Music education: thoughts and experiences?

I think the situation is less dire for popular music, all the bass teachers I've had had me doing rhythm exercises and practice playing by ear etc.; and that's in genres were a pretty high percentage of students are going to end up playing in some kind of group, so they're very likely to just learn/practice to be musical by doing (with varying success).

I think a big issue for most genres and instruments is that students don't get interested in learning an instrument because of simple stuff, but because they listened to some awesome, exciting music that prominently features their instrument. That leads to a general tendency to try and learn complicated, difficult to play pieces before they're ready, and teachers often encourage this behavior.

Hard disagree on your point regarding music theory. Learn as much music theory as possible because that’s the path to understanding what you’re playing and why musical sounds gravitate towards and away from each other the way they do.

If you’ve viewed theory as this abstract, academic set of “rules” designed to force you to play and write only in a certain way, this is just straight up wrong. It is not that and was never intended to be. If you wrote or played something that skirts your current understanding of music theory, and it’s still sounds good, great! Carry on. You may eventually come across a theoretical explanation for it, and if you never do, that’s okay too. It’s probably still out there somewhere.

I spent several decades as a professional musician. I can’t begin to count the number of dunderheads I’ve encountered who’d say, “I don’t want to learn theory. I think it’ll limit me.” Those people are morons. There’s no such thing as knowledge that makes you less knowledgeable. If you’re one of those people, I implore you to stop being one of those people. I’m much more impressed by intellectually honest people who’ll say, “I don’t want to learn theory because I can’t get my head around it, but I still love playing.” Then carry on, brother!

All that being said, music is, at its core, a uniquely human way of expressing the human condition. And we are all allowed to use it in any way we like for whatever reasons we choose, selfish or otherwise. We’re allowed to excel at it. We’re allowed to suck at it. We’re allowed to love that music that everyone else hates. Every musical sound is meaningful. And if a music teacher is failing to make that the core of their instruction, then that music teacher is failing, period.

I absolutely do appreciate theory, but I think the theory should follow the music. That is to say, the musician should have an aural appreciation of what the sound is.

For Jazz, that means being able to transcribe a solo before worrying about the analysis. There's a huge difference between being able to do a harmonic analysis and actually being able to hear the changes. And I feel like music theory-heavy types assume that learning the theory will teach you the sound, and for a lot of people it doesn't.

Which feeds into another theory of mine of why music education sucks: the people who thrive under it are actually people who excel DESPITE the education; that is they have good ears and are willing to experiment and learn how the sounds work. That's much harder to teach and if a student doesn't "get it", they're discouraged and quit.

I'm proposing a musical system that focuses on developing musical SKILLS before developing knowledge. Ultimately you want both, but I see way too many teachers willing to teach knowledge INSTEAD of skills.

I think this is the Suzuki method--kids don't learn to read until they can play by ear.

Guilty! I remember my first and only week with bass... thought I'd teach myself Long Distance Runaround.

Pop is pretty decent in that you can make modifications to it to simplify it and as long as you have a nice melody going and the chords more or less match, it works well enough.

but I think the theory should follow the music.

My friend, it does. That’s has _always_ been its purpose. That’s one of the points I’m trying to make. If your teachers never made that clear to you, they owe you an apology. And yes, I’m fully aware that there are musicians who place theory above practice. You don’t have to take them seriously.

I get it - if I’m reading you right you’ve come to the conclusion that ear training isn’t being given the focus it deserves. Which may be your experience but I feel like in the larger musical world aural skills are highly valued. Yeah, I’ve seen many “highly trained” kids who can sight read their ass off but freeze when you take their sheet music away. It’s common. Their teachers failed them. The music education system at large is a very fragmented thing. It’s filled with microcosms created by short-sighted instructors who value X over Y. In the performing world that I lived in, we were all ear people. We had to be. That was the way you survived on our stage. There’s lots of that happening out there. If you think you can devise a system that doesn’t currently exist that hammers that home, I’d be the first person to encourage you to do so.

If you want the absolute music basics, the kids educational program, GCompris, has a bunch of musical related games and activities:

https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=gcompris+music&ia=images&iax=images

(Under the penguin&gears category, and then click on 'music'.)

I went to a party with a paid piano player who could play any sheet music you put in front of him. He played all the notes correctly but it sounded like absolute shit to me. Since then, "You played all the right notes," is the highest form of insult I can deliver to a musician. I feel like that's the end goal of a lot of music education.

Your suggestion that I create a competing music education system is kind of hostile and defensive and weird. I'm just a middle-aged guy playing some songs on guitar and wishing he had more time for clarinet. If you're an educator, I'm glad you're out there creating musicians and not trained monkeys; we're on the same side.

But, since I have you here, I've been listening to a lot of samba and bossa nova lately and it's got a lot of stuff I don't understand. Any good resources for understanding what's going on with all that random b5 stuff? I think it's tri-tone substitution mostly, but I'm having trouble absorbing it.

I think teaching people songs they already know is really powerful because they've already internalized the music, and they just need to translate it to their instrument. Seems like a lot of music education is introducing a very tedious first step where the student's never heard the music and they have to learn what it sounds like by reading it and playing it. Unfortunately, because they're never forced to SING it, it might never be internalized, just a very complex pattern they execute with their fingers. This also cripples our ability to hear time.

In a world with plendiferous youtube videos and streaming music, forcing children to read music first and foremost is less excusable than ever.

I often wonder if people's fear of learning a new instrument is based on their music education. Like, "Oh, no, I have to do all this rote garbage AGAIN." But for me, learning the clarinet was really cool because I would just play songs I already knew (in the keys I could play), and I'd eventually add a flat or a sharp and thereby gain access to a new key which I could then learn songs for.... it's hella fun.

My clarinet teacher was in that school of getting people into college... it's a pretty sick society we're in.

But what really hurts me the most is how few people play any music at all once they become adults--that, to me, is the the absolute biggest failure of the music system. Music brings so much joy, I can't imagine my life without it, and I know it would also bring joy to so many other people with their high school band instrument in the attic if only they had a more authentic relationship with music.

As someone who plays by ear all the time and never had the opportunity to get a formal musical education, here’s my perspective:

Having a good foundation is important regardless which route you take, so having a good grasp of theory, even if you aren’t aware it’s theory (because you were never formally trained) dictates how good technically, and how good sound-wise you are. I compose and arrange my own music and most of the time I end up being the “musical director” of any band I join, but ask me about theory concepts and I wouldn’t know what to tell you. Like I understand what it is, but I don’t know what it’s called in theory.

On the other hand, applying formal training on top of a solid foundation (theory) will definitely push you to new heights, hence the term virtuoso. And you can bet 99% of all musicians considered virtuosos have training. I had several stints with a casino show band back in the day. I can’t sight read, so it took me several days to learn multiple setlists of songs. I still learned everything by ear, it just took me way longer vs someone who could read sheet music.

But to go back and answer the main question: just like anywhere in education, if your teacher sucks, then yeah you won’t learn the right way. A great teacher will establish the foundation, recognize your skills, build on your strengths, and improve on your weaknesses. And most importantly, a good teacher won’t be rigid by the book and will allow you to explore (as long as you have that solid base foundation). A lot of great technically skilled musicians took music education but never finished them because of that rigidity.

Your suggestion that I create a competing music education system is kind of hostile and defensive and weird.

I probably misread what you were saying up there. No hostility intended.

I’m retired out of music now. I work in the industrial sector and do music on the side. And I’ve learned a lot more about music since escaping academia that I’d never have gotten, and encountered people who have similarly broken away from the formalized, conservatory educational attitudes and grown as performers.

Regarding your question about samba and bossa nova, I’m not very experienced with those styles. You’d likely find instructional videos or articles out there that can explain what’s going on harmonically better than I could. I’m mostly a rock guy lol.

What's your instrument?

I supect guitar players are probably the least susceptible to this sort of thing, because they want to actually play music they listen to and are doing it for their own enjoyment.

I do want to perform for people, but it's hard to find a good venue. One place I've been to is a super cliquey place with mostly young kids who congratulate you for staying up past 9pm. The other is a very insulated place in the 'burbs where people sit at their own tables and don't really mix with each other. Haven't found a "community" yet.

It's kinda sad how few people play together. Mostly it's solo guitar, sometimes it's solo keyboard; if there's a second player, it's most often a drummer, maybe a bass player. But where are all the string and horn players? Who wants to be Grappeli to my toddler Reinhardt?

Life, mostly. I have a day job, and I’m in my late 30’s. I still have a band, and I make music as a solo artist that some people would consider “technical”, but it’s all without any formal training.

A few years ago I had what I affectionally call my "psychotic break" where I started to realize that society is largely in service to systems that benefit themselves at the expense of individual happiness and diversity.

Music education is just one of many institutions out there squelching the human spirit.

Thanks for the conversation. I'll keep learning theory alongside music.

What is your actual knowledge base, though? How do you communicate to the rest of the band? Do you say, "Play this"--like Michael Jackson sang every part to Thriller--or do you call out chords?

I remember watching a Beatles documentary and George Harrison asking someone "what's this chord?" I mean, this was a Let It Be-era question.. That Harrison had done all this amazing work without even being able to name a diminished chord kind put music theory in its place for me.