Don't be a dummy

Most music is complex. A folk tune may be short and simple, and just to play the melody on the piano may be easily accomplished by many people. Add harmony and it's already somewhat more complex. But once you move up to jazz and classical music, there is a LOT going on in the music. If you are reading music, there is a lot to learn and absorb in order to be able to read fluently. If you are playing by ear and/or improvising, you may not need to know how to read music, but there is a great deal you would still need to understand, in order for it to sound like actual music and not just random sounds.

I think most people understand this intuitively. Yet I'm still amazed, after all these years, when I meet people who think they are going to watch a video and learn to play the piano just by copying. You're just skimming the surface that way and you will never be able to take your skills very far.

Another problem I see, even more frequently, are the people who have learned to read music, either on their own or from a teacher, and assume that now they can just play the notes they see and that's all there is to it. One woman I met was a pretty good sight-reader and had learned to play some reasonably complex pieces by Bach and Chopin. But she knew absolutely nothing about what makes the music what it is, how it's constructed, or for instance, what makes Bach and Chopin so different. She told me she really enjoyed playing the music so perhaps I am wrong to say she needs to understand more. After all, isn't enjoyment the main reason why you want to learn to play? Some people even think if you study more and know more, you might spoil the enjoyment. To which I say, if you love the music, wouldn't you WANT to know more about it? Why would you want to be a dummy?

For example, even though this person read music, she didn't have any idea what the key signature meant. As hopefully you know, if you're reading this blog, the key signature is the first thing you see on the printed score. It's telling you what KEY you are in for this piece. The "key" means what scale you are based on. If you see one sharp then you are in G Major or E minor, one flat and you are in F Major or D minor. The whole concept of tonality and keys is the foundation of our music. And yet some people just see the sharp(s) or the flat(s) and know they have to play them but they have no idea why. It must seem awfully random if you don't know the "why." What's even weirder is why they never thought to ask someone or research it. Sadly, many teachers never explain these things either, so the student doesn't even realize the questions they need to be asking. (Those teachers have no business teaching!)

Music in the Western world is highly developed in the area of harmony. Harmony consist of chords, and the chords appear in a myriad of ways. Someone who can read may notice they keep playing similar groupings of notes, but don't understand what these are or why they are important. If you are playing jazz or improvising, you would have to understand chords because they are the building blocks you need. That being said, someone could just show you where to put your fingers for certain chords, and you could still play without understanding them at all. There are even charts you can purchase which show pictures of the keys with red dots where you put your fingers for each chord. However, without any explanation of the system of how they're built, you may have a lot of difficulty memorizing them by their pictures because there would be hundreds of them. 

[All of this -- scales, chords and so on -- are part of what people mean when they refer to "music theory." However, there's nothing theortical about it. These are music facts.]

Being a dummy will absolutely have severe limitations. When people start to experience these limitations they often quit playing out of frustration with their lack of progress. (Of course there are many other reasons as well.) In addition, if you've learned without understanding any of the "whys," you will most likely forget a lot of what you have learned. The "why" is like the glue that holds it all together into one integrated whole.