Learn Some Music Theory To Improve Your Playing Ability

Posted by Jay on Feb 4, 2009 in Music And More • No Comments

“I just play by ear”. That is a term that I have heard quite a few times by other musicians. I won’t lie and say that most of those that have told me that aren’t good at their respective instrument, because they are. Heck, alot of them are better than me, but I can only imagine how much more their abilities would improve by learning a little music theory. Imagine that you only knew how to play by ear and you are at a band audition and they tell you to join in and play some lead riffs based on A minor pentatonic scale. I don’t think that outcome would be too great especially if the band doesn’t rely on “playing by ear”.

When I first decided that I would seriously try to learn guitar a few years ago, I didn’t even know what music theory was and I was also “playing by ear”. That didn’t work out too great for me. I only knew a few basic chord shapes and only a few simple tabbed riffs, but I did not know what chord I was playing or which strings were which. That, coupled with the fact that I am not the most physically gifted guitarist to begin with, got frustrating pretty quick and I just had to find a way to try to improve. That’s when I learned about music theory. Music theory is basically studying how and why music works. There is much to learn when it comes to music theory, but even learning a little bit has helped me greatly over the past few years. Since I play guitar, I will use the guitar as the example.

NOTES/CHORDS

The first thing that I studied was the notes and what note each open guitar string was. I made sure that I knew all the notes/chords that exist. With that information locked down, I then practiced each chord on my guitar in the first position and also studied the fretboard and memorized as best as I could where each note on the fretboard is. That alone gave me a pretty big boost in my playing ability. There are many very useful tools on the net that can help you learn the fretboard. If you never did learn your notes and chords and then study and memorize them, I can assure you that your actual playing skill will increase.

KEYS

Next up, I focused on how to determine what key a song is being played in. In most cases, what ever chord a song begins and ends with is the Key that the song is in. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but for beginners I think that’s a pretty good rule of thumb. You should also concentrate on learning what chords are in a particular key. That will help you to figure out how to play a complete song. So the next time somebody tells you the song is in the “key of A”, you have a pretty good idea of what chords will be in the song and will help you greatly in deciphering the song.

TIP: If you hear a song but don’t really know what chord it begins or ends with, here is where you can use a little “playing by ear” to figure it out. Listen to the first couple of bars of the song and as you are listening, pick your low E string several times on each fret until the sound of the note your are picking most closely matches the overall pitch of the song you are listening to.
For example, the song you want to figure out is in the key of G (but obviously you don’t know that yet), you would start by picking the open low E string a few times……doesn’t match the song. Move on to the first fret on the low E string and pick it a few times……. still not a good match. Second fret on the low E string……… almost there but it just sound “off”. Third fret on the low E string……. BINGO!!! It seems to match very well with the overall feel of the song that is in the key of G. Since you memorized your notes on the fretboard, you know that the third fret on the low E string is a G note. It’s a pretty safe bet that the song is in the key of G. You now can take it from there and try to figure out how to play the song because you also memorized what chords are in each key.

SCALES

The third and final thing I will be discussing is scales. Learning scales will really help you in your playing, especially if your are a lead guitarist. You usually would start your scale on the note that corresponds to the key of the song. For example, if the song is in the key of G, you would usually start your scale on a G note. Of course there are exceptions to that rule as well but that should be a good starting point to remember if you are a beginner. Scales are very useful in improvising or coming up with solos. There are many scales to be learned, but for practical purposes you will probably never use more than a few scales. I would highly suggest that you first study and learn the Pentatonic Major and Minor scales. These are very easy to learn as they consist of only 5 notes, thus the name “Penta” which means 5. With your knowledge of all the notes location on the fretboard, you can come up with some good solos with just 5 notes by playing those notes all along the fretboard.

TIP: A song in a major key usually has a happy, upbeat feel to it. A song in a minor key usually has a sad and gloomy feel to it. With that in mind you can easily throw in either a Pentatonic Major or Minor scale to quickly come up with a solo that fits nicely with the song.

Those are three useful parts of music theory that really boosted my actual playing ability. One aspect of my playing ability that was helped greatly was my speed. Since I pretty much know where all the notes on the fretboard are located, it has helped me jump from note to note up and down the fretboard with much more ease. There are many more parts of music theory to learn like chord progressions, intervals, steps and half steps, etc…. and I do suggest that you study all of that as well, but for beginners you should get a good boost with what I discussed in this article. All you “play by ear” musicians, study some music theory to compliment and boost your physical playing skill. You’ll be happy you did.

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