Once one perceives the obvious aspects of an undertaking, the more subtle aspects often show themselves to us. The hidden aspects often seem obvious in retrospect, or sometimes excitingly new. We merely need to look, and learn what to look for, with the overarching goal that the pieces of the endeavor fit together gracefully. This occurs in music, woodworking, drawing, engineering, and in many other disciplines. I enjoy writing arrangements and songs for guitar and voice that sound good to me (and with any luck - others). In that endeavor, the "toolbox" of music theory increases the creative ability to see valuable ideas and a diversity of options. While not an expert, I find that along with playing an instrument, documenting music into a score generally improves the output as details become more obvious. One can also write a playable passage that takes time to learn to play on guitar. The act of documenting music for me dispels the otherwise ephemeral nature of musical ideas by memorializing a piece and making it easier to share with other musicians. Of course, performing the music ultimately provides the most compelling experience for both the artist and listener.
Great breakdown of the subject and as far as analogies go, a good analogy too. 😊 I've played guitar since I was a child, but my day job as an adult was as a carpenter/woodworker for 30 years. Both do have their "box" but it's also good to know what makes them different. For a potter, the circle or cylinder is their square or box. It has a lot to do with both the physical and mental tools that fit the medium. It's easiest and most logical to cut wood across it's grain. This gives one a length of timber they can use to build things, like a cabin. The cabin itself is easier to build in a square or rectangle because of the material. Change that material, like blocks of ice for instance, and then building in a circle makes the most sense because Ice blocks make terrible corners, and a dome is the most logical because it's a stronger structure then. But knowing these things as you said, requires doing them. As a carpenter, the first things I learned were how to operate the tools to make one piece the correct length, and then attach it to the others. Like learning an interval, and how to connect that to another interval to make a chord. Witch is the first thing I thought of when I saw the title (though I also was thinking of as an arpeggio or scale fragment (same thing anyway). But then just learning how to make many different boxes and rectangles to build houses (there's a hell of a lot more to it, ofc) has to precede my becoming a woodworker and learning how to build circles and ellipses with wood. Sadly, that's mostly a lost art, and I had to teach myself a lot about old world methods from old books to do that well. I still don't understand _coverings of solids_ or have met anyone that knew what that term was in relation to woodworking. But for those who read all of that, my apologies. Here's how learning the diatonic scale worked so easily for me. I was taught on piano, witch makes C major just playing the white keys from C to the next C. If you don't have a keyboard or piano, look at picture of one... See how there are only two places where the white keys are right next to each other? Those are the notes B and C, and then E and F. That's the only place they are right next to each other on the guitar too. So knowing that, to play the scale you just make every move have a fret in between the notes. This called a "whole step", except when you reach B and C or E and F. Then there is no space between them, and it's one fret away, or a "ha;f step." To make it even easier. learn the A minor scale, witch is all exactly the same, except it goes from A to A. That one is literally: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Then to turn those into intervals (to understand music theory), it's just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. But those numbers apply to any key, scale, or chord. Meaning they're moveable, whereas the location of the note C, or say B-flat is always in the same location. Anyway, that's essentially the "box" I used to learn more advanced music theory from. Tommaso has plenty of videos showing exactly how to do these things. So it's even easier for people these days. Hope everyone is doing well and have a wonderful holiday season. ❤🌍🌎🌏🌐
3:47 I am very reminded of Marx. No, not Groucho. No, not Karl. Adolph Bernhard. _"Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition. 4 Bände. Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig 1837-1847."_
I counted four solid ways over 3-4 strings, i have also counted 2 over two strings, and then there is the single string. I always forget going down however, I should practice going down a day after I have praacticed going up so i dont get tired doing the same thing for too long
I was driving and it occured to me that with a two string scale, you create the one note pivot point (where only one note is played on either string i suppose) and it followed that i thought of what if you used a chord tone but not the root on the lower strings and I would have a chord over note approach to scales
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Very good video ! I would love to have more videos like this 👍
And once your guitar sounds like a guitar, absolutely try to play piano (or any other instrument) parts on it. It unlocks so many additional "boxes"!
Once one perceives the obvious aspects of an undertaking, the more subtle aspects often show themselves to us. The hidden aspects often seem obvious in retrospect, or sometimes excitingly new. We merely need to look, and learn what to look for, with the overarching goal that the pieces of the endeavor fit together gracefully. This occurs in music, woodworking, drawing, engineering, and in many other disciplines.
I enjoy writing arrangements and songs for guitar and voice that sound good to me (and with any luck - others). In that endeavor, the "toolbox" of music theory increases the creative ability to see valuable ideas and a diversity of options. While not an expert, I find that along with playing an instrument, documenting music into a score generally improves the output as details become more obvious. One can also write a playable passage that takes time to learn to play on guitar. The act of documenting music for me dispels the otherwise ephemeral nature of musical ideas by memorializing a piece and making it easier to share with other musicians.
Of course, performing the music ultimately provides the most compelling experience for both the artist and listener.
Great breakdown of the subject and as far as analogies go, a good analogy too. 😊
I've played guitar since I was a child, but my day job as an adult was as a carpenter/woodworker for 30 years.
Both do have their "box" but it's also good to know what makes them different. For a potter, the circle or cylinder is their square or box. It has a lot to do with both the physical and mental tools that fit the medium. It's easiest and most logical to cut wood across it's grain. This gives one a length of timber they can use to build things, like a cabin. The cabin itself is easier to build in a square or rectangle because of the material. Change that material, like blocks of ice for instance, and then building in a circle makes the most sense because Ice blocks make terrible corners, and a dome is the most logical because it's a stronger structure then.
But knowing these things as you said, requires doing them. As a carpenter, the first things I learned were how to operate the tools to make one piece the correct length, and then attach it to the others. Like learning an interval, and how to connect that to another interval to make a chord. Witch is the first thing I thought of when I saw the title (though I also was thinking of as an arpeggio or scale fragment (same thing anyway).
But then just learning how to make many different boxes and rectangles to build houses (there's a hell of a lot more to it, ofc) has to precede my becoming a woodworker and learning how to build circles and ellipses with wood. Sadly, that's mostly a lost art, and I had to teach myself a lot about old world methods from old books to do that well. I still don't understand _coverings of solids_ or have met anyone that knew what that term was in relation to woodworking.
But for those who read all of that, my apologies. Here's how learning the diatonic scale worked so easily for me. I was taught on piano, witch makes C major just playing the white keys from C to the next C. If you don't have a keyboard or piano, look at picture of one...
See how there are only two places where the white keys are right next to each other? Those are the notes B and C, and then E and F. That's the only place they are right next to each other on the guitar too.
So knowing that, to play the scale you just make every move have a fret in between the notes. This called a "whole step", except when you reach B and C or E and F. Then there is no space between them, and it's one fret away, or a "ha;f step."
To make it even easier. learn the A minor scale, witch is all exactly the same, except it goes from A to A. That one is literally: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and A.
Then to turn those into intervals (to understand music theory), it's just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. But those numbers apply to any key, scale, or chord. Meaning they're moveable, whereas the location of the note C, or say B-flat is always in the same location.
Anyway, that's essentially the "box" I used to learn more advanced music theory from.
Tommaso has plenty of videos showing exactly how to do these things. So it's even easier for people these days.
Hope everyone is doing well and have a wonderful holiday season. ❤🌍🌎🌏🌐
Great comment!
3:47 I am very reminded of Marx.
No, not Groucho. No, not Karl. Adolph Bernhard.
_"Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition. 4 Bände. Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig 1837-1847."_
I had bad teachers lost interest in playing guitar how can I get back into playing it any suggestions would do
I counted four solid ways over 3-4 strings, i have also counted 2 over two strings, and then there is the single string. I always forget going down however, I should practice going down a day after I have praacticed going up so i dont get tired doing the same thing for too long
im working on open string approaches and the hard part is remembering the one i learned yesterday! Great lesson! Enjoy!
I was driving and it occured to me that with a two string scale, you create the one note pivot point (where only one note is played on either string i suppose) and it followed that i thought of what if you used a chord tone but not the root on the lower strings and I would have a chord over note approach to scales
Always appreciate your insights! Thanks!
Is that a scalloped fretboard?
yes :)