Learning Approach

This is your Theory Bootcamp Agreement.

By following the below concepts, you will have strong grasp of the material in a few months. If you do not follow these concepts, you’ll likely be a little further along than you are now, still with gaps in your knowledge which make most of it unusable.

Music Is In Real Time

Music happens in real time. For you to use a musical concept, it must be internalized. Internalized means you can use it without thinking, the same way you can recall your phone number.

A lot of guitarists think of theory and playing by ear as being on two opposite ends of a spectrum. This is completely wrong. Both are fairly weak without the other. A great “ear player” has spend a tremendous amount of time working out their own systems for recalling the sounds in their toolbox. Arguably this could have been easier for them with some theory guidance. And any player who has a command of music theory has had to put in a great deal of time internalizing those sounds so they can recall them from their toolbox.

In fact, when a sound in internalized (ear training) and given a name (theory), they are one in the same. When you think the color “red”, you see a color in your mind and it has a label, “red.” There’s nothing more to it. Similarly, when a musicican with this training thinks “diminished” they have both the sound and label in their mind.

Learning vs Applying

Learning and applying are the two phases of internalizing.

Learning means that you study a concept and grasp what it is about.

Applying means you then take that concept and apply it to your music.

If you spend all your time learning, you won’t be able to apply much of it because it’s just in your head and hasn’t been internalized through application to actual music.

If you spend all your time applying, then you won’t have much to apply because you don’t take the time to learn anything new.

The way to approach this with Theory Bootcamp (and probably any other concepts you learn on guitar) is to learn a new concept and then immediately apply it to songs you know or songs you are learning.

Be careful not to bite off more than you can chew. This takes some repition to find the right amount. The right amount is a concept that you can learn over a day or two and then start applying it. Examples of right amounts include a new scale position or series of chord inversions. An example of too much would be trying to learn all triads and inversion before applying them.

Memorizing vs Internalizing

You goal is to internalize all concepts that we cover in Theory Bootcamp. Since music is played in real time, the only way to recall and use a concept while still placing full focus on playing musicially (with emotion, dynamics, good phrasing etc.) is too internalize a concept. This means you know it the way you can recall you phone number - instant recall.

Memorizing means you can recall it in your mind - often through some sort of referencing or deriving - but you cannot play it immediately. If you have to think about it, the time has passed in the song already.

Multimodal Learning

Multimodal learning means learning through various channels. At the very least, you should be putting your guitar down and writing concepts out from memory. Learning through various channels enhances comprehension and retension.

You can add further channels by watching shows, watching videos, teaching someone else, visualizing, playing another instrument (piano) and using flash cards. The more methods you can use, the faster you will be on your merry way with the knowledge internalized.

References In View

References in view are any documents printed out or on the computer that you can look at while practicing. Do not do this! They will become a crutch. The only exception would be chords and lyrics for songs. Even that, some would argue not to use.

You won’t take the time to memorize something when the answer is always physically in front of you. Take whatever bite-sized amount is small enough to memorize and then immediately start applying it. Forget the rest for the time being. Remember, music is in real time, so the stuff you’re referencing that is not internalized is only distracting you from making music.

Learn Full Songs

Learning songs in their entirety will greatly speed up the process of learning theory. Bonus: you learn full songs in their entirety.

There will likely always be something in a song that stumps you or makes you do a little but of work to get the part down.