viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4030&start=30

Check it out MadSynthesist... this is a recent sample of Tritone's posts. Is this germane to anything worthwhile? As Tritone wrote, we are a little community and as such, I think a little respect is in order. I happen to think that Tritone's potshots at the musicality of Stickist members is germane to all of his posts. I invite him to offer up his music to criticism. If the past is any indicator, he won't.

I have to lean towards the *scales* camp, though I come to that more from a Tuba/Bass teaching perspective. I can see teaching chords being more important on comping/chordal-type instruments.

My reasoning is that phrasing in melodic playing (and similarly phrasing in walking bass lines, or any bass lines for that matter) is more a factor of step-wise scale movement than chord-tone movement. For the initial learning of an instrument, knowing scales will get you further, faster, as far as being able sight-read more of the repertoire. Pedagogically, you look in any beginning method book for almost any instrument, and what do you think they start with? My bet is you'll see a Bb major scale most of the time.

This is not to say I think you should teach scales exclusively, the repertoire isn't composed exclusively of scale-fragments, and not being able to read chord intervals (and greater intervals) can be a severe handicap.

That said, one of my Tuba Prof's. favorite exercises (which I used to good effect later) was getting me to mimic melodic fragments back and forth with him...fragments that integrated both scales and chord-tones, so Brett's post does have some weight here.

I think a good way is to play music to a student and then show him where the chords are and ask him to think about how the notes of the melody relates to the chords. When doing that he will instantly understand the laws of harmony and disharmony that makes us love or hate different styles of music.

But that's just what I think, the theory. In praxis it is not always so easy. A singer and blues harmonica playing friend once asked me to explain "keys, scales, chords and stuff" to him and I had him play an A minor chord and a G major chord. I said "each chord has three notes, with the notes of both chords you get six notes to make up melodies from, now play melodies with those six notes over these two chords while paying attention to what emotions are surfacing as you either play the notes of a chord or the notes that are not in the chord". He looked at me with fish-like eyes and said "what?".

My point is that each note (related to a key or a chord) has its own "color", "feel" or whatever you prefer to call it, and the best way to start teaching music is to make sure the student can hear music without knowing the key or chords and then be able to play a random note and tell whether it is the ninth note, a fifth or whatever. That is pretty easy to learn by ear. After having sharpened the listening in that way it will be much easier to "learn chords" or "learn scales". But myself I prefer (like Brett) to think about "scales" as melodies because they actually become melodies when applied in music. "Scales" are not part of "music" as I see it, although knowledge about scales is a good tool for making music. You can then do cool tricks like improvising a solo by using a different key's scale but still hang on to the actual chord changes in the song.

Yes thats right there in nothing wrong at all with teaching scales. As long as they are understood for what they are, "the most boring thing that you can play within a tonality"

Per has hit upon the real way to lear music. you must understand how each note works within the tonality. you should know where it is leading and how it sounds over different chords.

Ear training is an unfortunate remedial technique to help us overcome our lack of aural learning within many western cultures. If we had music and folk songs as a more intrinsic part of our youth, less "training" would be needed.

It's all good stuff but the ears are EVERYTHING. period without aural understanding your reading, improvising, memorizing and composing are either mush more difficult or flat out wrong.

If you can't look at a piece of music and hear it in your head, then you are not truly reading music, you are decoding it. It's a tough pill for some to swallow but think of it it terms of language. I can phonically sound out foreign words of a language I don't know and a listener who speaks that language will get meaning from those sounds, but I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm just decoding. Reading requires understanding.

Reading and all musical skills require aural understanding to truly master them. music is sound not visual patterns.

so teach scales? of course, teach chords? surely. but DON'T neglect the ear.

And coming up with a sequential way of teaching music aually is a great thing.

I will be discussing this at the Northeast seminar in detail.

Brett

I'm going to stay away from voting. I just can't separate the two. It is like asking which is more important in a ham sandwich - the ham or the bread. You can't have a ham sandwich without either. Both are quite important to achieving the goal.

What I will add, however, is an addition to the last couple of posts by Brett and Per - I found this book (follow the link) to be very useful in aural training. I'm a beginner, so there might be others out there...so please send along your recommendations...but for me, I found this one quite helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Hearing-Writing-M ... 233&sr=8-2

Brett - I can't wait for the seminar. I'm really pumped.

Cheers

John

Hi there, it is a little like the egg or the chicken question about what would naturally go first, notes of scales..... but specifically related to teaching music, which I think was the original question about, I would go with scales, for some basic reason.... when you "learn music" from a teacher / school, it is not the first time ever you "hear music"... music is something you have been experiencing since you gained consciousness in your mother's womb. Leaning music is actually how to read/write/transmit/reproduce something you sort-of already know about.

So, if we do a parallel between learning music and learning how to read/write, when teaching you start with the smallest pieces available and you build more complex "units" from there, the same way you learn the concept of "letters" before "words" or "phrases" when you learn how to read/write.

Since notes and intervals generate chords, scales would, to me, go first.

Asalaam alaikum

You make a good point. I have found that, in most music theory textbooks, chords follow scales in order of the book. Whether there is wisdom in that I'm not the one to judge. Just an observation

Ah, but you don't learn letters before words or phrases. you babble first then learn words and phrases. after years of speaking you learn letters and grammer.

Brett

Personally I like the idea that form follows function and students should learn from what interests them.

If they want to play accompanyment to singing, they should go with chords. If they want to play "songs", learn chords and melodies. If interested in something like Bach, learn scales as a foundation. My point is that ultiumately this question is about students, and to motivate students, teachers should engage them in creating music that appeals to the student early on. Regardless of how they get to a more complete understanding of music, they have to want to participate, practice, and learn.

Karma

p.s. Of course, I also like the theory that the purest improvizational player of any instrument would be someone who has never touched the instrument and never had any musical training since they would be unencombured from any preconcieved musical ideas or techniques. It would be "pure" improv. I think this means my mom is now the greatest improvizational basson player in the world! Who knew she was so cool?