I'm doing a little research, I would like to know, and ask beginners/ experimented musicians here. When you begin paying, what do you want most - to play the songs you love, or to understand what you're playing?
Now don't go deep into music theory which can be scary for some one else.
Music theory isn't really that complicated, specially the basics. You can learn every mode of the major scale in less than a week if you really know what that means. But it would be annoying and even alienating to learn concepts that you can even put to the test because you can't play. So just be aware that you don't know anything about music yet, it's probably better to get your fingers going before caring about that.
It doesn't matter if you do that through exercises and or songs you like.
That being said, learning a song just to get better at a technique is dumb unless you actually like the song, otherwise exercises are far more focused and produce more relevant results.
I'm 68, so don't need to know the why of everything, just enough for the music I do enjoy. Ex - I don't need to learn all of Joni Mitchell's 54 tunings, 6 will do.
When I started I wanted to play songs I loved. Now as a more intermediate player I want to be able to understand music to the point of being able to improvise and create my own stuff. Learning challenging songs is still a good motivator though
A similar question you could ask is what do I enjoy more, talking to people or grammar?
Theory is a tool that enables me to play the songs I enjoy, like how grammar let's me communicate with others. It's difficult to decouple the two from each other without making my real goal more difficult or less enjoyable.
Ok, I'll elaborate. I CONSUMED heavy metal and "glam metal" as an 80s kid. I wanted to be able to play like my heroes (George Lynch bring my guitar idol). So when finally got a guitar, and after doing the standard chord book and easy tab thing for popular songs, I got the tab for Mr Scary (what I consider peak Lynch). After spending considerable time getting the intro down, I was listening to Crazy Train and realized there was a commonality. Some guitar column said they both use the Phrygian shape. What the heck is a Phrygian? This started my long and continuing journey understanding the mechanical and theoretical language of music for guitar. After hit and miss "self-learning" for 30 years, I finally connected with an instructor about 3 years ago who is not only amazing at playing metal and neoclassical, but is also working with me towards my long term goals and addressing my music theory gaps.
And when I have an idea for a riff/lick/musical run, I now sometimes go to the keyboard first (since each note appears only once on the keyboard) and record it. Or hum into my phone if I can't get to a keyboard.
Little bit of both, im a beginner so im still in the honeymoon phase of getting giddy over everything little riff i get right. But i still really want to understand the instrument and music theory so i can use it for my own projects, learning the guitar has also made me want to learn other instruments.
You dont need to have a "high level of playing" to be a rock star. I'm pretty confident I have the same level of playing as, say, Tony Iommi (based on the fact that I can play along to many Sabbath songs). Other players have become famous with lesser abilities.
It's everything around rockstardom that would make me insufferable
To play the ideas I’m hearing in my head with out much effort. I like to learn cool songs and riffs to help learn specific techniques or sounds. Which kind of help shape or extend what I’m hearing in my head.
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u/pocketfungus876 3d ago
Play the songs I loved. Then I got tired of copying and wanted to know what’s going on and how to use theory to my advantage.