New Oldie... - Page 2

The Relic · 02-01-2008, 10:22 AM

OK in general, but I'm in the midst of a rethink. My wife has a knee problem and it's just sinking in that I can't take as much work as I usually do as she can only manage to look after the kids and the dogs to a limited extent. I used to be able to cross the Channel and do production line music for Euro TV during the lulls, but now that's completely out and if I do a theatre run it will have to be located near enough that I can get home. I'll also have to restrict the customary overnight stays for session work as much as possible.

Still, I have other options. When the pushbutton synthesiser jockeys were taking work from proper musicians in the late '80s and early '90s I taught English and General Studies at a pair of colleges and wrote a good deal for radio. I could also give lessons on some of the instruments I play, though I'd have to reconsider my approach as last time I tried that my insistence that the students learn theory drove most of them away!

What are you planning to study at uni?

David Courtney · 02-02-2008, 08:35 PM

English and General Studies. Phwoar. My two great enemies.
Why would you make them do theory? 90% of people I know who play instruments, myself included, would be totally put off by that.
I'll be studying Software Engineering. Hurah.
Looking forward to actually getting on my work without being harassed by lecturers.
Getting my phone taken off me at 19. Yeesh.

The Relic · 02-03-2008, 01:43 AM

I made them do theory because being able to read music along with a sound understanding of how chords and scales are constructed and how they can be strung together is the key to your instrument. In learning to play without those skills you're just limiting yourself and your playing becomes a series of habits, not necessarily good ones.

Say, for example, you're working on a song by ear from a recording and you come across a good sounding but unusual chord, one that isn't in the front end of your Learn To Play In Just Ten Minutes A Day tutor book. If you know the theory then the chances are you can build the chord, and maybe add a little colour of your own, but if you don't you'll probably fudge it and fall back on your limited armoury of triads. The same sort of thing applies if you're writing a tune: the way to originality lies in knowing how you might move from one chord or one scale to another without jarring the ear, and that knowledge also helps you resolve problems such as how to modulate to a diifferent key without breaking the flow.

Don't be surprised if you are harassed by lecturers, by the way. When my wife was teaching there came a time every year when my she'd come home saying things like, "I'm getting bugger all from Such-and-such. I'm going to have to read him the riot act. Most of them don't seem to realise that they weren't given their places just so that they could spend three years laying about and carousing..." and so on, and so on.