Originally Posted by
man dough nollij
Like a lot of us Cafe dwellers (I gather), I spend all my playing time alone. I went the route of trying to build up a repertoir of songs by learning them one by one from books and DVDs.
Lately, I find myself with a limited time to play (as most of us do), and I find I spend quite a bit of time in mindless noodling.
I don't come from a musical background, and don't have a firm grounding in theory. Yeah, yeah, circle of fifths. Yeah. I've gotten deep enough into it to understand what a major, minor, flat, and sharp key is. I'm a long way from seeing a sheet of notation in a weird (Fdim7?) key and knowing what that would mean on the fretboard.
I know there are a ton of folks out there who are light years above me in terms of theory. I may get there someday, but I'm still stuck in learning elementary fiddle tunes.
I do spend a fair amount of time just noodling up and down unfamiliar scales. If I hit a "sour" note, I back off, using only my untrained musical ear for what is "sour".
I imagine there are a lot of aspiring musicians like me who don't have a deep training in musical theory, but have an idea what sounds "right" to them. I can pick up a mandolin and do a little run that sounds "jazzy", but I have no idea what a jazzy sound is.
I'd like to know more about this, and would really like to understand more about it, without a lot of droning music theory courses.
I know a lot of us come from high school band classes, where we were taught to play song XYZ in B flat.
That's not my story-- I'm willing to learn the theory, but I'm more interested in tone, happiness, and the sound of making music.
Because of some lifestyle choices (e.g., moving to Antarctica), I've eliminated some normal means of advancing (i.e., lessons).
Am I doomed?
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