Shinn the Writer

A Little Theory?

 

The first good private music lessons I ever took were guitar lessons from one Michael Locke. As we were getting acquainted, my musical background came up. I had to tell him that I was hardly a beginner (I’d been playing for about forty years at the time!) but there were likely to be some large gaps in both my knowledge and technique. As a guitarist, I’d been mostly self-taught. While I could read music, I knew very little about what was behind it, like why sharps and flats always appeared in a certain order, and so forth.

 

Michael was very understanding and helpful. I had two music teachers who I would consider to be guiding lights in my belated progress as a musician and he was one of them. (The other was Johnny Harper, a wonderful Bay Area musician who had more practical and historical knowledge than I could ever hope to cram into my fragile little mind, but that’s another story.

 

One thing Michael introduced me to was the “circle of fifths”, something I instantly recognized as something I should have learned in about the sixth grade. Why music teachers (and I’ve known several) don’t teach it is beyond me. I began to understand the relationships between different keys and why chord structures work the way they do. I became more curious about some of the terms I never thought I really needed to know and when I was misusing terminology. After Michael moved, I would take lessons both on flute and sax. My sax teacher wanted to teach me about different “modes”, but unfortunately, I was hell-bent on learning the instrument well enough to play in public, and first things first. Then came the pandemic…

 

From time to time I entertained the idea of taking some kind of class in music theory. At my age, taking classes in much of anything id a good Idea, just to stay mentally active. I thought a real class might be fun, but I couldn’t find one, so that left two other formats: book or video. The renown Berklee College of Music had an on-line two-course sequence that looked good, except that I couldn’t tell whether I needed the first one or not. Further, I would need to be tied to my computer to take it.

 

There were any number of books on the subject. Again, the issue came up of how advanced the material was relative to what I already knew. If I bought a book from a sequence, I might miss something from an earlier book in the series that I’d glossed over. Or if I made the opposite mistake and ordered too early in the series, I’d waste both time and money going through concepts I already knew.

 

I finally found one, “The Essential Music Theory Book” by Marc Schonbrun. I never heard of Marc, but that’s fine with me. It seemed to get good reviews and at about $20, won’t break the bank even if it’s junk. Like lots of things, I found it easier to buy on Amazon. Amazon is just too big and Jeff Bezos too wealthy for my liking, but what are you gonna do? Maybe Jeff will send me a thank-you note.​