How important are scales and theory in your guitar playing?

Do you use theory and scales in your guitar playing?


  • Total voters
    110
I am curious about how many players use scales and theory in their playing.
VP

I have the theory and I know the scales in an intellectual sense..... imperative for learning and practicing.....

But when it comes time to play, I dont think about what mode I'm using and whether the 3rd or the 5th or th 6th or the 7th is flatted.....no time for that. Intellectual players have a hard time with feelings, and feeling players have practiced to the point of transcending intellectual theory....

Use it to learn, and learn it so well that you dont have to use it.
 
As light said, everyone uses it whether or not they're aware of it.


The only thing i dislike is the people who play "by ear" and who seem to hate people who know what they're doing theory wise. I don't see the need. Ultimately, for me at least, the aim is to get the music thats in my head, out into peoples ears. I don't care how that happens.

Ditto that. All that matters is the end result ....... and 'haters' have no place in my music world.
Either path is fine.

Having said that, I'm an 'ear' player even though I know theory just fine. I majored in composition and even played bassoon in symphony some years.
But I no longer think in those terms ..... I just ....... ummmmm, ...... 'play'. I couldn't possibly put a thought-chain to it because it's gotten to be a mostly intuitive thing that I do.
On occasion I'll have a gig where I need to read but most of what I do is 'hired gun' work and I get hired for my ability to just 'go' when they give me the nod. Doesn't much matter if it's sax or guitar.

I do suppose that my theory knowledge is lurking under there somewhere but I'm very rarely aware of it. It's just not part of my thought process when I'm playing.
And even on gigs where it is written ...... I'll pretty much know the parts after a few run-throughs and I'll often quit reading and focus on emoting with the parts which you can't really put as much attention to if you're busy reading.

But I think theory is an important tool, especially as you're growing and developing.
 
what kept ya'?


:D

I'm like Nazi Germany. I'm fighting battles on like 10 different fronts. Except, I will win this war.



Anyway, any theory/anti-theory discussion is fucking stuipid and a waste of time. Anyone that can bang out music is using theory whether they know it or not. I don't know a lick of theory, but I can string chords and melodies together and make a song. I don't know any drum rudiments, but I can bang out a beat. I don't know or care about theory, but I know I'm using it. That's fine with me. A conscious application of theory won't make my dumb brand of rock and roll any better, so fuck it and fuck you!
 
If you're playing rock n' roll, very basic theory goes a long way, IMO. It's true that some guys get by amazingly with nothing at all, but come on, there are some basics I think everybody should know--especially as a songwriter. For example, little things like the shapes for major and minor scales, knowing what a "relative minor" is, etc. Simple pimple, can be learned in half an hour. In fact, this stuff is so basic and fundamental, I think even a lot of the staunchly anti-theory guys pick it up by accident.

I definitely agree with the "communication" thing. This bass player I occasionally jam with has good feel to his playing, decent fretboard dexterity, etc. but if I start playing a new tune, he's completely lost. I'll say what the chords or notes are for one part, and he has no idea where to find them. I literally have to walk over to where he's standing and let him watch my hand up close while I play the part, or point to the frets for him. Very annoying and inefficient. When the song changes to a different part, it's laughable watching him "hunt" around looking for the right notes--if he had any grasp of basic theory, he'd *know* where to start looking. You can argue that the latter only takes the right "ear", which may be enough, but to me, there's no question that when learning new music, an ear combined with knowledge will be more powerful than an ear alone.
 
I'll say what the chords or notes are for one part, and he has no idea where to find them. I literally have to walk over to where he's standing and let him watch my hand up close while I play the part, or point to the frets for him.

that is a fundamental lack of understnding of the instrument, not theory. you need to know the notes on a fretboard, imo. as a bass player, i don't need to know the notes of an augmented 7th. i need to know the root and what notes around that root that work.
 
that is a fundamental lack of understnding of the instrument, not theory. you need to know the notes on a fretboard, imo. as a bass player, i don't need to know the notes of an augmented 7th. i need to know the root and what notes around that root that work.

100% agreed.
 
Why be musically illiterate if you don't have to be.
I practiced all 48 scales (on the piano) from age 8-25 every day , eventually in parallel and contrary motion combined, moving up the chromatic scale from C to C nonstop at 200 on the metrenome 4 notes per beat. Can't hurt.:D I don't practice them any more:D
 
I use alot of scales.

Theres the johnny winter scale...the SRV scale....the BB King scale...
(not to be confused with the Albert King scale in which only the first note of the scale is fretted and the string is bent to reach all other notes in the scale)
...the Billy Gibbons scale...the Johnny Guitar Watson scale...the Roy Clark scale...to name a few

I haven't learned theory yet. I'm waiting for it to become fact then I'm gonna learn it.
 
I learned some basic theory and i feel it's helped me tremendously.I don't really apply it when i'm writing a tune.I just try and play what i hear in my head.Sometimes i'll play a weird or eery sounding chord and i'll go back to my theory and figure out just what particular chord i'm playing.I like to know just for the fact that if i'm showing the part to someone else that i can tell them what it is that i'm doing.

The whole point of theory is to be able to explain what is being done.Knowing your notes on the fretboard goes a long way when improvising and jamming with others.So does knowing some basic scales.I apply my knowledge of scales/modes when writing my leads but i try not to get too caught up with it or they end up sounding like an exercise.

When i learned to play scales years ago i learned to play all five positions on the neck.By knowing the positions and combining them as climbing scales you can cover a lot of groung improvising.The funny thing about theory is the more you learn you realize how everything kind of fits together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.More times than not what you've played works within the bounds of theory for whatever reason.If not it just creates tension and that's not a bad thing either.
 
When i learned to play scales years ago i learned to play all five positions on the neck.


One problem - when you are play strictly in position (something we should all aspire to avoid, but that's another issue), there are seven basic "shapes" of a major scale. One with each note of the scale as the lowest note. But your point is still more or less correct - knowledge is usually a good thing, and can help you figure things out faster than if you don't have it.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
I took lessons and played and practiced scales for a long time...the most they did for me is show me how to pick up a lead from listening to it.
I started playing arround with a sharped 4th mode lydian scale arround the time Yngwie was popular...that was a cool thing the teachers wouldnt teach us.
 
I started playing arround with a sharped 4th mode lydian scale arround the time Yngwie was popular...

Lydian is NOT a scale. It's a mode OF a scale. Each scale has seven modes, which are determined by:

Light said:
there are seven basic "shapes" of a major scale. One with each note of the scale as the lowest note.

Yes - I'm picky about that crap. . .
 
Anyway, any theory/anti-theory discussion is fucking stuipid and a waste of time. Anyone that can bang out music is using theory whether they know it or not. I don't know a lick of theory, but I can string chords and melodies together and make a song. I don't know any drum rudiments, but I can bang out a beat. I don't know or care about theory, but I know I'm using it. That's fine with me. A conscious application of theory won't make my dumb brand of rock and roll any better, so fuck it and fuck you!

I've never actually bothered listening to any of Gerg's music...I just assume he's good and knows what he's doing based on random readings on this board. But I do wish more people would understand that folks like Gerg and willis (those who don't bother fucking with theory, but can still be musically intelligent) are a rarity, and not just something that lazy dumbshits can use as an excuse to "keep playing by feel". Few things are more annoying then jamming with some retard, where you can't even communicate the simple concept of "play an F, Bb, C progression". More people should at least bother learning the basics of theory (fuck, I'd be satisfied if they'd just learn the names of the 1st 5 frets!), rather than assuming that everybody will appreciate their oh-so-artistic abilities of "playing by feel" and "just hearing the groove and nailing it". If you can pull it off, great...go rock out. If you only think you can pull it off, and your jamming buddies keep looking at you funny...well, you're one of the majority. Grab a book, spend an hour, and quit sucking.
 
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