Scales (and technique) ... Best way to learn them?

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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glad to hear youre getting some help with it :tu:
hope it works out.
Funkaroma wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 5:28 pm Music is the only thing which actually keeps me going. But indeed what you said; Most of the time I think I’m shit.
well try not to be too hard on yourself. i know it can be hard, but try to congratulate yourself more for the little things.
eg: if i do my dishes, i consider that a success!

just try to have fun with it.
which the "songs" can actually help with.
as its a 3 minute thing, that at first may be hard work.
but can be grasped fairly quickly (depending on the song, some 3 chord guitar noodle) and gives you a recognisable sense of accomplishment.

you can learn all the scales, and at the end of it, youll have a major and minor scale, at different postions is all.

a song is a full project in one little bitesize chunk, that as i mentioned earlier, is better to pull out as a party trick than a few scales.

but most of all, don't beat yourself up too much. it takes time, you obviously have the interest, but lack the confidence it seems to just have fun with it.

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Funkaroma wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 5:31 pm Back to scales. I want to switch from minor to major now.
One thing I think you should pick up from a demonstration of relations via circle of fifths is that a major/minor dichotomy isn't necessary. Normally on a keyboard people begin with white keys. Another thing you might be noticing learning songs, after a certain point, major and minor mixtures; is every song either in major or minor?

I'm reminded again of a pretentious sort of article regarding a Beatles song, with the phrase "Aeolian cadences" (Lennon said "that sounds like some exotic birds to me"); without getting into why that's technically (both peculiar and haha) funny, there is a point to it in that you might wind up 'cadencing' on the relative minor.

Minor character within major and vice versa. Scales are not any end in themselves. The same seven pitches can be named as a major scale or as its relative minor, it's the usage which is meaningful. "Harmonic minor scale", well, what's the idea? Are you doing any music with it? What does the term mean to you?

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jancivil wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 5:36 pm
Funkaroma wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 11:53 pm I’m dealing with my mental issues caused for a 3 years now. It has been even so bad that I couldn’t get out of my house. Because I’m struggling with it for so long it also caused depression. Luckely I have therapy and it’s getting better with me slowly.
I'm sorry for that. Don't put any undue pressure on yourself to succeed at this if leaving the house is a challenge, not before you build a foundation. The focus on scales and technique in front of learning songs was kind of a symptom but I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I'm not all that well, but I was a musician from an early age. Physical brain damage caused me some loss of abilities but I'm driven and hard headed.
You don’t have to be sorry for that:). I took me a long time to accept the fact that it actually can be a good thing to have some mental problems. You will come closer to yourself and you have opportunity to learn from yourself more then ever.

Of course it feels shit at this moment, but I try to have faith in that one possitive sprinkle that when I’m over it I’ll be mentaly stronger then ever.

I hope you have found peace with it and you are comfortable and happy with the person who you are.

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Like I said "To be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society is no measure of health." I have self-confidence to say the very least. I won't internalize other people's problems. :idea:

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If you are mostly indoors, then another thing to give consideration to is just listening to pieces of music that you like and playing along with them. It's a good way to practice your ear, and if you do a terrible job the first time you try, remember that just about everyone does a terrible job the first time.

Practice is key, and over time you'll notice that you get better at recognizing notes and intervals, so it will become easier. Chords are a little more tricky, but over time you start to recognize the difference between majors, minors, 7ths, etc. and a little trial and error will get you there.

There was a time when many musicians learned their instrument from sitting and playing along with others. Chuck Berry learned how to play the guitar by listening to the radio and playing along to everything he heard, and Thelonious Monk started to teach himself piano from the age of 6 by listening to a player piano then repeating what he heard. Both went on to be hugely influential, and it wasn't because they started by learning music theory.
Sweet child in time...

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jancivil wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 1:55 pm
Bippo wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:12 am I would advise to ignore opinions of "giving up",
What 'opinions of "giving up"? I see quote marks. There is no such statement to quote.

This is a quote: "Should I keep it as a hobby or is there a good opportunity to make this my job in the future? Some advice on this part would be appreciated..."
Here's another instance of quoting: "If you want to make a career in music, just put the time and practice and you'll get better and better over time.".

There is no good opportunity per se even if you are the most dedicated and diligent student one can possibly be.
'Getting better and better over time', even if this turns out to be true, may be relative in the first place, we can't know what the actual level is going to be, so is absolutely no guarantee of there being a job in the future. One is getting ahead of one's self here.
I find it quite amusing that you understood my unconventional usage of quote marks :clap:

Regarding the real issue here: there are no guarantees in life.
If someone want to have a job as a musician...he better become a musician.
If you gonna drown yourself with worries and calculate the odds...you gonna waste your energy for negative thoughts that won't help you.

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jancivil wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 1:57 pm
Also, put all that knowledge to use and learn some of your favorite songs...then try to come up with your own!
For "all that" to BE knowledge it must be experiential. Learn songs is primary; practicing scales on a keyboard has to have basic application.
What's wrong with learning both scales AND songs simultaneously?
Everyone can learn the C Major scale in one minute, learn the I IV V chords in another 5 minutes, and start learning an endless amount of songs with that knowledge.

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Bippo wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 6:38 pm
jancivil wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 1:57 pm
Also, put all that knowledge to use and learn some of your favorite songs...then try to come up with your own!
For "all that" to BE knowledge it must be experiential. Learn songs is primary; practicing scales on a keyboard has to have basic application.
What's wrong with learning both scales AND songs simultaneously?
Everyone can learn the C Major scale in one minute, learn the I IV V chords in another 5 minutes, and start learning an endless amount of songs with that knowledge.
Because each person is different, and something different works for each person. There's nothing wrong with your approach, but it might not work for everyone.
Sweet child in time...

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Not only did I not say there is "something wrong with learning both simultaneously", I said "I'm standing with learning songs as at least side by side."

I don't find amusing you fake quoting my points in order to distort them, being argumentative to no real point.
In fact you stated something about opinions of "giving up".
And there aren't any. You're going to mock me for literally taking quote marks for what they are? F_O.

And now you agree with the reality check? Which you came in characterizing as 'opinions of "giving up"'?

"Everyone can learn the C Major scale in one minute, learn the I IV V chords in another 5 minutes, and start learning an endless amount of songs with that knowledge."

What do these mean absent learning them in some music? That's the point. I think it's the way to go. The CONTEXT of that is the OP appearing to want to put learning songs off for now. Difficult to follow, was it?
"Learn the I IV V chords" to what end? Why are you arguing this? It seems purely argumentative and not very well considered.

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Haha you are so clever and funny.

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As an actual point, when I really got started I went from an interest in Hendrix specifically to looking at the roots, blues.
So I came to understand almost at once the basic I IV I, V IV I type of progression from watching and hearing it.
I also grasped the same relationship regardless of key. So what is I IV V in the abstract versus that? I had it, the abstraction is not a thing in itself, it's just naming. I didn't deal in roman numerals before I took a course. For what I was doing there is really no necessity. When I picked the leads off of records, I was getting it together with my ear and the shapes I was following from watching as many people as I could, I wasn't running scales. Scales may apply, sure. Later I felt like being competitive so I took classical lessons and now there was music with scalar runs. Prog rock, scalar runs.
Not all music is "built from scales", though.
It won't hurt you to focus on scales, no one said it was wrong; but the point was KNOWLEDGE, to actually be knowledge, involves experience. Information is not through itself knowledge. Scales are not music per se. It won't necessarily be a distraction to deal in the roman numerals, but who knows, one might like getting right down to it better.

And I recommend if you're going to act like you're about to know something about theory to take a course, rather than receive the information ad hoc or expect to trust everyone off the internet. This to me looks like one of these received tropes, start with your scales. If you expect to play classical piano, absolutely, you might even consider bloody Hanon, but you'd be learning little etudes which show it working. The entire point of saying that was this was not being considered, which is just... off.

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yeah to me the natural progression for making music is

i like that song
wish i could play guitar
find simple song(even better cheap "play these hits with just 3 chords!" book)
learn basic strumming, enough to belt out one or two 3 chord tracks and have people actually recognise them.
become interested in the mechanics of how those chords where built...

(the adventurous may even get in to soloing and learning licks, but the basics are the same)

the whole, learn the maths behind it then see how it works musically seems more like how they force us to learn everything at school. like "learn literature by reading these boring asss books" rather than "fall in love with literature because you found books that resonated with you!"
but, we all have our own way i guess :)

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Deep Purple wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 4:10 pm
jancivil wrote:"throws theory out of the window" - which 'theory'? He can't have cared much. You'd have to draw the theory from the results, theory is no recipe.
That was meant for the OP based on the concept that 'theory' will drive songwriting, arranging, performance or whatever - I'm sure McCartney cared a lot more about creating the piece regardless of what he had learned from George Martin or others along the way.

'Let It Be' is a good example - all his chords have a 5th except the Dm7 - the 5th makes it harder to play on the right hand or he would have to add the 5th on the left hand, but he just ignores it. No big deal as the song works fine without it, but if he had tried to bring 'theory' to bear, he might have struggled to find a way to include it.
Jazz pianists and guitarists are actually taught that the 5th is the least essential part of that quality of chord. So, that's not bringing theory to bear per se. Theory might look like this: the fundamental <D> in the left hand is already producing the second harmonic on the piano so A is the first thing to lose if you have a concern it's hard to voice all 4.

This is actually a good example of the false necessity of received 'theory'. IE: in fact...
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Yes, and rootless chords are common in jazz too, but I was trying to point out the lack of convention in a rock/pop context where it's not so common.

I think McCartney is doubling the root on his left hand too (something he does very often), so there is an abundance of root notes in most of his chords (so obviously 2nd harmonic too), which is probably why the chord doesn't sound out of place.

He plays in C and F on piano a lot, but there are lots of examples of accidentals and chords that don't 'fit'. However, if the end result sounds good, I'm sure that came before theory for him.
Sweet child in time...

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I guess so. I don't have any experience playing piano in a pop song context, that's for sure. I worked w. a songwriter who did that, I didn't pay a lot of attention to that because when it came time to record I would make something else happen as a band.

I think Macca has an innate sense of what sounds. I'm going to reserve judgment on the Oratorio, I think he had someone do all that.

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