The Importance of Guitar Theory

No matter you are taking a beginner or professional guitar lessons in Folsom, you will need to go through a theoretical lesson as well in addition to practical sessions. Let us explore how a solid grounding in theory, often known as the mechanics of music can truly help you achieve skills of feeling and intuition.

Ø  Theory provides a road map across the fretboard

It is one thing knowing the way to get from one note to the next, but 1^st you need to know where to go. Wandering pointlessly, moving at random between strings and frets is not likely to produce anything meaningful or musical – unless, of course, perplexed wandering is the emotion you are making an effort to express.

It is true that some guitar players learn through years of trial and error, which notes sound good over a specific chord or chord progression. A lot of wonderful blue guitar players, for instance, have limited knowledge of scales, but since they are playing over standards, they progressively gain knowledge of which are the avoid notes and passing tones and which harmonize and sound good when drawn out.

This is fine for blues, but what about more intricate progressions that do not conform to a set form? The sole approach you are going to be capable of navigating the fretboard with any fluidity and sense of purpose is to know it well. That entails knowing where relative intervals lie through visual means. Only then you’ll be capable of expecting what moving from note A to B will sound like. Only then will you have the harmonic and melodic marker points to connect into meaningful phrases.

Necessary knowledge if you would be capable of improvising confidently and freely, outside of a small, boxed area of the fretboard.

Ø  Theory offers a shortcut for learning harmony

Again, given an adequate amount of trial and error time, you will work out, with the aid of your ears, which notes naturally harmonize with one another. Getting your ears trained to listen to these harmonies is vital, but why not cut the time learning this in half?

Gaining knowledge of the ways chords are constructed, for instance will help you connect notes you play in the solo with any chords being played in the background or vice versa. If the backing chord is Cmaj7, for instance, you will recognize that Mixolydian as a scale isn’t a choice, or more particularly that the 7 is an avoid note over major 7^th chords.

It may sound constraining and dogmatic to say “this note or scale isn’t a choice!” but at times, the dissonance is so wonderful, and universally agreed to be so that it is safe to assume that using that combination of notes will sound dissonant or unpleasant to the majority of ears. Keep in mind that specific dissonances are less challenging and jarring to the senses as compared to others.

Once again, the theory you will go through during your guitar lessons in Folsom will help you narrow down such options. The procedure of meaningful musical investigation is often sparked by a theoretical assumption.