help with my fiddle playing and I believe the more I understand how music works the better I'll be able to improvise and play.

Thanks, for the link - it looks like a good learning tool.

Bart - Posted - 01/09/2011:  11:33:02

Jonno, I am like you...it takes time for these things to sink in. I often don't understand something until after I have experienced it. I often learn to do things I don't understand, and then later I come to understand what has been written about it. Thanks for the resource.

cheekee - Posted - 01/09/2011:  14:51:50

jonno....i don't know exactly what type of theory you mean (regular theory or harmony or analysis for example), but i think that watching and listening to youtube and podcasts...reading textbooks and other documents isn't really enough for most people.

if you're really into this sort of thing, my opinion is that maybe you need a workbook...and goodness knows there are plenty out there to choose from. you work through the workbook and suppliment with all those things you're watching, reading and listening to now. part of truly learning and understanding this stuff comes from doing the work on paper for yourself. i bet there are even some sites where you can get theory work sheets and answer sheets. probably some free and paid quiz sites as well. whatever you get...make sure the answer sheets are available if you don't have somone able to mark it for you.

i dunno. just a thought ;-)

Dick Hauser - Posted - 01/09/2011:  15:29:36

Jonno - Unfortunately, I seldom find much on applying music theory. Peter Mitchell (i.e. Petimar Press) wrote and sells a book teaching scales and theory. The last chapter of that book provided me with more information about applying theory. I wish other publications provided more information like that.

Now, that is one one small chapter. But, it did discuss which notes should be used, where melody notes are usually placed, etc.. I knew things about theory before I read this chapter, but reading this chapter helped me understand how they worked together. It was a very useful chapter and made me even more curious about how theory can be applied.

mswlogo - Posted - 01/09/2011:  17:18:20

Awesome, excellent site, thanks.

I have spent as much time on Music Theory as I have on "Playing the Fiddle" and can't get enough of both.

I'm pecking my way through this book now.

amazon.com/Solfege-Training-Rh...45&sr=8-1

T-Bird - Posted - 01/09/2011:  21:00:57

Jonno you should be a poet, because i do not think anyone could have worded that better.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 01/10/2011:  04:59:28

Very nicely put, for sure. It's good you are enjoying studying about theory and all things musical!

It is like an addicition.... or a relationship... I can't see how anybody could really learn to play an instrument without being so obsessed... I just don't think it could happen without that type of constant attention, thinking, yearning, and playing as much as life allows.

For me, the theory is kinda out the window at this point. I loved music so much I studied it in college... ended up focusing in on theory a lot because it was music composition I was so interested in studying, which makes theory an automatic thing... at the time it never dawned on me that for women, composition was an especially losing battle... and nearly so for men, but just a lot worse for women... and just majoring in music in general ain't that hopeful a thing to do anyway, unless high school marching band (yick!) is what somebody wants to spend their lives doing.

Anyway, at this point... I have the music obsession, but have forgotten just about all of the theory except for the very basics... I am more interested in the parts of the old time or folk music playing/singing that can't really be discussed... the elusive things that are so entwined in people's playing that there is no study possible that I could see. I came to realize that music comes before theory... that people do something with music out of love of the rawness of it... and then the theorists come along behind, like Newton or somebody, observing just how that works through the "rules" of physics, acoustics, 12-tone harmony, etc. Theory is a description of what music is. I no longer have much interest in theory and don't find it useful for myself, personally, although there might be some still etched into my thinking that I'm just not aware of.

Anyway... I hear your passion and the love of music that's driving you... and I can relate to that... it's a very good thing in life.

The love of music is the, well I was thinking spice... but that's really cliche at this point... spice of life... but let's just say the love of music is like puttin' the hot sauce to your existence and making it burn!!!! That sounds funny... don't know how else to say it!