So You Wanna Be a Blog Star

This could be my new favorite blogger.  Maybe.  I'm still trying to decide.  I definitely like the song.

Comments

[Chad Grimes]

Reading Music Is Not Music Theory

Hi Carol, I found your interview with Chuck Rainey to be very interesting. I always love to read articles that give the audience a perspective on what a Bassist like Chuck Rainey thinks about different issues on musicianship and the music industry. The one question that you asked Chuck Rainey was:
I notice a real dichotomy between musicians in general, bass players in particular. One camp maintains it is imperative to study music and music theory. The other camp asserts you don't have to know any theory to be a great musician. What do you say?
I’m writing to you because I would like to give you and the readers my perspective on this question. First, I would like to give you some background information about me, only to give you an idea of my experiences in the music scene. I have been a musician for 25 years and play the Bass Guitar, Guitar, and Piano. I graduated from Berklee College of Music and co-own a small recording business in Pennsylvania. I also am a Music Educator and currently, I have gone back to school to finish my Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership.
My perspective on the question of whether it is important to know music theory or not, starts with a look at the music industry to date. There is so much mediocrity today in many areas of the music industry. Because many signed acts cannot consistently produce a great performance, the industry has adopted a philosophy of “Let’s just have the singer pretend to sing,” while the over produced, pre-recorded, pitch shifted perfect voice does the work. In recording instruments such as drums and guitars, etc, all are manipulated to beyond perfect timing, and resulting in the recording and arrangements sounding robotic. The vogue response in today’s music scene is that singers dance and have to work the stage, therefore needing the pre-recorded track. I ask the question, “Didn’t singers have to dance in the past decades?” What did musicians do in the past without an edit window to align a kick drum and Bass track to a perfect un-human, physically impossible, alignment to the exact millisecond every measure. I would at this time like to suggest that a plausible perspective might be, that because reading music has become a dying art, today’s music industry has suffered from the many mediocre signed acts.
It is my perspective that many people mix the idea of being able to read music with music theory. It is two different concepts. A musician can have the ability to read music without really understanding music theory. One can also be a great musician without understanding music theory. However, I believe that it is important for all musicians to be able to read music, for it is a rare exception to be a great musician without being able to read. I see so many students using a tab method of reading that has no rhythm durations. This results in many students learning only intros to songs. Students who read tab cannot truly understand harmony and chord changes. Also their rhythm and timing suffers because they do not understand measures and never develop a feel of acceleration and de-acceleration of music. A student who does not learn to read music, will often have a difficult time comprehending time duration beyond the foundational durations of whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes.
It is also my perspective that there is an incorrect idea of music theory’s importance in learning to play an instrument. Many Guitar and Bass Guitar instructors will make students learn scales. Many students are being taught tab, so functional comprehension of scales becomes difficult because the student does not understand notes. So these students never understand how scales work in the real world. The kicker is, neither do most instructors. They will give a safe answer that it is used for Guitar or Bass soloing. This is a fallacy! Any great Jazz soloist, Blues or Rock Guitarist does not think in terms of scales when soloing. In fact there is no real music theory thinking at all. As the old saying goes, “If you are thinking, you are stinking!” If anyone ever notices the hands of any great Jazz guitarist, rock legend, etc., playing a solo, you will notice that their hands are moving back and forth on the neck of the instrument. You will not see their hands totally isolated in one cold, sterile scale pattern. This is because the great pro musicians understand the chord changes. They solo and play “On the Chord,” not scales. They understand where the melody is on the chord change and know where the chord tones and non- chord tones are around the chord, creating tension and resolution in their playing. A great example of how scales fail a musician is playing Jazz music. Let’s say a student has the ability to understand key signatures and sees a G major key signature. If that student just solos over a G major scale, he or she is going to sound out of tune in many places because jazz music borrows chords from other key signatures. A series of contiguous II, V chords in a jazz tune will leave that G major scale sounding bad. This is where scales are going to fail a student. No great musician is going to think about where he has to sharp or flat a note from a scale perspective. They understand chord tones and non-chord tones from playing “On the chord change.”
And finally, it is my perspective that bassists should learn how to read notes. Again, this is not music theory; this is a matter of truly understanding the function of the instrument. Of all the bassists that I see who say they cannot read, I have not known one to understand what they can truly do over a chord such as Cm7b5. Learning to read notes is not really music theory, and is easy to learn as the alphabet. Mr. Rainey used the example of children learning to read in school. As an educator, I see the struggles of some high school students with deficiencies in reading the English language, that are reading on an elementary level. Some of these high school students having difficulties reading, never experience the classic novels and do not get much farther than Dick and Jane books. Playing an instrument is not any different. A musician who cannot read will not be able to play any song on the spot. They will also not be able to play songs they have never heard before. And finally, it takes longer to learn songs for musicians who cannot read.
In conclusion, it is my hope that we as music educators, get rid of the gimmicks and get back to teaching how to play the Bass Guitar and Guitar correctly. Music theory is for a deeper understanding of music and how it functions on a larger scale. However, learning to read music should not be confused as music theory, rather a standard foundation for truly understanding and having control of your instrument.

- Chad Grimes

[dmarkette]

Thanks for the blurb and posting my link to BlogStar