It's All About Taking Chances...
When I first began playing guitar, I often found myself somewhat overwhelmed with all of the information that I had to absorb. Years later when I began teaching, I found that many of my students would often feel the same way. One thing that I always try to remind my students of (as well as myself) is this: as important as it is to learn the proper techniques and musical concepts that go into learning your instrument, you should never lose sight of the fact that there are some amazing things can be done on the guitar if you're willing to take a few chances and break a few rules. Neil Young once said "I'll go for things that I know are wrong, and with a vengeance". This kind of ‘no fear' attitude is a big component to breaking new ground with your playing and should be an essential part of your ‘musical philosophy'.
When I began to get serious about studying music theory in high school, I kept finding that for every ‘rule' that music theory presented, I could always find examples of my favorite players completely breaking those rules. When I asked my guitar teacher at the time about it, he responded with one of my all time favorite quotes: ‘That's why it's called music theory and not music fact'. What he was saying, which is something that took me a long time to really understand, is that as much as music is built around certain concepts and ‘rules', everyone interprets those ideas in their own way. After more than two decades of playing, I've found that many of the musical examples I hear with ‘rules being broken' actually sound better to my ears than if the rules were followed. Heck, listen to almost any Beatles tune and you'll hear all kinds of ‘broken rules' according to traditional music theory, but to me it still sounds great.
The real point is this: as musicians, we all have the choice to stay completely within the boundaries of what music theory tells us we should do, or we can throw caution to the wind and try to play more adventurously just to see what happens. I find that more often than not, my ‘mistakes' or ‘accidents' end up being something that I completely embrace musically, simply because I'm always searching for new sounds or new techniques.
For example, I'll never forget the first time I saw live footage of Jimi Hendrix. I was astounded to see that with many of the chords Jimi played, he would actually wrap his thumb over the top of the fretboard to play bass notes on the low E string while his fingers would grab the rest of the notes of the chord. Now, in my own playing experience up to that point, I had always been told to keep my thumb behind the neck in the ‘proper' position, and it had never even dawned on me to question that. After seeing Jimi play some amazing things with some very unorthodox techniques, I began to question what was 'right' versus what 'works'.
This is also true from a music theory perspective. For example, here's a chord progression from the Key of C Major, which contains no sharps or flats:
|| C Major | G Major | A Minor | C Major | F Major ||
Now here are two Beatles variations of this progression:
|| C Major | G Major | A Minor | C Major | F Major | Ab Major ||
|| C Major | G Major | A Minor | C Major | F Major | Bb 7th ||
|| C Major | G Major | A Minor | C Major | F Major ||
Now here are two Beatles variations of this progression:
|| C Major | G Major | A Minor | C Major | F Major | Ab Major ||
|| C Major | G Major | A Minor | C Major | F Major | Bb 7th ||
Now, the last time I checked, neither Ab Major or Bb 7th belong in the Key of C Major, but boy those are some GREAT sounding chord changes! As a student of ‘traditional music theory', I never would have thought to add in chord changes like these, but that proves my point: It's all about taking chances, whether it's crazy chords in a progression, adventurous techniques like Hendrix, or anything else you can think of. The next time you pick up your guitar, try to do something you've never done before - be a RISK TAKER! I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how far this frame of mind will take you.
Good Luck!
Nate
i subscribe to the theory if you mess up do it twice so it looks like you meant to do it
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Thanks for the tips Nate. I've been learning at Guitar Masterclass, but not everything seems to be clicking yet. This really helps!
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I haven't really learnt much about the music theory when I started playing the guitar, but as the years go by I notice from time to time that this way you can actually be better off. But still, if I could go back, I think I would have learnt at least some basic rules, as you call them - I still believe that this makes the process of learning much easier.
And as far as the post goes - I would imply that not just to the guitar playing, but to everything in general. It is all about taking chances.
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Nate,
I have taken all of your courses and have had great results, I am looking to go to the next level, will the advanced style pack ( or metal) be coming any time soon ??!!!
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