Why Do So Many BEGINNER Musicians Keep Getting This WRONG?
There seems to be a lot of people out there in the music world that seem to think the best way to learn music is by first learning to play ‘by feel’, and then learn music theory once you’ve gotten a good ‘feel’ for how music works.
This makes sense in people’s heads, but the logic starts to quickly fall apart when you start applying it to other things.
For example:
Should firefighter learn to fight fires ‘by feel’ before learning studied, proper protocol?
Should a surgeon perform their first dozen open-heart surgeries ‘by feel’ before learning proven methods?
Now, I already know what you’re thinking. “Those are life or death scenarios that have no bearing on how someone should learn an artistic discipline”.
And do you know what? That’s a good point. Allow me to find a better way of illustrating this.
When you first learn a language, you start out learning ‘by feel’. This method of learning teaches you how to say ‘mumma’ and ‘poppa’ with about a 60-percent-success-rate.
There is no theory, no instruction that teaches you these words, they are simply instinctual noises that we have come to understand as ‘mother’ and ‘father’.
If you were to continue learning the language by feel, and nothing else, these words would remain powerful forces in your overall vocabulary throughout your life, slowly finding company in other words you pick up solely through contextual clues, such as ‘hungry’, ‘thirsty’, ‘bathroom’, and various curse words.
Instead of this, most children find themselves learning the theory of the language they speak extremely early into their development. In fact way, way earlier than you suspect.
Posters with colours and matching colour names, shapes and matching shape names; while primitive, these are technically things that teach you associations, spelling, enunciation, and other key elements of the language you speak.
Much like chords, scales, keys, and notes are key elements of music theory that give you a fundamental understanding of music as you learn.
So, if you want to be the musical equivalent of an adult communicating like a 2 year old, feel free to delay learning music theory as long as you wish.
If you want to progress at the highest possible speed and actually develop a proper understanding of music as a whole, watch the video linked below to learn more about why this is such a problematic mentality and how to start with learning theory.
Want to start learning more about music theory? If you're looking for a place to start, check out my free music theory resources. To start learning more about theory right away with no risk!
Video Transcription
Hello Internet, so nice to see you! I got an interesting comment on if it's best to learn theory from the beginning or to wait to learn theory. Not true. I've been playing guitar for seven years. Don't bother with theory until you're already good at playing by feel.
Theory will become more intuitive and easier to play in practice, while your feeling will be fully formed. Well, needless to say, I completely disagree with that. Sorry to come out of the bat this way, but I want to make it clear for the listeners here.
The best way to learn theory is to start learning theory from day one. Mind you, I'm not saying learn only theory, but I'm saying start learning theory from day one, because it takes a little bit of time for the theory to come together and be able to apply it on the guitar.
So it might as well get started earlier rather than later. What happens to those people who are waiting to develop good feel, and it doesn't matter if you've been playing for seven years or for 70 years, okay?
Because it's not how long you were playing, but it's how much you learn, which is a completely different thing. But what happens to the people who do this is that they get the good feel. At the beginning, it feels like it takes a long time to get a good feel on the guitar, a good groove playing well, but it doesn't really take that much if you know what you're doing or if you have a guide or a teacher.
And then the limiting factor becomes theory. And then they know how to play a few chords, they know maybe how to play a few scales, but they have no idea what to do with all that. And then they start thinking, oh my, theory is too complicated.
Yes, it's because you are not growing the theory organically with what you are learning. You want to start studying theory from the very beginning. Theory actually should not be called theory. That's the thing.
Originally, what we call music theory, all the things we teach under music theory, the chords, the scales, etc., was simply called music. When you were learning music, that's what they were teaching you.
Okay, they were teaching you that, and then they were playing it on the instrument. Scales were an exercise. Chords were an exercise and a way to play on a score. And other things were always connected that way to actual musical practice.
Then we decided to call it theory and we decided to not show the connection anymore in the same way. And that's the way you see it now taught all around the internet. Which is not the right way. I prefer to connect this to the guitar immediately.
I mean, if you take one of my courses, any one of my courses, I connect theory immediately to the guitar. We spend the first session usually playing some of this stuff directly on the guitar until you get this kind of connection between what is the theory and what is the sound of this and how it feels and sound on the guitar.
Okay? So now, don't wait to learn theory. And also, when somebody tells you to not learn theory, always consider the source. Go and see who those people are. Go and see how they are playing. Go and see if they actually have good feel and if they actually know what they're doing.
But that's the thing. Don't wait. Learn something from the beginning. Even if you don't understand exactly how it connects. Consider it an investment in future you so that when you get a good feeling on the instrument, when you are able to play a chord or two, then you also know what to do with them.
And again, you don't have to spend hours and hours and hours a day. It literally can be a few minutes a day. Because honestly, theory can be broken down in very simple things. And you can just learn them one at a time and put things together.
Don't wait. Every time I say these, some people are like, no, I'm gonna wait anyway. Okay. And then I also get comments like, you're right, I waited and now I'm stuck. If you wanna believe me, believe me, but if you don't wanna believe me, at least consider the other people who are commenting, okay, who are telling you that they got stuck because I did not start theory immediately.
Okay? I mean, if there are people who have no experience telling you something, people who have experience telling you something completely different, I will follow the advice of people with experience.
And people with experience is pretty much always start learning theory as soon as possible. Not all the formal thing, not all the coarse, strange chord notation, not the stuff that they pass as theory today on YouTube.
The actual thing that you need to learn to play the instrument. The theory that actually applies to your guitar. No more, no less, okay? That useful and that gives you ideas and that makes you a better musician.
And the more you know, the better. It never boxes you. You never get stuck because a theory is a bunch of ideas of what you can play on the instrument. And you pick and choose the ideas you like. That's what it is.
That's how it works. Would you really refuse having more ideas? I wouldn't. Okay, don't wait to learn theory. And if you need some help, I have plenty of free resources. I'm not even selling you anything.
I have plenty of free resources for beginners. Send me an email or just check musictheoryforguitar.com and go on free resources. Okay, I have a page only of free stuff with several ebooks that you can download completely for free.
Again, I'm not even selling you anything. Get the free stuff, but learn from the beginning. This is Tommaso Zillio for musictheoryforguitar.com and until next time, enjoy!