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It's funny though how different people respond to learning music theory differently. I started on guitar when I was 19. I played for a long time at campfire level. When my kids started learning music I also learnt a lot, and now I know scale shapes and modes on guitar, so I can reasonably play to a song I'm hearing for the first time, then figure it out by ear. But I just cannot make the leap to knowing the notes at each position. I can read music, very slowly, to play on piano, but fluency has never clicked for me even though I've put the time in.

My 8 year old hardly ever practices but just looks at the music and knows the notes on piano and violin.

In any case, I agree that this isn't that helpful to being able to play, it's just an interesting way to understand why things are as they are.

by dyzone4 hours ago|

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Your kid might have absolute pitch. Only a few percent of people have it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Cb1qwCUvI

by sjrd4 hours ago|

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Perfect pitch is not correlated with the ability to see written notes and immediately know how to play them on any instrument. It is only barely correlated with the same but for singing the note.

I do not have perfect pitch, but I could always do what GP's kid does. I am now a pretty good amateur singer.

What matters for this is learning to read the music notation and developing a sense (mostly subconscious) of scales and harmony. Perfect pitch does not help either of those things.

by dyzone1 hours ago|

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Oh right, I misread. GP is talking about reading, not listening.

by altmanaltman3 hours ago|

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I think it gets significantly harder to learn new things as you age. It could make sense though like its significantly easier to learn a new language as a child than an adult, something simillar could apply to sheet music also i guess where they are naturally more intuined with its language vrs you who has to kinda use a dictionary for time to time because the "normal" way for you to speak has been so different for so long. But for your child, its another form of expression almost. Its really good to get kids into music while they are young imo

by rTX5CMRXIfFG3 hours ago|

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Re: not knowing how to play because author doesn’t get the why

Quite a lot of people learn by imitation without knowing the underlying theory. Some people need a theoretical framework so that they have a mental model with which to understand everything else.

Fundamentally, you’re arguing against learning theory. Not everyone learns the same way. If you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with a basic fact of life.

by altmanaltman3 hours ago|

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No I don't have a "problem with that". And yes, people learn by imitation, which is what I meant by practice. Playing the guitar is a fundamentally different activity than knowing music theory. Becoming good at one doesn't make you good at the other naturally (since you are practicing two different things) and I am worried some people think its the same thing.

Furthermore, in real life, I have seen the same approach actually be detremental to learning guitar. Its a bit like football - there is a physical skill level to the sport which you can practice and then there is a theoritical part (tactics and formation) that help you understand the game and play better.

But if you just want to start by kicking a ball and you know everything about Pep Guardiola's new counterattacking system. Yet when you are kicking the ball and practicing the basic skills, you are not thinking woah am i a midfield playing the right side and looking for a pass? That type of thinking is not useful when you are learning how to kick a ball.

Ideally you should do the two together and work really hard on practice first if you actually want to be a footballer is my point. If you say oh no everyone is different, some people just like tactics, I don't think I say anything against it.

Theory first is not a good way to learn an instrument is my qualified statement. Not that theory is not important or doesnt matter or everyone should follow the same way of learning.