All off topic deleted. Please if you see someone trolling jut report, no need to answer.

 

This is a great thread. Not sure why people were getting mad about it

Thanks @MMJ2017 for starting it and for all the information

 

There have always been different ways to teach anything from the time humankind could communicate.
There have always been conflicting points of view on how to teach anything from purists and non-purists, and this thread is no exception.

Both arguing parties have something to offer. Neither is allowing for the other's point of view as being valid. That is not teaching or a good look.
I have seen other ways to teach exactly the same things being presented but that is neither here nor there because my post is not about better or worse.

Any teacher should be able to admit when there are alternatives, if they may be right or wrong, without hubris because that is also a large part of being a good teacher who shares their knowledge. While MMJ's method of teaching in written text and the way it is written is unorthodox, many people seem to like it. Ad Heesive has a solid grasp of harmony and the way it is taught in music schools. Both have something to offer, but unfortunately, both need an injection of humility IMO. Nobody is right all of the time, nobody other than a machine and even then that is dependent on the human entering the data and humans are flawed.

What do I know? Enough to know when people can treat each other better.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 16, 2019

I like the new guy.
Welcome.

I think you wanted to comment this topic actually : https://audiosex.pro/threads/whats-your-philosophy-regarding-music-theory.51235/page-14

 

I did - I actually feel like I need a lobotomy after reading ALL of it. That makes me question myself rather than anyone else because I felt like the supreme masochist after doing it.

Seriously though, both have something to offer. The methods will like any information presented, be determined on its use by the people interpreting it.
Arguing about methodologies that are completely different is a waste of time which is why I refrained.
Also, I see no point in pointing out flaws in relaying techniques because we each have our own individual way of communication.

I decided on impartiality as the primary choice and to keep my opinion to myself because both MMJ and Ad Heesive have something to offer, though in a completely different manner. They just need to be kinder to each other.

 

@Talmi I am an oldie revisiting after a long hiatus. I used to be one of TONYG's friends. It does not matter who.
I am not sure how long I will last. It's almost like 'Same thing, different day'. I'll see.

 

Really ? Hope TonyG is doing okay. He left in a hurry, I know he had his reasons, but I really regretted how that went. I was pretty upset by his departure, how it went down and I didn't really convay things the way I wanted.
Took a break for a while too, felt I was taking things too at heart, I think things go wrong on forums when that start happening. The forum can magnetize drama at time. All in all there are good people here, skilled ones that wanna help, newbies who need some and give back latter, and everything in between. It's good until it gets bad.

 

TONYG knew his legal jargon, probably better than anyone that has been a participant here. He had a disagreement with a couple of the moderators. In his area of expertise, he was correct. He is qualified in that area and one in particular completely rubbed him the wrong way. Being knowledgeable and qualified when the platform discussions become arguments with the owners tends to produce a result that has no good outcome. Being smart and he is, he chose the path of least resistance and left. Do I I think the person he was in conflict with is a goon? It's ancient history but I did not disagree with him and I left simultaneously.

 

Many of us leave and return for the same reason. I have in the past clashed with masters of the art of passive aggression and because it is not overt it is not recognised by mods as bad behaviour, nor do they see the harm it can inflict on the person receiving these missives that drain you of your self esteem and worth. I have already had doubts about returning.

 

Objectively, I think every single person on the planet would like to be right all of the time. The truth is that nobody will ever be that. Some people have a capacity to accept that and have deep integrity where they acknowledge that within themselves and will step away from something and question themselves, rather than jump in and retaliate or say something that is emotionally driven because they may feel attacked.
Understanding the difference between being questioned and attacked comes down to the 21st Century's biggest flaw - globally understood communication. Each of us has idiosyncrasies in the way we write, speak and do things. Some people feel comfortable and others feel discomfort. Misunderstanding is huge in social media.

Man I wish I had the answer, but if I had a dollar for every time I have seen someone immediately take the negative path by misreading something I'd be wealthy.
I did agree with TONYG and why I left, that the moderator concerned was completely out of his depth and had no knowledge whatsoever of what TONYG was saying and caused trouble by interfering and pretending he was something other than a moderator instead of asking questions in plain English.
As I said, I will wait and see if it is any different. One of the most ironic things I have heard said was when a USA President said in a film after someone said 'I may have been wrong' - that 'Do you know how many times I have heard that in the White House? Never'.

 

A lot of high-tier forums, the ones that have a million users that is, have commenced removing things like nasty, dislike and only left the positives in.
They have instead put a 'Flag' - where if it is inappropriate and reaches more than a certain amount flags the post becomes hidden and the moderator is sent a notification automatically. While it does not completely stop the bully-trolls who willfully go in and attack a specific user because they have gathered together in dislike of a specific person, it does limit the visible and wilful bullying on larger sites. The positive aspect that I have seen is that if the same users perpetually flag the same user they are limited to only three ever on the same user and if it is all the same users or groups doing the flagging, they get cautioned.

 

Yes, ad heesive and I seem to be on good terms now I am happy about that .
I'm just trying to share information .
All the rest of things , are of a lower priority .
I am open to any educational materials about music , because it's always symbolically represented .
( Whether sheet music or text or charts graphs or spoken words those are just mediums for information. The medium is arbitrary the information is what's important.)
So from my point of view in this context of being at audiosex , I try to present information in a way that's applicable to anyone reading it.

I think it's important to note that in the modern era
It's difficult for many people to be taught traditional music education and because of that we have seen music go in the direction that it has.
(People without knowledge of music " making music")
That's a recent thing. Going back 100 years let's say , you would have the elders teaching the kids music and learning from their peers. Everyone that got involved in music took time to learn it's inner workings from all different angles .
Learn by ear, learn from elders and peers, learn to read and write music , etc.)
I believe the reason we live now in a world where music is generally thought of how as worthless and not worth paying for us because of the average quality of modern music is all amatuer.
Most music we hear in pop culture is very beginner level . It's not that we could download therefore music became worthless. It's everyday literally millions of bad songs and albums come out that no time or effort was spent on .
Take the best music from any time in history any style now compare that to a average new " song".
It's not even in the same stratosphere.
It's so bad that 1 day of music education can triple the skill level of the average people putting these things out.
Imagine that for any other profession.
1 day of learning a toolbox and tape measure tripling the skill of a carpenter?
Or day of learning tripling the skill of a Dr?
I believe we need to move away from disposable dollar store version of the most generic inexpressive music made to make 99cents.
And get back to what music actually is and what it's for and it's true value .
Part of that is giving high quality music education attainable to everyone in the world .
I think we already are seeing s shift in the right direction in last few years all over world it's changing and people want high quality music again.

 

Unfortunately, humankind forgets a few time-tested and proven events.

Everything in this life that is worthwhile is never a 'just add water' method. Time invested reaps reward, always.
Another important fact is that the moment anyone limits themselves by thinking that there is ever any single one way to do anything, they have cut their possibilities by at least half and more likely being only one, even less.

Unorthodox is good MMJ. Not because it may be right or wrong, but because it shows a different aspect. Unorthodox has also in history become orthodox through perpetuity. Because anyone does something differently will never make anyone better or worse, it only makes their ideas, approaches and methods different. That is a good thing. Humans are unique individuals and being an individual is part of where creativity stems from.
Have a good Christmas.

 

@Thunoing Thumbs Please let me add a fact to this thread if it doesn't offend anyone. If it does I deeply do apologize:

1- MMJ's method is a disaster. His method of teaching and the materials he covers are mostly wrong.
2- Ad is very naive but due to his philosophical attitude, he thinks he can be a good teacher but philosophy and music are 2 different things.

You are a good spokesman and I really love your comments but unfortunately trying to legitimize every experiment, adds nothing to music except deteriorating its high status.

 

Very true. I wasn't a big fan of Deep Purple but i remember Jon Lord's (rip) answer to the question: "What do you do when you make a mistake playing live?". He went, "i play it again so people who caught it they 'd think i did it on purpose".
I would only add that people will always (at least try to) find new ways of expressing themselves. The more you study something the more intimate it becomes, you get to personalize it more and more with each "pass" and maybe if you are clever enough, re-invent the ways you interact with it in the process.

I will politely disagree my friend. I believe that something is better than nothing. Simply put, MMJ started some educational threads when noone else would (including myself). You can criticize the way he tries to teach/pass information but saying it's a disaster is very harsh imho. I can tell some people are reading those threads. Can you prove that it does them more wrong than good ? I don't think so.
The only criticism i can give MMJ is he's biased towards jazz as being the ultimate force or something hehehe. Like a metalhead who discovered jazz and found a calling, he's overly passionate about it. But hey, for me it's np, you can't have it all, especially for free.
You guys have a nice holiday, all the best

 

I suppose I could tell people what I have been doing for the last forty years of my professional life, but then I would only look like a smart-alec tosspot so from the start I have avoided it and I will still continue to do so.
In saying such a cryptic comment, I sort of know what I am doing within what I do know.

MMJ is unorthodox in his presentation. His harmony knowledge only lacks in presentation, not harmony, so my philosophy is in encouragement. I would not present it in the same way, but it is his thread so I am respecting that.
AD has been school and/or method taught I can see that. I encourage that too.

As for legitimizing, think of it as encouragement. We all have access to information and I see it as two people trying to share what they know.
It is easy to find flaws and I possibly could and I have many times in my life. One day I CHOSE not to be that way any more. I chose to encourage. If something is blatantly incorrect, say, for example, someone said that a minor did not have a flattened third I might say something.
AD and MMJ may even band together and create something new? Who knows. Sure there's a regurgitation of what is already available, but I give both of them kudos for trying to share their skills and encourage anyone that tries to help others.
They are losing their hubris and it shows, so I figure let's see what happens.

 

Here are two books that have received a lot of praise:

https://www.halleonard.com/product/50448000/jazz-composition

https://www.amazon.com/Something-Borrowed-Blue-Principles-Composition/dp/3892211221


Have a good Christmas everyone.

 

I gave up:




Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!...

 

If there was anything wrong about what I 5aught you would just say what it was but you cannot and you don't have the capacity to take any given specific context and point at what you think is wrong, because what your really communicating is that you have fathomed to a certain point and have not moved past it yet. That happens to everyone .
But there's nothing worse than those who blame other for themselves having not reached the next level yet. It's cowardly.
If you ever want to tell me something specific is wrong I am happy with that. Don't speak generically like that it not going to accomplish anything .
All I hear when you do that is
"Lager afraid to ask about what lager hasn't understood yet."
I am not going to judge you for asking me explain a place your stuck. I won't think anything about you it happens .but to just make blanket statement with no depth I will judge that .

 

Last edited: Dec 23, 2019

This year's xmas lecture is provided by….

Very nicely said @Lager, and shared 100% by me. I am NOT offended, and have no desire to offend you or anyone else in response.

But I am passionate about disambiguating stuff, getting rid of vagueness, and that's what I'm doing here.
So, @Lager, I'm pretty sure we can both carry on doing what both we're already doing, expressing opinions authentically.

You said...

So, consider this to be my xmas tweet in response…

My opinions - no more than just opinions...

There are very real problems for all of us if we succumb to trying to live and breathe our lives within a twitterverse soundbyte mentality. The problems with short catchy 'get it off your chest' outbursts is that they are vague, ambiguous, error-prone, and ultimately meaningless.

So allow me add two more 'vague' outbursts to your list

1- MMJ's method is a disaster. His method of teaching and the materials he covers are mostly wrong.
2- Ad is very naive but due to his philosophical attitude, he thinks he can be a good teacher but philosophy and music are 2 different things.
3- Drugs are bad for you
4- Sport is dangerous

So the person who was concerned about skydiving, has the ultimate conviction that they were absolutely right when they said
"Sport is dangerous" - but the golf player thinks they're listening to an idiot!

And the magistrate who sentences someone for smoking pot will self-righteously brag about it on the grounds that 'drugs are bad for you', and he'll do that while he's getting drunk on sherry with his fellow magistrates.

'Being vague' is just not a good idea unless you're a lying politician or a media troll.
Preferring to live in a soundbyte cartoon version of thinking is not a good idea;
it is the perfect way of shooting yourself in the foot over and over again.

I will leave MMJ to provide his own defence of your first comment.
(and if he succeeds - I will personally re-load and shoot him all over again! )

I will unpack (make less vague) what you said about me.
I can hear @Lager from here .... "aaaaaahhhggghhh! why ain't this a tweet?"


You said...
"2- Ad is very naive but due to his philosophical attitude, he thinks he can be a good teacher but philosophy and music are 2 different things."

Point by point, to remove vagueness.

[1] you said... "Ad is very naive"
Am I naive? Absolutely yes. Are we all naive? Absolutely yes. So what have I just learnt? - nothing!
Maybe if you spelled out specifically...
What is Ad naive about? - precisely, and what is Ad naive about that others are not naive about?
Then I could learn something from the comment. Without that clarification, it just seems like a 'sport is dangerous' comment; it is empty and meaningless; it just feels good to express a vague emotional opinion. It's actually just a 'go-to' substitute comment for when you want to criticise, but can't actually find something specific to carefully criticise.

[2] you said... 'due to his philosophical attitude'
Well guilty as charged to having a 'philosophical attitude' but now let's unpack why you refer to it.
(No accusations here - just speculations.)
Some people hate philosophy and sometimes for good reasons.
Philosophy can be (and for some people actually is) a pretentious snobbish bucket load of bullcrap.
For saner people, a non-academic, philosophical approach to thinking is just a pragmatic way of giving your brain a richer life during its one fleeting moment of existence. To wilfully ignore that possibility is much worse than shooting yourself in the foot. By analogy, it is every bit as bad as saying "Music looks wicked, so I refuse to ever listen to any". There are so many ways to waste life's possibilities. Avoiding basic philosophical thinking is definitely one of them. (more on this below)

[3] you said... "he thinks he can be a good teacher"
I assume you are talking about 'teaching music theory' - right? let's first make sure that's not vague.

You just moved into mind reading territory, coupled with 'basic strawman' tactics. Both of which are established logical fallacies.
Please show me... where do I suggest (anywhere) that "I think I am a good music theory teacher"? Nowhere at all!

If you had said "Ad thinks he can tell the difference between good teaching and bad teaching" then I would eagerly plead guilty.
I 'definitely do think' I can tell the difference, and I have written far too many words in this forum trying to advise learners (myself included) about how to smell the difference between good music theory teaching and bad music theory teaching, and about how important it is to seek out 'only the best teaching available'.
I have also made some contributions to pointing out examples of where that 'better teaching' can be found.
But I do not think that "I can provide that teaching myself" - quite the opposite.
I have been specifically advocating that anyone and everyone who is deluded enough to believe they are good teachers - think again.
Some might be good teachers - but most, including me, are not! Some people refuse to take that sane message on board.
To further qualify that point, I have been saying that even if your teaching is actually OK, do you really believe that beginners are better off reading your amateur efforts or should those beginners be swimming around in the "best of what's out there" instead. I have also been hyper-critical of any alleged teaching that is riddled with mistakes. Feeding errors to beginners is one of the worst crimes an alleged teacher can commit.

Bottom line... nobody's teaching can compete with the sum total of what's now available;
and from the "us as learner's" perspective, I believe anything less than bloody brilliant is not worth a second glance.

[4] you said... "but philosophy and music are 2 different things"
Well dah! and to think I have spent my whole life believing they were the same thing - how silly of me.

Surely, you can see how a sentence like that is just an 'empty inaccurate implied accusation'. yet another logical fallacy
(I sincerely recommend you/we read about logical fallacies, and then marvel at catching our own brains playing these games all the time! and almost always to our detriment!)

In a debate, a sentence like "philosophy and music are 2 different things" would sound good because it is factually correct;
and then because it is correct, you feel like you scored a point in an argument.
But the hidden implication is that somehow your opponent is too dumb to notice that music and philosophy are different, and so you extend your 'correct fact' into an alleged point score against an opposing arguer, an opponent who is alleged to not understand that obvious fact. This subconscious (or overt) tactic can be described either as fallacious reasoning, or as just another one of those 'feel-good' slurs that make you feel good when you say it, or as just a grubby way to try to score a point in a debate.
But after the vagueness has been removed - it just means nothing at all.


So, the bottom line is...

I am not even remotely offended by your comment; I am forever delighted to analyse the foibles regularly found within human reasoning and within human communications. Also, although it may have taken me 15 minutes to write about the analysis, the actual analysis itself took no longer than the 2 seconds it took to read your remark.

Closing comments - back to 'philosophical attitude' - what's the point?

Our day-to-day situation...
- We humans do like to believe stuff!
- We also desperately like to believe that our beliefs are accurate.
- Our beliefs are accurate only occasionally!, and that's the only time we can call our beliefs knowledge.
- Our beliefs are actually 'vague', 'self-contradicting', and very often just plain wrong.
- We are stupidly confident about our alleged knowledge; far more confident than we have any right to be.

The role of philosophical/rational thinking is to do this...
- Unpack the vagueness of our beliefs; really 'dismantle ideas' instead of just 'saying stuff'!
- Expose the contradictions in our beliefs, especially our cherished beliefs, and especially our beliefs about ourselves.
- Deliberately upset and hopefully remove, the prior cock-sure confidence that we have in our vague contradictory beliefs
- Leave us feeling a lot less sure about everything, and more appreciative of how ignorant we all are.

That is called progress! and it is definitely worth putting in the effort to pursue it.

Personal Advice...
Do not engage in rational philosophical thinking if you just prefer a 'cock-sure, feelgood, opinionated' way of life.
Twitter will provide you with a suitably cozy nursing home.

End of tweet