What are we learning?
I was reading the Montreal newspaper yesterday and I was pretty upset reading the front page. Basically, it said that the Quebec government is changing it’s own french writing. A lot of words are changing the way they were suppose to be written because too many children did some mistakes. For an example, the word “Onion” was spelled “Oignon” in french. Now, it is spelled “Ognon” because people are not pronouncing the “i”. So from now on, all the Quebec students who are writing Ognon have the correct spelling…
Like… Who are the people who decides how can you spell a word correctly? Why do we have to spell it that way? When we were kids and we had an F in a French or English class because we did 20 spelling mistakes… are they just mistakes or just different from what it is ”suppose” to be… So for all the children that learned well the old spelling of these words just wasted their time learning something useful and without any sense?
So it brings me to the same theory in music. We all have scales, modes and ”rules” in music. By modes I mean: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. Why are these modes there? Why do we HAVE to play these modes? Why do we have to start by learning this stuff to be able to enjoy our instrument? Is it because we ALL do it without knowing why? Are we scared of trying a new approach to learn our instrument?
Like when I was taking my bass courses at University of Montreal, I was playing a bass solo on top of Marcus Miller song: Power. My solo was grooving, it was cool. The teacher stopped me and said: Marco, you just played a C# note. You can’t play that in a Dorian mode. That song is in Dorian so you only have to play Dorian notes.
????????
It sounded good to me. Why do we have to stick in modes?
Same example in one of my class in my Engineering studies. I had to do a diagram of a business model process. The main goal is to express a business process with a graphic. It has to be clear and simple so anybody can understand it. I took 2 hours to do that diagram and showed it to some friends and they all understood the process. I checked out a lot of websites and evaluated my diagram with the main rules of it. It was perfect. The concept was clearly illustrated and it represented well the business process even for some people who did not understood what was going on. That was the main goal right? The teacher gave me 60% because he said it was missing stuff and some parts were unclear. That 60% was given to me by an opinion of ONE person. My teacher. I respect his decision but don’t understand it. I never understood the grades teacher give.
Or in one of my other classes, I received 8/20 in one question. I went to see the teacher and asked him why. He said that he knows that I understand the main concept and can explain it well. He knows that I studied intensely for that exam. But I did not wrote the keywords he wanted….. What’s more important, learning by hearth the keywords or understand the main concept well?
Don’t forget guys. University teachers are teaching because they are passionate ( most of them ) about what they teach but also it’s they JOBS. It’s their main income. They have some principles they have to stick with. The better way to learn is by yourself. Even if my teacher gave me 60% and the other one 8/20, I know I understand everything well. That is the most important thing.
On the complete opposite, on my Physic class, I understand NOTHING. All those weird formulas are just not entering my mind. I just learned all the formulas by hearth for the exams and got a 94%…. Even If I understood nothing, learning all the stuff the teacher want you to learn is giving you the crazy grades.
Same thing with music. I dropped out of musical university because I didn’t like the learning method. i used to have homeworks of learning some boring jazz pieces, walking bass lines, metronome practice, scales, modes, all the normal stuff a normal teacher will give to his students… I got a C+ in bass playing… and right now, I am doing way more with my bass playing than most of the bass students at that university…I can practice bass by myself and improve 40 times faster than reading notes and playing Dorian Mode.
So break the rules, don’t stick with something all the people do, don’t believe the normal concepts, Invent your own world. Be creative. Live. Be happy. Enjoy life. And rock your instrument out. 
November 19th, 2009 at 12:49
This is your best blog post ever. If the point is to understand and communicate the subject matter then as long as you understand and communicate the subject matter well then you did a good job. But somehow that’s wrong. I’m so sorry for having common sense. The thing is its not you who doesn’t get it, its them. The only way many of these teachers “know” the material is because they memorized it all to pass a test to get the degree to be able to teach. So to them, that’s how its done. That’s the only way. So if you do anything else you MUST be wrong. If I had to pick one thing that is most wrong with this world I would say that its people with the definite belief that they are right. Just a quick glance at history tells us that 99.9% of everyone ends up being wrong eventually. And that’s only compared to what we know today, which would have to be wrong as well. What makes this dangerous is these people who think they are definitely right are the ones who end up in power and make the rules. After all, they ARE right, so how could they let the world keep going incorrectly?
As for the spelling, I can’t really say anything without getting into my own political view but I’ll just let you know I agree with you and its bullshit.
November 19th, 2009 at 13:14
You know Marco, if you look deeper into harmony, anything you play can be explained through theory. Theory is just a way of explaining what your ear is hearing in words. Any good teacher will show you concepts AND what they sound like. Dorian isn’t just a scale or notes, it’s a SOUND. And in practicing this scale you get more familiar with the sound it produces so you can use it more effectively when improvising or soloing. The same goes for any mode or scale. This approach is extremely useful expand your harmonic and melodic horizons to more advance concepts that your ear isn’t often exposed to.
En tout cas c’est juste mon opinion et chacun pour soi!
November 19th, 2009 at 19:54
@Yannick Yes I know all this. but my point is that why do teachers still and ONLY stick to this method of learning? Why dosen’t a teacher tell his student: “Ok, for the next class, just compose anything you want and play it in front of me” or “Here is a simple melody. Just write a cool solo on top of it using your own creativity. ”
I think that it will practice ALOT the creativity of the students. That’s how I did it
I forgot about all the scales and went into my head to express myself.
November 19th, 2009 at 19:57
@Masterbassist I totally feel you man. You have the same opinion as I do!
November 20th, 2009 at 05:44
ques there ise nothing wrong in learning different scales, practice and read music, and use em like doors you kan open if you like to enter. i think its more like a’ problem if the teacher keeps you inside doors He know and understand.,”lock up and throw away the key”.
It’s up to one self to travel in the univers of musik, to discover, expirer and learn to express your self
I think good teachers will spendt time trying to guide your traveling inside the music univers, and fill in your baggage with knowledge. maybe travel with you. to better understanding your view and where you need guidelines.
November 21st, 2009 at 12:41
yo marco, I actually liked ur (article), agreed education can be bullshit, but it can help you too. I think what is important is to question what the teachers tell us and see if it works for us and if we want to believe in it.
December 6th, 2009 at 12:20
awesome post Marco!!!
Looking forward your next video!