Re: [Harp-L] Positions Playing

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, we don't learn to "talk and communicate through learning the rules"  - at least not explicitly. We learn the rules of spoken language intuitively. I didn't learn to diagram a sentence until the 7th grade, and I had no trouble stringing word together before that. But I found sentence diagramming fascinating because it gave me a way to break down and describe what I already knew intuitively.

That's all that music theory is - a way of describing accurately what you play and how notes and beats fit together. If you play intuitively, it's just another tool for understanding what you already know in a different way.

And to reference an earlier part of the discussion, notes and beats are to musicians what paint and canvas are to painters - the materials you work with to produce your art. Having a way to describe your materials and how they fit together might be useful, yes?

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Fri, 3/13/09, IcemanLE@xxxxxxx <IcemanLE@xxxxxxx> wrote:
From: IcemanLE@xxxxxxx <IcemanLE@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Positions Playing
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009, 3:16 AM

We learned to talk and communicate through learning the rules - noun,  
pronoun, adjective, adverb. Anyone remember "diagramming a sentence"?
 
Lots of rules, terms, definitions, just to learn the art of making a  
sentence. 
 
Then, guess what - we proceeded to forget the rules while continuing our  
paths of communication. Not many people learned to communicate (speak/write at
a  
high level) through ear training alone - at least not the ones who attended  
school.
 
Why not approach music and harmonica with the same concepts?