Do Old-Time BLUES PLAYERS Know Music Theory?
It’s the age old question that everybody and their grandmother is dying to know the answer to:
Do all those old pot-bellied alcoholics Blues players at your local pub’s blues jam know music theory?
Many leading philosophers, if asked this questions, would say say ‘no!’
Those aren’t the faces of scholars, those are hard-working, blue collar workers that don’t have the time, nor the quote-unquote “book smarts” to learn the sophisticated, complex language of music theory!
These men play with heart and soul! With no regard for the posh opulence of music theory!
They simply ‘feel’ what chord is about to be played, at which point they ‘feel’ what notes would be most appropriate to play over said chord, and finally, they ‘feel’ how best to connect those notes in a way that appropriately compliments the musical themes!
No fancy shmancy music “thee-ree” at play here, no sireee, just men expressing themselves emotionally through the lucid connection of their very deepest thoughts and feelings, the furthest recesses of their hearts, into sad songs about life's highs and lows, but especially the lows.
...
Waaaait, hang on for just a second.
How exactly does it work to just ‘feel’ what chord is about to be played, how to outline its chord tones, how to connect those notes melodically, and do all of it in a way that compliments the overall tone of the song?
Simple! You see, the word ‘feel’ in this context is actually a code word.
In reality, there’s an entire system, a language if you will, that all of these blues players understand and abide by which allows them to so elegantly accomplish nearly the exact same thing that music theory would allow them to do.
What is this language, I wonder?
Watch the video below, and I’ll explain the secret system that nearly all blues players use so fluently.
What should a guitar player know about theory to properly play the blues? Well, a lot of things of course. But a great place to start is learning your way around the different scales and modes. Click here to start massively expanding your knowledge of scales and modes on the guitar! Master of the Modes guitar course
Video Transcription
Hello Internet, so nice to see you! I got a question about blues players and theory. Old-time blues players often don't know squat about theory, and they would be helpless to analyze song structure, but they develop a natural propensity for both.
They are musicians and they are guitar players. It is often just them, a guitar, a mic, their voice, and sometimes a harmonica, so it's hard not to classify them as outright musicians. At the same time, they are also well known as guitarists.
I have to say that actually pretty much all the blues players I've played with know their theory really well. They know their dominant seventh chord. They even know what notes are inside. They know what scales work on those dominant seventh chords.
They have a very good sense of sound structure. They know it's a 12-bar blues or an 8-bar blues or any other kind of blues. And if you go and tell them play an early four, they know exactly what I'm talking about, but an early four is a blues chord progression where the second bar is the fourth chord as opposed to the fifth bar.
It's the first fourth chord that happened in the chord progression. Those people seem to know their theory inside out actually, and you notice that whenever you go, I mean, don't take my word for it, go to a jam session, see those people play together.
You don't have to participate. You just have to look at them and listen to them and notice that when they are explaining the song to each other, when they are negotiating what they want to play, they are talking in music theory terms.
They're going to play a blues in B flat, dominant blues. But on the sixth, I'm going to do a two, five, one, go in here. And they're definitely not telling to each other, play this shape and then play the shape and then move it down.
Okay. Or they're not telling each other, you know, put your fingers on the third string on the seventh. They're not saying that. They're not saying that. that. They are actually discussing in music theory terms.
This is true of modern blues player and it's true also of all-time blues players, because as the commenter was, we say, in his next comment, he's talking about blues players of a past generation. But honestly, that is not true.
From the very first generation of blues players, as far as we can tell, those people had a pretty good idea about what they were playing. Maybe they couldn't explain it in terms of academic ways. So if you ask them why your first chord is a dominant other than being a major seven, they will simply answer, you know, just because it sounds good.
But honestly, that's a pretty good explanation already. They know the first chord is a dominant seven or a sixth or whatever it is. in the song, they know how to play, they know what notes are inside, and they know what kind of chord progression work just because they cannot fit this into a key structure that resembles the major or minor scale of classical music, I don't see the problem.
They still know their theory, they just... their music doesn't fit that specific kind of explanation, but they still know their music. So we were talking with this band and it was, you would expect to be keen to not know any theory, you know, the legends were to be keen to not know any theory, and then he's talking with the band, I don't have the video here sadly, but we're talking with the band using very technical terms,
and you could see that he knew his music theory, and that seems to be true of all the blues players. Once you ask the people who actually knew them and worked with them, that seems to be the case. I don't think blues players don't know theory.
I think they know theory, I think occasionally they use different names than the academic music theory, I think many of them has an interest in telling you that they don't know theory, and I think that a lot of blues has something to do with theory, but not primarily to do with theory in the sense of chords and scale, because a lot of blues lives on phrasing, rather than living on specific scales and chords,
etc. The expression, the smear note, the slides, the bends are more important in blues, and those things can be in theory, but often those are just best learned, sitting down with a player and trying to copy what they're doing, okay?
Less in blues that is expressed in terms of music theory such as chords and scale, though chords and scale are still necessary and those people still know their chords and scales. Blues players tell you to mix major pentatonic and minor pentatonic, so at least they know their pentatonic scale, and they can even mix them and play them in the same position.
If that's not theory, I don't know what it is. I think there's a lot of mythology around about great musicians not knowing music theory, but like I said in many other videos, music theory is the shortcut.
It's the way to learn everything faster. It's easier to become a good musician if you know your theory, and lots of good musicians have studied theory or at least the part of theory that is relevant to their style of music.
Nobody says you have to study all of it, but you have to study the part of it that is useful for your style and for your expression and for the sounds you want to create. And there's nothing strange with that, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But, I mean, we have this mythology that those people did not know any theory. They were still creative, they were still geniuses, their heart and soul was still shining through the music, theory was just a tool that helped them do that.
There is no problem in learning music theory. But I think we should stop once and for all, guys, to say that those people don't know the music theory. If you think they don't, go out and talk with them.
And if you think it's our past generation, well, at least go and try to find evidence of that. You won't find it, okay? Lots of these people knew the music theory really well. Maybe they did not know how to read music, but that's not theory.
That's just a specific skill in the puzzle, in music theory. You don't have to learn to read, to know your theory, to know what's a dominant chord, what notes fits with it, and what's a scale, what scale fits with the dominant chord, and all this kind of thing.
Learn the theory that is relevant to you. And if you don't know what it is, you know what? Write me an email. I will send you in the right direction. This is Tommaso Zillio for musictheoryforguitar.com and until next time, enjoy!