so why does music theory seem so headyy
and intellectual when you're studying it
most of the bass players that you know
and love clearly aren't approaching
music from that sort of overly cerebral
angle so why should
[Music]
you when we're playing music by
ourselves or with other people there's
really only one question that we should
be asking ourselves and that is do I
like it in other words do I like what
I'm playing and it's an extraordinary
difficult question to answer and yet a
very fundamentally important one to the
whole creative musical process the
ability to make a decision about a
particular detail like I don't like this
note is a fundamentally creative one in
the beginning stages of learning music
most of the time the answer to this
question do I like it will be I know
getting over the self-doubt whether or
not your answer is right or wrong will
be a lot more difficult the older you
are when you're learning music generally
children don't have this problem after a
while if you keep honestly asking
yourself the question do I like it your
decisions become a little bit more clear
you start remembering previous answers
to that question do I like it and then
can anticipate whether or not you will
like a certain something or dislike it
it's through this simple and yet
overwhelmingly complex process that a
person could learn how to play music
without knowing anything about the names
of the notes scales music theory etc etc
etc you don't need to know what tenses
are or what a jend is if you're first
learning how to speak a language so why
intellectualize music in the same way
good question Adam it's because
intellectualizing music makes learning
music much faster people who simply ask
the question do I like it will have to
reinvent the wheel along every step of
the way in their learning process
instead of simply looking up the scale
fingerings for a particular scale
they'll have to try and figure it out
trial and error and even then there
might be a lot of misunderstanding the
knowledge of Music Theory is the
ultimate shortcut in your musical
learning process it gives you a frame of
reference for ascending higher and
higher in your musical Journey
information is power and if you can
harness that information you will become
a very powerful musician indeed what
does a scouter say about his power level
it's over 9,000 now because we're living
in the age of the internet going surf on
the intern and musical information is
everywhere available for everybody you
would think that General musicianship
would be a lot higher as compared to the
pre- internet age where the wealth of
information simply wasn't there or was
guarded a lot more closely yes there's
incredible musicians out there but we
don't seem to be living in a Gilded Age
of hyper virtuosos as compared to
previous eras why might that be and come
to think of it if musical theory is the
ultimate shortcut and is available for
everybody for free on the internet then
why would traditional institutions of
Education still be thriving they're
still raking in the tuition dollars but
shouldn't music colleges be reeling from
the new paradigm of the internet just
the same way that the recording industry
has why didn't the internet kill formal
music education because of the internet
all the musical information that you
would ever need to know in order to play
any sort of instrument is out there but
information is not the same thing as
knowledge just because any scale pattern
of which you could ever dream could be
brought up on your phone at a moment's
notice does not mean that you have the
muscle memory necessary in order to
perform those scales nor the musical
judgment in order to actually apply them
music education as a whole is generally
the process of contextualizing that raw
information that's available on the
internet into actual genuine knowledge
how can we quantify this musical
knowledge well the study of knowledge in
general is called epistemology and in
traditional epistemology knowledge is
defined as a Justified true belief in
order for you to say that you genuinely
know something it has to be justified
through some form of evidence it has to
be true and you have to believe it so
for example say that I believe that it
will rain exactly 6 months from today
now I don't really have much
justification for that belief so 6
months from now even if it ends up being
true nobody could say that I had
knowledge that it will rain so the
strength of the knowledge in general
depends on three things the strength of
the justification how true it is and the
strength of your belief in it if we
think about how the internet in general
fits within this theory of knowledge it
does help fulfill the first two criteria
evidence in the form of information
abounds on the internet and a lot of it
well some of it is true the final
Criterion belief can be thought of as a
metric for how well you've internalized
all of this information and made it a
part of your musical self putting all of
this together can be a little bit tricky
to try and figure out how you actually
get Knowledge from all of it Fearless
autodidacts have used the internet and
leveraged it for pretty amazing things I
think about how X NFL player Jason Brown
learned how to farm from YouTube videos
you're watching a YouTube video right
now very good for you but because
there's so much information out there
and there's so little guidance it's hard
to put trust in any of that information
belief is very Reliant upon trust and
it's hard to put a lot of trust in the
internet people studying under master
teachers are much more likely to
internalize and truly believe the
information that they're given and this
belief directly strengthens their
musical knowledge it's for this reason
that formal education is still chugging
along just as strong as it was before
the internet because there's so much
more trust that can be put into it if
you trust the information you're much
more likely to believe it I trusted you
now trust is only half of the equation
here because you might trust me as a
YouTube music educator to give you good
information or any other YouTube music
educator to give you a good
information but if you've been watching
my channel think about how much you've
learned by just watching it sure you
might have gotten good food for thought
or an idea that I had might have stuck
with you and influenced your thinking or
you might have just generally been
inspired by some of the ideas that I've
talked about but let's put it this way
if you just watch my YouTube videos are
you a better bass player have you
actually grown in a significant musical
way no probably definitely not and the
reason for this is if you just watch
YouTube videos if you just m the
information off the internet you're not
spending any time with it in a real way
the musically aiter person that I
alluded to from the beginning of the
video who constantly asked the question
do I like it will be able to advance so
much further in their career not knowing
any sort of information about music just
because they're spending time with it
and asking themselves difficult
questions about what they like and their
interpretation of what music should be
until you do that ask the question do I
like it with information that you've
gotten from the internet you'll never
really be able to move forward in his
book outliers Malcolm Gladwell pop as
the 10,000 hour theory of Mastery
basically it says in order to achieve
Mastery in any particular discipline be
it sports music art or whatever a person
needs to spend 10,000 dedicated hours of
practice or 4 hours a day 7 days a week
for 7 years straight information is not
the same thing as knowledge so until we
spend the time to actually internalize
the information that we get from the
Internet or elsewhere will'll never
really truly be able to achieve the
belief Criterion from the theory of
knowled even if the information is true
and if it's plentiful it doesn't really
matter until you've actually spent the
time to contextualize it into true
knowledge so until technology advances
to the point where we can simply
download Kung Fu directly into our
brains I know Kung Fu all of this boils
down to Simply how much you practice yes
that's all this video has been for the
past 7 Minutes me talking about how much
you should be practicing right now and
always be asking yourself do I like it I
know come food this has been Adam ne's
base lessons please comment like And
subscribe if you've enjoyed this lesson
I have a new lesson coming out every
Monday so stay tuned and as always peace
[Music]