A DIY music "degree"?

[791979]

I have wanted for a long time to gain a really full & deep understanding of music, and I feel that a few years at University is what is needed. But, frankly my personal circumstances make this impossible.

Now, I do have a Univerity education, and my experiences then make me feel that I could (perhaps) take a more DIY route to this. So, I am wondering if any of you here have any suggestions for how to take a structured, and fairly comprehensive approach to studying this wide topic.

I love playing rock/blues guitar, and I will also want to do this primarily, but I now know enough to realise there is so much more I want to understand. I find the subject so vast, that I truly don't know where to start.

I would specifically like to understand a full history of classical music, All kinds of theory about harmony & composition. And so much more besides, and I want to use this new knowledge to influence my overall ability as a musician. I also want to learn to sing well, play the piano... Lot's of stuff

So, any ideas?

[boneyguy]

You want alot!! That's good. I don't think there is any single source, either doing it at home or going to a music school, that will give you everything that you've described.

I'll give you some links to some self study materials that I think are excellent that will provide you with some of what you want.

http://www.guitarcollege.net/home.html

http://www.seriousguitar.com/

http://www.sdgsoft.com/

Good luck.

[klasaine]

Read all the Larry F threads here to start,
move on to the Leon Grizzard and Tim Bowen posts,
find the older Chris S posts,
and then on to Jeffscreamedcorn posts ...

I'm serious. The amount of knowledge these guys have shared here, in a very lucid and concise way, is formidable.

That, along with a private tutor (serious guitar or harmony lessons) if you can swing it, and a regimen of daily practice/study.
Maybe take a city or community college night course in harmony or composition if that's possible?

[Mike Bruce]

Private instruction on a regular or intermittent basis. I have had a few students like this over the years and have enjoyed their instruction requirements a lot. Much cheaper than college tuition. Buy books. I sometimes visit university bookstores as well as online sources and good music stores. Don't stop at guitar either, study other instruments.

Although I make my living teaching music, I think of myself as a lifelong student of music too. There's always more to learn, re-learn, be reminded of, improve one's understanding of, hear, appreciate, understand...I try to pass all that knowledge along...pay back and pay ahead, so to speak.

Good luck.

Mike Bruce

[791979]

Thanks guys for all the tips. Can anyone recommend any good books, I'm thinking stuff on harmony, but any good books would be helpful.

[octatonic]

Hi 791979,

2 years ago I would have given you a long list of books to look up but I won't do that now.

I had my first day at uni yesterday- doing a degree in music performance.
I'm 36 years old, been playing for 20+ years, professionally for 15 and teaching for the last 10.
Most of the other students are under 25- quite a lot are under 21.
And they can play...

Frankly, it is a terrifying experience- but I am up for it.

Going to an established music school will mean you get a much more balanced musical education than if you try to do it yourself.

I've got a pretty good practice regime- I do a couple of hours of scales and exercises a day, learn new pieces, study harmony and theory, always play to a metronome etc.
I still have gaps... big ones.

Like sight reading, transcription, aural recognition.
I'm fully expecting to be close to the bottom of the pack when it comes to these topics.
That is a very humbling experience.

The competition of having lots of other musicians around you and having the instruction of some great players is much, much better than trying to do it yourself.
It is a great commitment of time and energy but you get a much broader musical education.
You tackle some topics that you would possibly not look at.

Now it was only the first day yesterday- so I am looking into the future and making
some assumptions- but we had a brief introduction to the methodology yesterday.
The accelerated learning techniques we were introduced to have already turned my practice regime on its ear- I have changed everything in the last 24 hours.
It isn't something I can put into words easily- but I'm really looking forward to the next 3 years.

To do it yourself you have to be ultra-disciplined and dedicated but even then you will likely miss things.

That said- if you got a copy of "Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar" by George Van Eps and "Chord Chemistry" by Ted Greene and started working on them daily, you'd end up a pretty great player.

[blkhrs7]

There are alot of beginning theory books that can help you get started, but sounds like you are wanting something more comprehensive than the "beginning guitar theory" books that you find on the shelves of most music stores. I think the best place to start is with text books used in university music programs. I attended two music schools while studying classical guitar and found the texts books to be fairly easy to follow, even without the aid of an instructor.

One college used the book "Music: In Theory And Practice", by Bruce Benward and Gary White, publisher is Brown & Benchmark, copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies. It was a pretty good book. I believe this is a link to the same book
http://http://www.amazon.com/Music-T...1554018&sr=1-8

At the university we used "Elementary Harmony: Theory and Practice", by Robert W. Ottman, Prentice Hall Publisher. 5th edition. Amazon showed it currently unavailable.
This was a great book, but was a little pricey. I'm sure you can find a used paperback online for a reasonable price.

This is the route I'd go for what you said you were interested in. It will take you back to the beginning of music theory; the way Bach taught it. It's a great foundation to build on.

[791979]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I will get the books and see where that leads. I am also hoping to start piano lessons with a teacher that uses "proper" music notation. So that may help.

octatonic I quite understand why you feel that there is no substitute for a formal education. For me, this simply isn't possible. In any case, I find that Universities can be quite mixed in there performance. If you find one that works for you, then that would be a real advantage, but they don't all fit everyone well (as I know to my cost :))

Good luck, with your course. It isn't a competition, so don't get into all that crap with fellow students, and sure it's intimidating on the first day or two (I know that feeling well), just relax, study hard & you will do well!!

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by 791979

B]octatonic[/b] I quite understand why you feel that there is no substitute for a formal education. For me, this simply isn't possible. In any case, I find that Universities can be quite mixed in there performance. If you find one that works for you, then that would be a real advantage, but they don't all fit everyone well (as I know to my cost :))

Good luck, with your course. It isn't a competition, so don't get into all that crap with fellow students, and sure it's intimidating on the first day or two (I know that feeling well), just relax, study hard & you will do well!!

Hi 791979,

I should have made it clearer but this is all very much IMHO.

In my experience I found that 20 years of private study has me at a certain point.
I will be older than some of the teachers at the school and they are way better than I am at some things.

I'm no slouch with private study- I found I tapped out at a certain stage.
It all depends on what you want to do with your guitar playing though.

If I could turn back time I would have done this a lot sooner (although Berklee would have been my only option back then, I think).

I am not trying to dissuade you from doing it yourself- but just be aware that (in my humble opinion and not inconsiderable experience at it) it is quite a bit harder to do it that way.

Thanks for the encouragement- it is all very interesting at the moment.

[Larry F]

This is a tough one. It would be very difficult to obtain a university-level education without taking the courses. The books used in the theory classes that I have taught or supervised are excellent. However, they are used to support the lectures of the teacher. A good teacher will play examples on the piano and with CDs and will give examples from the literature of a particular theoretical notion. Moreover, a good teacher will refer back to earlier examples and previous theoretical ideas in order to promote a unified understanding of the ideas.

It is extremely important that an aural skills course support the written material. If the student cannot internally hear the notes, then the material is only an abstraction, not a musical reality.

It is also important for the student to compose exercises in part-writing, counter-point, harmony. You will learn a lot by getting feedback on those exercises.

Finally, analysis. One of the main goals of a university-level course in music theory is to have the student be able to analyze a piece. In the practical world of classical music performance, analytical skills are crucial if one is to know they key, harmony, theme, and form of a segment of music in a work. In a theory class, students are trained to do what we call a Roman numeral analysis. This kind of analysis is done directly in the score itself. The student writes the key and indicates the chords by using Roman numerals and figured-bass notation. This is a basic analytical skill that must be mastered. After that, students can discover motives and their variations, as well as themes and the overall form. A synthesis takes place when a student writes about how the changes in key and harmony interact with the delineation of formal sections and thematic development. To see how this is done at a very high level, look at a copy of the journal Music Theory Spectrum.

What I have just described covers the first year of a theory course, and some of the second year. The last half of the second year, if not more, is usually devoted to non-tonal theory. This is the theory of pitch sets used in the music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartok, Debussy, Stravinsky and later composers.

I really admire your approach. This is how I like to do things. I love learning on my own. I've done something like this with math, but, boy, as this caused problems for me. But it is fun.

So, go ahead and get a good book. Kostka and Payne is widely used in the US. But it is very, very terse. It comes with listening examples on CD, which is good.

A good goal for you would be to be able to do a Roman numeral analysis, as I described above, for a piano sonata by Hayden, Mozart, or Beethoven.

I would hope that a university teacher would let you sit in on the class, but universities are starting to not allow that.

If you can't sit in on a class, I would recommend absolutely mastering the spelling of chords and scales as fast as you can speak the note names. That will at least give you the ability to begin to see the relations formed by note combinations.