All of us know that music theory is the language of music. Thus, the Terminologies of music theory are its vocabulary. That is how we communicate terms in music theory. That is how we can express an idea in our head and put it down on paper.
Say, Do you know whats a Triad? An Interval? How about an octave?. If you don't then you're not alone in this human race for learning to play the guitar and ignoring the theory behind it.
Most self-taught guitarists advance with learning to play the guitar without knowing 10 percent of the terminologies involved in learning to play the guitar. Most of my friends don't know more than the names of the basics chords of guitar. Sure they can play the D(seven), F(minor) and even F(sharp) and not know the name of that chord. That is because they learn from sources other than those that necessitate a degree in music, like from a friend who knows a piece of music and he just learns to play it by sound and observing him play.
The most rational reason for that is because they learn more by sound than theory. In theory, that sounds more favorable than picking up a book and going through pages and pages of music theory only to forget why you picked the book in the first place. Books on music theory can be misleading and could end up making you hate music theory or even theories in general.
Most tutored guitarist too advance with learning to play only by the rules. Well, that's a good thing since they're learning it the right way but they get too attached to playing by the rules that they forget or say deprive themselves of the exceptions. No theory is perfect. If it were, it would be a law or a rule. So, when theories are involved, exceptions are the inseparable other side of the coin. For all the theories in music there are hundreds of exceptions. These exceptions are the ones that make learning music so unique and wonderful.
I myself started of learning the guitar from observing my uncle play. But once I got the hang of the basic playing techniques, I wanted to know more about this language and I realized I didn't know anything about playing, technically. As I started learning the names of chords and everything around it, I realized that there were thousands of terms related to music theory. So, I picked only those which I wanted to learn to get through my guitar lessons. That way I'll have my head in the game and I wont drown in the sea of terminology of music.
Learning the terms is all about what you wanna know about music that you are trying to learn at the moment. There's no point in learning terms which you don't need at the moment or think that it might be useful for future use. It's always good to know more in advance but for that term to have a long-term effect on our memories its best to learn them with an example. For example, to learn a chord, say D(seven), you're not going to learn it simply by just mugging the finger placements.It might take hours of practice before it can blend into you till you play that chord without looking at the guitar fret.
The same is applicable for all the other terms in music. Learning music is not just about theory, it is about applying that music theory practically and practicing till it is on the tip of your finger. Don't be afraid to dig in a term of music next time there's a guitar in your hand and something in your head and you are left clueless. There's always a reason behind the term being named that way and there's always a theory involved around it.
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