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At the end of the day, it's all about playing music on the instrument, most audiences don't care if you do or don't know any theory.
Still, I do feel that advanced Harmony (beyond the usual chord shapes) is easier to understand with a bit of theory.........
Keep up the good work.
Guy
For example: Dorian: a minor scale but with a sharpened 6th. Eg: Greensleeves, drunken sailor, surfing with the alien, most western movie music, scarborough fair, etc. they all have that signature sweetened 'olde' quality due to the raised 6th, so get to recognise it.
Then if you have an inclination for the theoretical you can explore its relationship to other scales, for example:
- the parent diatonic scale (ionian)
- the other minor scales (aeolian and phrygian)
- the minor scales outside the diatonic family (melodic ascending, harmonic, persian minor, hungarian minor, etc)
- its relative major (lydian, which also has a sweetened note, the 4th).
You can this for every scale you're interested in.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
For example, the current "Solo of the Month" on this forum states the progression as "C minor D# major":
http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/38168/solo-of-the-month-2-chat#latest
Obviously Harmonically, it's in C minor, so theoretically it should be EbMaj not D# major, it won't sound any different, but it just shows a lack of Harmonic knowledge.
Guy
Oh absolutely, I couldn't agree more, but a lot of musicians can play really well without theory (not me - I'm hampered without it, but that's my problem) - but I was really only referring to understanding the diatonic scales themselves.
(plus for us 1/4 comma enthusiasts, D# and Eb aren't even enharmonic )
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
IMHO, as you already probably know, the diatonic scales are directly related to Major/Minor Harmony and Diatonic Modal Harmony. As a generalisation, guitarists seem to learn lots of scales (too many scales perhaps), but few put the same amount of time and effort into learning the Harmony that's related to the scale.
Guy
In the overwhelming majority of cases, there is a similarity between dorian pieces, inlcuding most of the examples above, and that is that as well as a minor root, they have a strongly major IV chord. This is unlike pieces in natual minor which tend to have a minor IV (such as parisienne walkways). Check out the western music from movies such as Apache, or good/bad/ugly theme. Whenever you have a minor I and a very major IV, the I is likely to be dorian because that sharpened 6th note in the I chord is enharmonic with the major 3rd in the IV chord. And it's reinforced even further if there's also a major VII chord too. So you immediately know to solo in Dorian; and the IV chord is going to have a flat 7 à la mixolydian; the VII chord will have an ionianic major 7th; and the V chord should in fact be minor (like in Stayin' Alive).
Just a little example of how, to my mind anyway, the theory can contribute to one's playing.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.