Playing Music without Understanding Theory
My musical ear is decent – not great. If you play me a complicated jazz tune or a song by King Crimson and the like, I will not be able to play along, but for most rock/folk/blues tunes, I can figure out what’s happening pretty quickly, and my ability to play the song isn’t usually beholden to a particular key. Like many musicians, I can think of chord changes in terms of Roman numerals, which is hugely helpful when “hearing” changes and playing along. I’m often made fun of in band practice because I’ll always ask what key a song is in before we start playing. I can never remember. Once I know the key, I’m good to go (usually).
What I find amazing is just how many musicians – good one, too – play their instruments without really understanding the language of music, what we often call music theory. A friend of mine put it this way: it’s like learning a second language by memorizing a lot of sentences. Yes, it’s impressive to learn so many sentences, and you may be able to utter hundreds of them correctly, like “I’d like my breakfast with two eggs and toast,” but if you instead want to say, “I’d like my lunch with three pickles and coleslaw,” you’ll be in a fix.
This is a great analogy for what some musicians do. And I’m not knocking them. I think it’s amazing. What they do is actually harder than what I do, because they’re memorizing songs. I’m usually not. I’m following chord changes that I hear in my head. I know guitar players who can play crazy difficult solos note for note but who don’t know what a C7#9 chord is. By contrast, I can’t learn a complicated solo without a great deal of effort; I can, however, play along to a tune and tell you that the iv minor chord that the band is playing is incorrect – that it’s a flat VII major 9 (as recently happened when my band was learning “Brass in Pocket”). I’m relatively good at that kind of thing. Different skill sets, I suppose, and my ear still isn’t what it should be. A good jazz musician might wonder how I dare to call myself a musician when I don’t know what mode to play over the aforementioned C7#9 chord. I’ve got a lot to learn, for sure.
But those among us who literally memorize their parts should be revered on some level, because it’s a huge feat to memorize parts and excel in doing so. The problems arise when you’re trying to communicate with each other. I’ve had bandmates who don’t know what I’m talking about when I ask them to go to a III major chord, or who can’t change song keys without a lot of preparation. That can be problematic and, at times, limiting, just as I would be a limiting factor in a jazz combo.
But I think it’s also encouraging that there are multiple ways to approach and enjoy music, and that one can be proficient in some aspect of music but not in others. Ultimately, those differences might even be invaluable to the makeup of a band.