[Dixielandjazz] Re: Music theory

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

I guess I should have added - if you try to do it while you improvise.  I 
think it's fine to study it before and after but while actually doing it??? 
Maybe someone else's brain works differently than mine I don't know but I 
just don't have time to do all that.  I hear it and go.

 I wholly agree with you that you can't learn too much theory but there is a 
down side to that too.  An example is have you heard any accomplished opera 
singer try to sing pop or jazz?  It typically just isn't in them because 
they have over trained or at least that's what I think causes it.

Now I think it might be a whole different ball game if you were a keyboard 
player.  I'm coming at this from a horn player's standpoint.

>>>> Theory is best not learned/taught purely as a paper exercise, the way 
>>>> it is commonly done (especially in this country).

You said a mouth full that time.  I'm sure that I would enjoy it a whole lot 
more than I did if I had a gifted teacher in theory but I didn't.

No one taught me to improvise and certainly the college I went to didn't. 
If anything they saw it as very detrimental to what they were trying to 
accomplish.  I caught a lot of heat for playing in the night clubs.
Larry
St. Louis

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Dophin88 at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 11:40 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Re: Music theory



> "I have a good friend that's really good with all sorts of scales, whole
> tone, mixolidian, (all the Greek scales) and a few that I don't know. He's
> fast as hell and can wow just about anyone but his solos sound like scales
> and something out of a exercise book. That's what you'll get if you delve
> too much into the theory."
>
Well, that's not necessarily what you'll get if you delve too much into the
theory!   If you do it right, you get a deeper, more thorough understanding 
of
the music, and can express it (or compose it, or hear it) more freely and
beautifully.   If you have better listening chops (which is what theory can 
do),
you have better chops in every area of your musical life.   Theory is best 
not
learned/taught purely as a paper exercise, the way it is commonly done
(especially in this country).  As a theory teacher myself, having studied 
with the
best, I teach based on the ear and the music in the most fundamental sense -
understanding the function and the importance of each 
note/interval/chord/line.
I don't think about scales and intervals per se when I'm playing - but those
years of study totally inform my musicianship and the way I play, hear, and
compose music.

If someone's solos sound like scales from a theory book, that's not an
example of the benefits of studying theory in my mind, and certainly not a 
necessary
end of "delving too much into the theory" (which in my opinion isn't
possible, if it's done right!).  It's an example of studying theory the 
wrong way, or
of studying only one of the elements of theory (the non-musical part) ans
stopping before you get to the important part.   Those scales are not being 
fully
understood or used musically if they sound that way, even if they are
"correct."   It is the work that is done AFTER you have the scales, etc. 
under your
belt that is the important part.   If you stop there, you miss the beauty of 
how
that study can inform your playing and listening and composing.



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