Lots of guitar experience but no theory

[Bryan T]

I’ve been playing guitar off and on since I was 14, (I’m almost 60 now). While I think I’m pretty good with technique and hitting the right notes where they are needed, I am severely lacking in any musical training or theory. There is so much information out there that I don’t know where to begin. Can anyone recommend a starting point? Please keep in mind, I do consider myself intermediate and possibly advanced in several areas, (I’m actually pretty good with improvising lead). I just don’t know what 90% of the notes that I play are called and really don’t even understand tabliture.

[JoLa]

Hi Bryan,
Now that always amazes me about some players! I also have a good “rocker” friend who has played for 50+ years and we record some music together (I’m a sort of an advanced beginner). Whenever I mention a scale or chord shapes he gives me a blank stare, haha, as he knows nothing about it! And yet he can grab a guitar and solo to anything he hears. How do you guys do that???

As for the starting point for you, maybe the Blues Lead Guitar Course* would be a great place to start? Brian goes over all the pentatonic scale patterns as he teaches the blues licks. Other than that, I think knowing the CAGED system is a must. Brian covers it in EP273 and EP275 but also in many other lessons and microlessons. Pick your favorite one and start from there 🙂

* You can find the Blues Lead Guitar Course on the WEEKLY LESSONS page on the left side of the screen, all the way down underneath all the lessons categories. It should also show under MY ACCOUNT/MY COURSES.

Hope this helps a bit.

🎸JoLa

[Bryan T]

Thanks JoLa, It sounds like you have come a long way in a short amount of time. I keep hearing folks talk about the CAGED system and I know that Brian has put together several courses on CAGED. I think for now, I will give some of those a try.

[sunjamr]

Virtually all of the old blues masters had no knowledge of music theory, and couldn’t read tabs. That’s also true for a lot of the classic rock musicians. In the end, if it sounds good, it is good. But our teacher Brian is great at gently introducing music theory and techniques. There’s a little bit in most lessons, and that’s the way I like learning it. There’s really nothing to learn about reading tabs, since tabs are just a simple diagram. The 6 lines are the 6 strings on the guitar, highest at the top. The numbers are the fret where your finger goes. So a “3” on the top line means you put your finger on the 1st string, 3rd fret. At first, just ignore the vertical lines and wiggly stuff. That just provides information about timing, which you can get by listening to Brian’s videos and demo MP3s. After all, most tabs on the internet (ultimateguitar.com, for example) ONLY show the 6 strings and the numbering, so you have to figure out the timing on your own. Some stuff you just have to knuckle down and learn on your own. If you’re playing in the key of E, can you put your finger on all the different places the root note is on the neck? How many places on the neck can you play an E chord? Can you start on the open low E string and play the pentatonic scale positions all the way up the neck until you run out of frets? That kind of stuff.

Sunjamr Steve

[Bryan T]

Thanks Sunjamr, I think your post pretty much sums up a lot of how I look at guitar. Getting too bogged down in the technical details takes away a lot of the fun for me. However, I do understand the importance of having some knowledge of theory. So, (as painful as it may be), I need to spend a few minutes during practice working on a few things that aren’t quite as fun if I want to really excel.

[Brian H]

One word of advice. I taught myself to read music aged 65 +. I VERY STRONGLY recommend that you learn the actual music notation and totally avoid TAB. After a year of avoiding TAB my notation reading became very good. This will help immensely in studying music theory and understanding the basic scales and chords. There are two aspects to reading notation. One is the actual note. There are seven named notes only, A through G (5 of which can be sharped or flatted giving a total of 12 note sounds. No one should have a problem learning 7 notes. This is the easier part. The second part is timing. This takes much more time. However, I learned them separately and this really sped up my total learning.
Learning to read the music is the basis for further learning. I suggest you start with the diatonic scale, the major and minor pentatonic scales (and their positions on the fretboard). By the way, the fingering for the major and minor pentatonic scales are identical. Good luck. Brian

[Billy]

Hi Bryan,
Welcome to Active Melody, Guitar theory baffles the heck out of me and tbh the more folk try and explain it the more confusing it all becomes. It’s strange why us humans like to complicate things so that we can try understand them better hahaha
Do we really need to know how things work in theory before we put them in to practise?…
looking forward to hearing you play us all something.
Cheers

..Billy..

[Bryan T]

Thanks Billy, like the way you think. I see there are a lot of technically adept folks here on this forum so I started to feel a little anxious. I’ve actually gotten a lot just watching Brian play and memorizing his stuff and it seems to be working out pretty well for me at this point. Thanks for the words of encouragement.

[John H]

You probably know more theory than you are letting on. I never let theory get in the way of my playing. It’s kind of like not letting religion get in the way of my faith. I take what I need from each lesson Brian poses and look for its practical application when needed. Otherwise, there is too much information for me and I will never be able to express myself on guitar. I think finding practical applications for some theory and implementing those ideas is needed for growth. For example, the CAGED theory is hugely important. And, understanding the relationships between major and minor chords as well as how to incorporate modes wile soloing is also valuable. Anyways, I think you get the idea. My two cents.

John

[Bryan T]

Thanks John, I have to agree with you. I think I was just getting a little anxious after reading some of the technical jargon most of the folks in this forum were posting. Actually I have gotten the impression that the CAGED system is something I should focus on and I do have a rather lose understanding of the relationships between major and minor chords. I could not tell you anything about Modes though. When I play lead, I just hit the fret that will coincide with the style that I am trying to play. This of course often leads to mixed results. I will often have to work on a lead for hours before I can get through a song without making a hundred glaring mistakes.

[Vorocnan]

Tabs this is a link to explanation and shows sometimes differt tab is shown for the same technique
https://www.wikihow.com/Read-Guitar-Tabs#step-id-17

[JJ Roeds]

You can put a name on any of it and we do, but sometimes we can burn up a lots of time that we could be playing trying to learn vocabulary. I spent nearly 2 years trying to learn all the modes, what caged was and how it worked, minor vs major, reading tab ect ect ect. Chet Atkins put out one video on DVD where he shows a few things, I have a copy and love it, not once does he mention theory, or use the word CAGED. Les Paul was a genius and both of these masters worked with CAGED but may or may not have even known thats what us newbies call it. Don’t get me wrong there is value in it all, but from experience I can see people getting so bogged down trying learn vocabulary that they forget what all the words are there to describe. And that is the Junkyard theory, its just words to describe a concept to another musician you are trying to communicate with. Just my opinion, the two concepts I learned of the most value were , the Nashville numbering system which can be described and understood in about 60 seconds long we don’t try to complicate something beautiful and simple, and number two is the concept of CAGED which should only take about 5 minutes to describe and understand , unless your like me and have to take it apart and see how it works then try to figure out how to put it back together. You know more about all this than you have words for, learn the words as you go along, take a look at CAGED and Nashville numbering when you get a chance and you will say that you already do that, just didn’t know that was what it was called. One of my biggest regrets is thinking I had to know all the words instead of getting together and playing the instrument with anyone that can stand me. Just my opinions , at our age we have to be ever mindful of what consumes our days, keep on playing …….
J-J

Montana, USA

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