How far down are you willing to go?

As I’m sure you know from my posts here on Fretterverse, I love music theory. Learning about how music is structured and how it all works when put together is my answer to all the guys in high school who took auto, wood, and metal shop classes. I never had the knack for mechanical work, but I’ve always respected the hell out of those who did.

In my senior year of high school, I was the only student in my Music Theory IV class; just me and the teacher. Needless to say, I learned an awful lot of stuff that year. By the time summer was approaching and I was getting ready to graduate, every class included atonal sight-singing exercises courtesy of Modus Novus, jazz theory, harmonization, composing, arranging… it was all there. And I loved every second of it.

Until I actually had to pick up the guitar and play.

Information Overload

I was trying soooooo hard to fit what I was learning in class into my playing. Perhaps too soon, and definitely too much. It was information overload. For some reason I got it in my head that I had to do everything that was being taught because those were the rules. I let my education replace my intuition.

A recent discussion about jazz guitar improvisation dredged up those old high school theory memories. For many years now everyone in this discussion circle has been learning to play jazz guitar a certain way, concentrating on playing what they hear – with certain guidelines, of course – making melodies, comping simple chords, and generally approaching the guitar from a no-frills standpoint. The idea here is that most of the students are just learning how to play jazz and aren’t quite ready for the advanced stuff. (Some are, but most will be the first to admit they are not.)

For years these players bought into a system and have been making amazing progress. They haven’t worried about theory, don’t care about the mechanics behind a melodic minor scale, etc. They are finally making music after all of their collective years hacking around on the guitar. It has been truly inspiring. The success stories are plentiful and all very inspiring to read.

Look Out Rabbits, Here They Come!

Recently, a guest instructor came into the fold – a fantastic player, just so you know – to demonstrate their approach to improvisation. Unlike the previous instruction in the group, these lessons were very jazz theory-oriented. Melodic Minor scale 1/2 step up from the Dom7th chord, bebop scales with the nat7 on the upbeat so chord tones fall on the strong beats… all of the stuff the music book publishing companies have made fortunes on.

Quicker than you can spell out a C#min/Maj7 arpeggio, many of the students who had done so well with their original method jumped right down the jazz theory rabbit hole. All of a sudden, everyone went into a frenzy about the nat7 in a bebop scale and how to use it. All of a sudden, everything was over-analyzed and beaten to a pulp as if the world was going to end if they didn’t somehow add this line of thinking into their playing. They seem to have immediately forgotten that they had already been playing this way for months and months and months when they were just making melodies and following some simple guidelines, ignoring all of the technical mumbo jumbo. (I don’t think it’s mumbo jumbo, btw… I’m just being melodramatic. Call it journalistic license.) But the point is, a name was attached to it and before long everyone acted like it was the first time they had ever learned it.

The Battle of Good vs. Evil

It makes me wonder; if people were doing so well with the “old” system, why all of a sudden did they jump onto this new system, trying to understand it as if it was absolutely crucial to their “getting it.” They were “getting it” before, why didn’t they think they were?

I see this all the time in my martial arts classes. People who have been training for a few years get to a crossroads where they aren’t quite sure if the system really works or not. They see the senior-level students being able to do it, they see the heads of the system being able to do it, but for some reason they still question that it will work for them. I was there, I came to the same crossroads. I and the other senior members always encourage the other students, telling them to “keep going” and not to worry about the finer details. Just keep training and it will all make sense in its own time. We can give you all of the terms and definitions and advanced footwork, but if you’ve only been training for three years it’s not going to mean anything to you. At some point, these students have to stop questioning and have some trust. They have to put away their fear and doubts and run as fast as they can towards the light rather than away from it. Only then will they truly start to “get it.” But until that point, the constant push and pull of good and evil self will just keep them in place. Even moving backwards is better than sitting in limbo, unable to move.

These guitar students are exactly the same as my martial arts students. They are constantly looking for that better mousetrap. What they are doing now is the be-all, end-all, right up until it isn’t. And yet these same people constantly feel like they aren’t making any progress, or that they aren’t progressing fast enough. I’ll tell you why:

Because they don’t trust the system they bought into! They haven’t given it enough time, and they don’t trust their intuition; they’re trusting their own theory!

Students get to a point where they think their teachers (whomever “they” may be) are holding out on them, like they are trying to purposely keep the students down. I have another theory. Perhaps these teachers know what the students need to progress much better than the students do. That is why they came to the teacher in the first place, right?

Guys, you don’t know what you need to do in order to get better, and yet when a seasoned veteran/professional tells you, you doubt them.

You will never climb out of this rabbit hole if you keep flitting about from one “next greatest thing” to another. Why do you think weight-loss companies make billions of dollars but always write in their advertising “results not typical.” It’s because they know you won’t stick with it and do what you’re supposed to. They’re actually counting on it! They want you to chronically fail, to start and stop a new diet program every six months. Because they make money that way. If you stuck with it and succeeded you wouldn’t need them anymore – you’d already be thin!

That Five-Letter Word

If you’ve invested years of your time to a certain method, and that method has worked for you, given you great rewards, produced results, and shown that it can help you to improve, and you know that you haven’t yet gleaned everything you can from that method, then you have to use that five-letter word many run away from so quickly: faith. Faith in yourself, and faith in the system you’re learning. Give it time; it will come to you, but you have to trust that if you’re going in the right direction you will continue to do so. Then, once you finally do “get it” you’ll be better suited to know what path to take next.

Don’t fall down the rabbit hole. Don’t be distracted by the new bright, shiny object being held in front of you. Most importantly, and this is the hardest one for most of us, don’t think you know better than the one you’re learning from. It may not make sense to you now, and it may even be uncomfortable because the teacher is purposely pushing you out of your comfort zone. But, assuming your teacher isn’t sadistic and gets off on watching you fail, you need to trust, have faith, and follow the path he has laid out for you.