The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

Guitar is fun. I want to make sure that this message comes loud and clear to everyone who reads this blog.

There are thousands of guitar teachers who unwittingly set obstacles in the way of students who just wants to learn and enjoy the guitar. Sure, some students really respond well to learning from these obstacles, but every single one? I doubt it. If a student hates the idea of learning music theory, chances are they could have a different idea of what they want to do with guitar than the teacher think is possible (like, as a chance to be creative). If a student really has no interest in learning scales, chances are that a teacher who forces the issue will lose them eventually.

I really like to go on rants about music theory and scales. I know both inside and out, and yet I don't teach them to everyone. To me, they are the most mis-used pedagogical concepts in music education. No one seems to be questioning why they are good, but it seems like too many people are blindly saying that "every student must learn music theory regardless of their interest in it." 

This is wrong, and you have a right to question it if your teacher is making you learn it.

To the people who are playing guitar and are being told that they must learn something they don't want to, I hope you feel free enough to question your teacher's authority. If they are worth their salt, they will explain why it's important and in a kind way. They won't get flustered, and they will appreciate your view, immensely. What if the teacher gets angry? What if he or she takes offence to you asking questions? Avoid them. They are not worth your time. They are providing barriers to enjoyment of guitar, not making it more possible and within your reach.

In order for guitar to be fun, you need to find others who think of guitar as an incredibly fun way to pass the time. This goes for both teachers and people we meet to jam with. We all have different reasons to play, but if it's not fun, why do it?

What pop music likes it will do over and over again, and sometimes ad nauseam. Often, it's a hook. Sometimes it's a drum fill (See Phil Collins). Sometimes this is a specific chord progression. The chords "D Major" and "A Major" for example are used over and over in pop music. The most famous example would be Tom Petty's Free Fallin' (Heard in shopping malls everywhere... Perhaps the reason why is because the whole video takes place in a shopping mall. Hmmm).

Phrases in pop music are often roundabout things. They are repeated because it's easier for the song to catch the listener when there are repeats. Often, there are four measures to a phrase. Take the Rolling Stones' Dead Flowers. This song's chords are D - A - G - D, and each chord gets a measure. You would think that the D chord at the end of the phrase is just the same thing as the first chord, but it's not this way. If you know this song well, try playing a D - A - G and singing it. It makes for a funny chipmunky rendition on the song.

Further along this query, the amount of repetitions of the chord progression makes is either equal to Four, or is a multiple of it. Take the first verse of Dead Flowers. D - A - G - D gets repeated exactly four times while the lyrics are being sung!

To me, one of the more perplexing things about pop music is how awesome it sounds when someone goes outside of what is expected. Like, what happens when someone creates a progression or series of progressions that repeats more than four times? In the very same song, the Rolling Stones did just that. Even better, it's in the chorus of the song. First, two repetitions of A - A - D - D (each chord gets a measure). Then, three repetitions of G - G - D - D, and finally one time around of D - A - G - D. In short, they made a slightly unpredictable chorus of six phrases, instead of four like in the verse. The result? Dead Flowers sticks out a little bit more from all the other pop music.

Shout out to Gary Sherman for playing me Dead Flowers first. I don't know if I would have discovered it on my own!

Sometimes I shout myself a little hoarse with this whole music theory thing. I really, really, don't think it is appropriate to assume that every single person out there in the world needs to know music theory in order to simply play a chord. I have said it time and time again, and I will continue to for as long as I am involved with music education: Anyone can learn to play the guitar without knowing a shred of music theory.

In a previous post, I stated that about 80% of the people I teach just do not want to learn music theory. The other people do, which of course I happily oblige. The mistake that many guitar teachers make, either in person or online, is that every person must learn music theory to play guitar.

Yuck.

I am basing my rather sharp opinions on the way I learned guitar. I will share: I had no instructors (or online lessons either!). All I had were friends who played and showed me a thing or two, and Van Halen. I wanted lessons. I wanted to learn. I didn't really get the chance until college. By that point, I knew music theory was something I needed to know. After all, it was fun. "Oh- that's why that chord progression sounds cool. Sweet." I heard it, and then I seeked the music theory to back it up. To this day, that is my approach to teaching guitar.

When learning music, it's my opinion that it's better to experience it without complication. The ear needs to hear the music. The body needs to feel rhythm. The fingers need to feel the strings. The muscle memory has to develop. Music just has to be there. Music theory is nice to know if one is curious about it. If someone doesn't want to be taught music theory however, and if they are forced to, then music theory will build a wall right in the middle of the creative spirit. Not fun.

If you absolutely crave learning music theory, it's good to learn it. Do it! But if you don't crave it, simply allow yourself to experience playing music to it's fullest. There is plenty of time later for learning more technical aspects, and it does nobody any good to feel guilty about not knowing music theory until that point.

What on earth does Weezer and Glenn Gould have in common? Here is a quote from the book, "Conversations with Glenn Gould."

"...you could have a certain cluster [chord] and there would be one note absent from it that was the key to it's function as a cluster." What Glenn is saying is that a chord might still have the same effect even if it's missing a note. Of course, all I could think about were power chords.

If you know about power chords, aka the ones that are used all over the place in rock including Spinal Tap as well as by Weezer, they have only two notes: The root and the fifth. The third is left out of a power chord. hmmmmm. Glenn Gould once again:

"... you did not have to sound a root tone for that tone to be psychologically present."

Again, Glenn is perhaps inferring that you do not need every single note of the chord, in this case the root, for the chord to have a psycological value. For guitarists, this question comes to mind: How can a song played completely with power chords still be silly and fun to listen to if these chords leave out the most defining note? And yet, this is what happens all the time. Power chords can sound sinister, fun, depressing, creepy, and outright joyful. It's all in the implication.

It tickles me to no end to find funny little connections like this between classical music and rock.

To be extremely simplistic there are two types of chords that are used far more than any other, at least in pop music. One is a major chord, one is a minor chord. When I say major or minor, what I am referring to is what music theorists would label "the quality" of a chord. Is the chord major? It's of major quality. Is the chord minor? It's of minor quality. And so on. Simply, musicians call a chord by it's quality (If you are a guitarist, you likely use this system.). The question remains however: What makes a chord major or minor?

There are three notes to every major or minor chord, and it doesn't matter how many times they are doubled. If you play guitar and strum an E minor chord, it will have the notes E - B - E - G - B - E. See how the note "E" is tripled? Does that make it a different chord? Not really. If I took the repeated notes out of the chord, what am I left with is E - G - B. Three notes. It's the same for major chords, so E Major on a guitar is typically played as: E - B - E - G# - B - E. Taking out the extras: E - G# - B.

Do you see the difference between these two chords? It's the second note, or what is commonly referred to as the "Third." It's a bit of a tangent to go into why it is called the "third," for now. The important point is that the minor chord has a "G" for a third, and the major chord has a "G#" (pronounced "G Sharp") for a third. This denotes whether or not the chord has a "Major Third" (like G#) or a "Minor Third" (like G). When the third is raised up or sharped, the chord sounds happier. When the third is not raised up, the chord sounds sadder.

I realize that the way I am saying this sounds kindof dumb and simplistic, but that's all that seperates a steriotypically happy and a steriotypically sad sounding chord. The ironic thing is that major and minor chords are mixed and matched throughout songs that are both happy and sad. And on that note, I think I am over sounding like a simpleton, at least for today.

One defining aspect of cooking with Tofu is that it accumulates the flavor of most anything else you cook it with. If you cook Tofu with ketchup, it will taste like ketchup. If you cook it with kimchi, it will taste like kimchi. The same with power chords. Take Weezer's The Sweater Song for example. The chords during the chorus have no tonality because they are power chords, however the song sounds happy. Silly. Fun.

If I played a G power chord, I would be playing any sort of arrangement of the notes "G" and "D" but I would not include the note "B." Both G and D, in whatever arrangement on the guitar, will yield a chord that doesn't sound happy (major) or sad (minor). Yet on The Sweater Song, it somehow sounds major, despite the fact that there is no defining note in any of the chords.

The reason why is that everything that is happening around those power chords flavors them, and the power chords take on the taste of them. Tofu. The power chords can taste like:

• The melody that Rivers Cuomo sings
• The falsetto harmonies that Matt Sharp sings
• The chords in the verse
• The silly guitar introduction
• The guitar solo

If you follow me, many of the other instruments and voices hit the notes that the power chords left out. The chords (tofu) are cooked in the same batch as the melody/harmonies/guitar solos (the kimchi) and the song is memorably happy and silly (1 + 2 = full stomach). If this seems weird to you, feel free to ask me about it sometime. I will sing you a version of the Sweater Song that is minor and depressing using the same exact chords.

I believe that any technical exercise that doesn't have a concrete purpose, a purpose that can be defined and written down, is not worth it's salt. Scales are not immune to this query. It bothers me that many online guitar lesson sites as well as guitar teachers advise their students to learn exercises that have no defined goal. Many of them ask their students to learn scales right off the bat because it's "good for the fingers." I don't think this is good enough of a reason to learn scales.

Scales are also stereotypically considered to be the barometer of ability in guitar. I think also that there are more than a few people out there who are consumed with the desire to know all the scales, and are willing to show off how much they know. Keep in mind this delicious irony: There are millions of professional musicians who don't know a single scale and still make more money than a silly guitar teacher who blindly recommends every student they teach to learn scales in the first place.

If you are a beginning student, I could only think of four possible situations that might be appropriate (or perhaps evil as in the case of #4) for learning scales. Here goes:

1. Building the ability of hearing a scale

I really like the sound of Locrian. There is something about the flat second and fifth scale degrees that makes my ear go crazy. The best way to get new sounds like locrian in my ear is to play it over and over again in a technical exercise like a scale. After a little bit of time spent playing the scale, I automatically get it into my ears. If you have ever spent time learning the pentatonic scale and played a wrong note (like, "Hey that's not right. It should be..."), then you know what I am talking about. It's about being able to hum the scale.

2. Expanding the technical palette

I heard a story about Branford Marsalis, the saxophonist. There's a rumor that he spent years watching sports center and thundering through his scales. He wouldn't breath into the horn enough to make a sound, but his fingers would find the right keys to press. The result? Lightning fast scales and technique. The same can happen with guitar. Doing scales can make your hands quick.

3. Scales provide a nice safety net for soloing

Whenever I am stuck in a middle of a solo and I am not feeling any bit creative, I revert to scales. It's cheap, yeah. I wish I could be creative all the time, but it's nice that I have those there. If you want to play lead guitar, scales are really good to have at your disposal. However, if you want to play along to songs and not worry about playing single strings, there is simply no use for scales. I advise a lot of people this way. If you want to play a lot of The Beatles' songs and sing, then there is no reason why you should touch one single scale.

4. Showing off in Guitar Center

Please, if you learn scales, don't go to Guitar Center and show off. You might be impressing yourself but there is a damned good possibility you are annoying the living hell out of the people who work there. Same with people trying out guitars anywhere else in the store. Besides, there is always someone who is a better. How embarrassing would it be if they plugged into the amp next to you and out-played you?

Please, don't use scales for evil.

Blindly telling every person who takes guitar lessons that they must learn scales, must learn to read music, must learn music theory, is a classic case of the blind leading the blind. I also thought this morning that the blanket teaching of music theory without regard for a student's needs is analogous to a dog chasing it's tail, but not nearly as cute.

I have a very good friend who studied photography in art school. She is nothing less than spectacular at it. I have been ranting a lot about music theory to her, and she offered this: "The idea that many educators have is that a person must know everything before they can touch anything." Yup. Pretty much about sums it up. And it really really bothers me. Does that mean that anyone who doesn't know something can't create with it? Also, would you even want to create anything if you already knew it all? If we listen to educators with this specific idea in mind, we wouldn't let ourselves create at all. We'd be too scared.

The long and the short of it is that I think there needs to be a period of time for someone to grow in the absence of music theory before they learn it. To paraphrase Julie Cameron, seek mystery, not mastery. As far as education goes, the question is not what to teach people, but what is appropriate to teach any specific person at any time.

When a brand new student comes through my doors, about the last thing on my agenda is to teach them music theory. This is not to say that I won't teach it altogether, but I have reasons for why I don't do this automatically. Instead of just appearing ignorant, I want to outline some of the reasons why I have chosen not to teach it right off the bat.

1. Music theory is meant for people who want to know it, and not for those who couldn't care less. Of all the people I have taught on a self-employed basis (my current status), the number of people who want to know it is at about 20 percent. Do I just teach that remaining 80 percent or so merely to make sure everyone has "basic fundamentals that everyone needs?" Hell no.

2. I'd venture to guess that most people I teach are just looking to have fun. This is something I am after too, anyways. After all of the theory training and courses I've taken in it, I have come to the conclusion that I just want to have fun playing guitar. Besides, teaching music theory can be pretty tiresome. There is a huge learning curve to it. Unless a person is literally planning upon becoming a classical, jazz, or a studio player, I don't think it's neccesary. The only exception is a massive curiousity, which I will honor.

3. Music theory has always come after music. One cannot analyze a piece of music that hasn't been created yet (if they do, then I don't envy them). I have found that it wasn't the music theory that was pushing me to create music. It was just the fact that I really enjoyed transcribing songs (not writing them in notation but just playing them) and playing them by ear. I truly think that my ear has trumped every single piece of music theory I have learned.

4. When I create a piece of music, I don't rush off to analyze it. Never! Doing that would force me to compare my creativity to something else. Yuck. I know that about 95 percent of the stuff I create I am going to throw away, but analyzing it before doing that is like kicking a dead horse. Best not to think about it. Same with Tango. My teacher Monica Caivano told me point blank last night to stop dancing in my head. It's important to think no doubt! However, results come from doing. At least in the arena of creativity, I think this is so.

5. Music theory is a blanket term. It somehow magically squashes about a million concepts into two words. Reading music, roman numeral analysis, set theory, retrograde, retrograde inversion, triadic theory, seventh chords, Shenkarian analysis, melodic minor, the list goes on and on. Do people think that they must learn all of it? I hope not. My guess is if you want to become a nashville pedal steel guitarist in the studios, it will probably be more important to understand roman numerals and melody as opposed to set theory and retrogrades ala Stravinsky. Couldn't hurt, but still it's nothing that is needed on a daily basis. Now, take this argument and apply it to a person who is picking up a guitar because she wants to play Beatles songs to her mother at thanksgiving. Does she really need to learn everything? No. I am confident that I could show her all that she needs to know without a lick of theory, and she will play them with no trouble at all. Guitar is like that.

6. Music theory is a tool to break down walls, not to build them. Walls are a part of writing music, and we don't need more of them. They could be called blocks, but that term scares the hell out of me. They happen from time to time, and learning some new bit of music theory at that point could be beneficial. However, there are people who cannot write anything because they are too analytical. I have felt that way from time to time and it sucks. I can't write a thing because "it sounds like something else." I'd rather write a piece of crap and throw it away than not write it because it sounds like another song.

----

It worries me to no end how many people will march up to me in their first lesson and declare that they don't know any music theory. There's almost an element of regret in their voice. "I don't know any music theory." It hurts to hear sometimes because I know that most the time they won't even need it. If someone wants to learn it that bad, if someone is just that curious about it, I will teach them. There's no question.

I will never EVER look down on any person who doesn't know music theory, or know how to read notes on a staff. There are millions of bands out there who don't know a damn thing about it, yet they play. Yet they play and play and play. I would much rather spend my time encouraging a person to create music than analyze it. Music comes first and music theory second, at least in my opinion.

This blog entry's purpose is to describe and clear up any confusion surrounding how guitarists commonly name chords. If you have ever been confused about why "C" and "C Major" are the same exact chord, this entry is for you. I'm using the root note "C" throughout this post. Sometimes there are fingering differences because of the root note. "E Flat Major" for example is easiest to finger as a barre chord, and an open E Flat Major is difficult, though not impossible, to have as an open chord. This post is also a bit technical, so you have been warned if details like this bore you.

One final thing to take notice of:  Any "X" that you see on the chord chart means that if you can help it, try not to play that string.

Major Chords

In guitar, "C" and "C Major" always mean the same thing. "C" means that you can play a "C Major," and vice-versa. Choose whichever way to play this you like, but the most common way to play a "C" looks like this:

There is one other thing worth mentioning. If someone asks you to play a "C Chord," as opposed to a C or C major, they are basically hinting for you to play an open, or non-barred, C Major chord. This is exactly like the chord above. However, when someone wants you to play a barre chord, chances are they will be far more descriptive. For example, a "C Major Barre Chord" could mean this:

Do you remember how "C" and "C Major" are interchangeable? It's the same with barre chords. If someone says "C Barre Chord," I think you can safely assume that someone wants you to play a "C Major Barre Chord."

Minor Chords and Power Chords

If someone asks you to play a "C Minor" or a "C Minor Chord," it means only one thing: Play a C Minor chord any way that you can, barre or not. Minor chords are a little more exclusive than major chords. They are just a tad bit more rare on the guitar because there are more common open chords that are major. It's hard to play a "C Minor Chord" without playing the barre. Honestly, I just get the job done any way I can:

Power chords are the same as barres; A guitarist will normally ask you to play a power chord, specifically.

Upon further reflection, I think using MS Paint probably wasn't the best idea to make these diagrams. I think I am going to resolve to make these on Illustrator next time. Oh well. DiY Forevs!