what type of music do you wish to play?

nadiatims wrote:

A question for the musicians:
I'm learning music (specifically the guitar), and I'm wondering if I should try to apply some of the learning approaches I'm using to learn Japanese. Eg the use of mnemonics, the divide and conquer approach ( kanji writing first, then kanji reading ) etc.
I know that there are a lot of different things to learn in music, eg rhythm, scales, chords, ear training, etc.
Do you think it is better to 'master' one aspect before moving onto others, and only then tackling complete songs? If so, what do you think are the fundamental building blocks that some one should learn first?
Should I go and memorize 1000 different guitar chords as a first step? perhaps using SRS.
Shoud I attempt to train my ear until i'm pitch perfect? is this even possible?
Should I just ignore all this and play songs, going from easy to progressively more difficult?
Scales?
Is it fair to assume that musicians who can simply pick up a new piece of music and play it right off the bat can do so, because they already know all the chords/scales it uses?

thoughts? opinions? question marks?

I sort of see music as pretty divided into music theory and actual playing.  You could use mnemonics to learn music theory, but I'd say it's much slower than learning the various simple tricks there are.  (For example, there is a trick using the letters BEADGCF to know the notes in a key, and as for the notes in a chord you just have to count numbers once you know what the notes in the key are.  When you're learning it, if you want me to suggest any tricks just let me know.)

As for the actual playing, there's no way mnemonics can help you.  You can know that a major C chord is made up of C E and G, but that doesn't really help you with the guitar because it's very hard at first to quickly know which note your playing on the fretboard.  It's much easier to practice playing a C chord, and then you have it down by muscle memory very quickly.

One thing I'd say is that teachers really do help early on.  You'll have a lot of questions that a teacher can answer, and it will save you the trouble of learning things incorrectly which you'll later have to deal with (things like holding the pick wrong, not keeping your wrist straight, and not using your left hand in a really funky way).  Remember though, there are lots of bad teachers.

I learned guitar for about 4 years with no teacher, and in just a year or so on piano with a good teacher I was at a comparable level with my guitar playing.

(Also, to a certain extent everyone does a bit of divide in conquer in music.  Theory is usually learned separately from playing.  People practice scales.  People practice chords with a metronome to practice chord changes, etc.  It's very common, and I'm sure even a very bad teacher would suggest some of these techniques)

Last edited by Tzadeck (2009 June 19, 11:27 pm)

An SRS might be useful for practicing perfect pitch. Maybe.

thanks for all the replies.

radical_tyro> I'd like to be able to play anything really. No particular preferences. Playing electric though.

aijin wrote:

Test out the waters of different methods. Once you find what you're most comfortable with, go from there. Some people seem to learn best doing one thing at a time, others at doing everything at once. What is most 'effective' is too subjective to the individual.

My experience with japanese tells me that learning one thing at once is more efficient, but it needs to be supplemented with intergrative activities (reading/listening).

Tzadeck> Interesting. I know that the actual playing comes down to muscle memory, which comes from practice. It's more a question of what knowledge to install in my brain to make all that practice as easy as possible. In the same way as learning to write/recognise kanji ultimately makes reading much less frustrating.

drivers99>
Yeah that's the kind of stuff I was thinking about using the srs for. What I'm wondering though is what to learn first. Assuming that eventually I need to know 'everything', what are the fundamental things to learn first to make it easier in the long run?
Would it even be useful for example to know every note and corresponding fret number? i don't know.

I play guitar pretty well, been at it for a long time.  If I were to draw any parallels between learning guitar and learning Japanese, it is this: always make sure you're playing something fun. 

I got into guitar in two steps.  First my mom taught me some folk songs, which was moderately interesting.  I could play "This Land is Your Land", and "Jamaica Farewell", but I really wasn't that into it.  I was probably 14.  But then, when I was a senior in high school, for some reason I decided I wanted to learn to play Alice's Restaurant.  Not sure why.  (other than the obvious fact that it's AWESOME)  So I learned it. 

Now, if you know the song, you'll realize that it's a pretty complex piece of fingerpicking, especially for a beginner.  I had two things going in my favor 1) extensive music experience in general, and 2) I really really wanted to play that song.  Not sure if you have (1), but you can create (2) by choosing what you learn.  Even if it's hard.

When learning to play electric I did the same thing, by learning how to play the solo to "Pride and Joy."  It took me quite awhile, but the skills are very transferable to other music of the same style. 

That's about the only parallel I can draw.  I've always treated music as a very right-brain thing.  I just wallow in it (playing) until it starts coming out the other end. But I'm learning jazz right now, and it doesn't work for that.  There's real cognition required, at least while learning. 

So in summary: if your learning style is the same as mine, choose something you want to learn, and power through it.  You'll have fun, and you'll learn a lot about that style and about your instrument in the process.

Last edited by mullr (2009 June 20, 3:50 am)

Here is a flashcard note trainer, not an srs, but brute force should be okay for the limited number of notes that you will learn.

http://www.8notes.com/school/theory/mus … 82_en.html

Here's an interval trainer to practice your listening.

http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/Music … cognition/

Last edited by phauna (2009 June 20, 4:43 am)

I don't know anything about learning music, but I don't imagine using an SRS would be very good for it. An SRS lets you see(hear) the thing you want to learn as few times as possible for you to remember it. This is good if you have 10 000 separate things to remember passively and don't have time to review it all in one day. But I imagine with music the more practice and repetition you get the better, because you need to build the muscle memory and what not.

nadiatims wrote:

A question for the musicians:
I'm learning music (specifically the guitar), and I'm wondering if I should try to apply some of the learning approaches I'm using to learn Japanese. Eg the use of mnemonics, the divide and conquer approach ( kanji writing first, then kanji reading ) etc.
I know that there are a lot of different things to learn in music, eg rhythm, scales, chords, ear training, etc.
Do you think it is better to 'master' one aspect before moving onto others, and only then tackling complete songs? If so, what do you think are the fundamental building blocks that some one should learn first?
Should I go and memorize 1000 different guitar chords as a first step? perhaps using SRS.
Shoud I attempt to train my ear until i'm pitch perfect? is this even possible?
Should I just ignore all this and play songs, going from easy to progressively more difficult?
Scales?
Is it fair to assume that musicians who can simply pick up a new piece of music and play it right off the bat can do so, because they already know all the chords/scales it uses?

thoughts? opinions? question marks?

NO NO NO NO NO

There is a disease and its called SRS Lust.

I have been self learning classical guitar for 2 years now albeit at a very on and off approach, but 2 years is 2 years.
So far, what I learnt is that music is muscle memory, there is no quick SRS way to learn chords, it's useless, learn chords by association with your muscle memory, the rest is your interpretation and feel.

Learn Absolute Pitch by SRS? please, get yourself on the instrument, live with it, sweat with it, that's how every other proper musician has done their stuff, I'm not saying be a sheep, but I think it is fair to say that there is no other way to learn music than this. Read any book on neuroscience and perhaps the most used example is that of muscle memory with musicians and how whole pieces are written into their heads.

Also, just last week I started my first lesson in Oud (Arabic lute) with a concert level Oudist, Joseph Tawadros, youtube him. All I can say is, had I gone to a tutor with classical guitar I would have saved about 1 year of all the bullshit I had to learn on my own, or learn through google/youtube/asking friends. After my success with this tutor I'll also be getting a tutor for classical guitar too .

You need a tutor for music. Pitfalls you get yourself into whilst learning an instrument can be the hardest ones to get out of. Get yourself a tutor, that's the best way.

A good suggestion is do regular tutoring with an undergraduate student who usually charge at a very cheap rate, and get tutored by a professional once every two weeks or something.

By the way what sort of guitar are you after? I think it's best to start with classical guitar, and work your way (down ) to other genres.

One book I'd recommend is Pumping Nylon. It has really good exercises and I'm working on them very slowly. I like it because it doesn't have tabs, another thing which I believe screwed me over and slowed me down heaps. I read music slower than i read katakana on a karaoke machine.

I hope you take other peoples advice on not staying near an SRS. Btw, Kaori Muraji is one of my favourite classical guitarists there are plenty of her vids are on youtube, check her out, she is as beautiful as is her play, I personally believe she is on par with some of the greats like Segovia and Williams, but people think otherwise. Anyway it's almost 5am, I should go to bed

I don't know anything about music theory, except for the names of the 12 notes on the fretboard, and the names of 1 or 2 more complex chords.

I have been playing music for 13 years now... I can play some persian music, indian, portuguese fado, rock, metal, folk, a lot of experimental stuff... I can jam somewhat easily with people, as long as it's not free jazz or something like that
I did all my training based on ear and intuition. I don't have perfect pitch, but I can easily identify intervals between notes.

Making lots of mistakes, and experimenting with an open ear for results, allowed to find a very personal, somewhat unique way playing the classical guitar. I can pull weird sounds out of it that most people can't imagine. I just couldn't stand to take music lessons. It would be simply unbearable for me. I wanted to play music and write music for my own personal enjoyment. I learned by listening to songs I liked over and over, and trying to play the same thing on the guitar. So, I learned to develop my ear.

I can play some pretty complex chords, but I can't play lightning-fast, virtuoso solos. It's not something I'm interested in anyway.

If you want to be an executant, and master some of the more traditional types of music, like flamenco, or jazz etc, or learn classical music composition, you should learn the whole music theory, and have serious lessons. If you're passionate for rock, or experimental music, and you just want to find your own voice, and express yourself in a honest,  I don't see any real necessity of learning music theory. Some of the greatest blues players were blind, and learned by oral transmission of knowledge.

I can memorise very long sequences of chords... mostly because I see the shord positions as images. I see the shape of the hand as a mental image, for all the different chords. Also, when I'm playing solos, I visualise the trajectory of the hand across the fretboard as a line with dots in it, where the hand is traveling along the line. In the faster solos,  after a lot of practise, the body just does it automatically (muscle memory). when you trigger the first two chords or notes, it's like a series of dominoes collapsing where the body just performs automatically the intended sequence from then on. It's like you're triggering a sequence on a computer, and the rest takes care of itself.