# One Month Theory Challenge: A Game



## 80H (May 1, 2013)

May 1st. 

On June 1st, I will be able to play my instrument again. 

This is a self-imposed challenge. 



I will spend all of my time memorizing, writing, working out and understanding music theory from square one. 

I will start with the single note and spread as far as I can, with the time that I have, until the morning of June 1st. 

I will spend a minimum of four hours per day on theory alone. I have more than enough to practice to fill those hours. 

I am lacking in a few foundational areas and will be solving the problem with complete focus for an entire month.

I will be using this thread to track my progress. I will read this post every day for the next 31 days.

I may use my left hand to help with memorization, but any technical or improvisational practice is banned.




If I break my rules once, I fail. If it is May 30th, I lose the entire challenge.

If I succeed, the morning of June 1st will be amazing.


----------



## Lasik124 (May 1, 2013)

Cool idea!

I highly suggest keeping notes along the lines of "Find out how X looks on the guitar" for the end of the month. Kind of a reminder of something you definitely would like to see how it looks and feels on a guitar. 

This way nothing slips your mind and you'll have plenty of work on for June 1st! Well, all of June really!

Best of luck


----------



## vilk (May 1, 2013)

Why do you think that banning yourself from playing while you learn theory should improve your skill better than if you played while studying? I don't really see what is gained by not playing. Is it just a time management thing? Unless you ban yourself from guitar you wouldn't be able to commit to something as boring as music theory?


----------



## 80H (May 1, 2013)

baron samedi said:


> Why do you think that banning yourself from playing while you learn theory should improve your skill better than if you played while studying? I don't really see what is gained by not playing. Is it just a time management thing? Unless you ban yourself from guitar you wouldn't be able to commit to something as boring as music theory?



There are three different reasons for banning the creative process:

My right wrist is not at 100%, and I am going to give it as much time off as possible. That is my initial motivation. 

Music is one of my psychological coping mechanisms. I might be insane by now without it - I know it's saved me from anxiety attacks, existential nightmares and emotional trauma. I would love to keep playing, but the fact of the matter is that I'm being held back right now. I have supreme confidence in my creative mind, but my theory is not equal. I am imbalanced. It isn't that I want to give it up, but it makes so much sense that I'm willing to endure ripping music away from myself because I know that the sacrifice will be worth it. 


Finally, one of nuggets of wisdom that's come my way in life is that focus and immersion are tantamount to success. With focus and immersion, the sum is greater than the parts. 124 hours spread over two months will not yield as great of a return as 124 hours spread over one month. There will be a point where my brain rewires itself to be theory-centric. That is what I want out of this, because that's where it starts to be part of who I am rather than something that I know. 


Thanks for the questions.


----------



## 80H (May 1, 2013)

Lasik124 said:


> Cool idea!
> 
> I highly suggest keeping notes along the lines of "Find out how X looks on the guitar" for the end of the month. Kind of a reminder of something you definitely would like to see how it looks and feels on a guitar.
> 
> ...



Thank you, and great point. I'm sure that I'll come up with ideas for later, but defining X is a bit of a doozy. I'll save a few journal pages for quick transcriptions. 

I turn most ideas into exercises (credits to Steve Vai for the suggestion), so more realistically, I'll end up coming up with one idea and adding it to my big blue book of drills. 

Thanks again, I didn't think of this at all when I started and I think this might be a daily occurrence. Might've saved a few ideas from the graveyard. Who knows where one of those might take me


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (May 1, 2013)

Good luck. This sounds intensive. I question how much you can internalize in a month's time, but if you're diligent and you have the right materials, I think you can build a fairly solid foundation for your musical understanding. I suggest you work out of a book.


----------



## Solodini (May 1, 2013)

80H said:


> Finally, one of nuggets of wisdom that's come my way in life is that focus and immersion are tantamount to success. With focus and immersion, the sum is greater than the parts. 124 hours spread over two months will not yield as great of a return as 124 hours spread over one month. There will be a point where my brain rewires itself to be theory-centric. That is what I want out of this, because that's where it starts to be part of who I am rather than something that I know.


 
To some extent I agree but I agree more with baron samedi's sentiment above that it should be linked with creating sound. Many people become obsessed with theory and ignore how it sounds, rather than using theory to further what their ear knows but brain cannot communicate otherwise. I think it could be unnecessarily frustrating to have creative and aural ability, put this intensive work into learning theory but then having to go back to the basics after the fact so that you can connect the two. I certainly did what I now advise against and the process of making my brain link what I'm hearing to what I know has been difficult and frustrating. 

I wish you the best of luck but don't feel fixed to that idea if it doesn't seem to work. Failure is a learning process as much as, if not more than, success is.


----------



## meambobbo (May 1, 2013)

definitely need to hear the theory. theory can't explain music to you in words. it is only giving you a guide, but all the different pathways cannot have any meaning to you without hearing them. you need to hear the harmonic progressions, how melodies want to resolve, the gravity of the tonic note, etc.

For instance, in theory, even a simple chord progression might start on the tonic chord, but can progress to nearly any other diatonic chord, or a neapolitan 6th. From the next chord, you can start progressing along a circle progression, or you can try to choose chords by harmonic function. You can end the progression on the tonic to give it finality, or you can end it with lingering tension, so that you can recycle back into the same progression or lead into another. There's just infinite stuff you can do. You need to hear how the big examples sound and even experiment by taking an idea and pushing it further. For example, maybe you want take a theory one step further than the example by putting an additional chord in a progression. It might sound intruiging and excellent or like crap. The theory isn't likely to tell you a definitive answer in advance.

i think this is an awesome challenge, and I understand why the self-imposed rules. but i think being able to listen to the theory is not necessarily contradictory to your rules either...

a) buy a book that has an accompanying audio cd, so you can listen without playing
b) play the examples on a different instrument, like a keyboard
c) limit your guitar playing to sounding out examples only - no noodling or deviating from your studies

trust me on this - I took theory courses in college, and I couldn't play piano and didn't have one and wasn't great at reading music and wasn't that interested in writing and just kind of learned it without hearing it. I'm STILL figuring out how to apply it ten years later.


----------



## 80H (May 1, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> Good luck. This sounds intensive. I question how much you can internalize in a month's time, but if you're diligent and you have the right materials, I think you can build a fairly solid foundation for your musical understanding. I suggest you work out of a book.



I have multiple books here and software drills, and I'm going to make it a point to find one or more articles floating around the web per day. It's definitely going to be intensive, but that's the point. 



Solodini said:


> To some extent I agree but I agree more with baron samedi's sentiment above that it should be linked with creating sound. Many people become obsessed with theory and ignore how it sounds, rather than using theory to further what their ear knows but brain cannot communicate otherwise. I think it could be unnecessarily frustrating to have creative and aural ability, put this intensive work into learning theory but then having to go back to the basics after the fact so that you can connect the two. I certainly did what I now advise against and the process of making my brain link what I'm hearing to what I know has been difficult and frustrating.
> 
> I wish you the best of luck but don't feel fixed to that idea if it doesn't seem to work. Failure is a learning process as much as, if not more than, success is.



I have aural training drills that are going to take up a lot of my time, but this training session is more for memorization and finer details that I've missed along the way. 

I have a LOT of theoretical knowledge, but it's scattered and has a lot of holes in it. If you've ever heard an expression along the lines of "listen more than you speak," that's my approach here. If I find something that I want an example of, I'm going to look to other peoples' music for those examples. 

A lot of the work is just grunt labor too - mapping out the intervals of keys I don't use often, reading, converting my older tabs to sheet music, etc. Those alone are more than 124 hours of work, but I will also be tediously memorizing the notes of modes and their triads based on scale degrees. There's a lot to do and a lot of it is already on paper. 





meambobbo said:


> definitely need to hear the theory. theory can't explain music to you in words. it is only giving you a guide, but all the different pathways cannot have any meaning to you without hearing them. you need to hear the harmonic progressions, how melodies want to resolve, the gravity of the tonic note, etc.
> 
> For instance, in theory, even a simple chord progression might start on the tonic chord, but can progress to nearly any other diatonic chord, or a neapolitan 6th. From the next chord, you can start progressing along a circle progression, or you can try to choose chords by harmonic function. You can end the progression on the tonic to give it finality, or you can end it with lingering tension, so that you can recycle back into the same progression or lead into another. There's just infinite stuff you can do. You need to hear how the big examples sound and even experiment by taking an idea and pushing it further. For example, maybe you want take a theory one step further than the example by putting an additional chord in a progression. It might sound intruiging and excellent or like crap. The theory isn't likely to tell you a definitive answer in advance.
> 
> ...




The whole point of this is to switch my psychology over from trying to apply theory to the guitar to trying to apply guitar to theory. Avoiding the instrument is part of the process. Trust me, I want to explore, and I'd love to use my guitar for this. 

I also understand, though, that most of my routine with the instrument is based on habit. Those habits have left me with way more technical ability than my theory can help me to understand, and my mind is producing music way faster than I can keep up with. I'm solving my habit problem with excessive force, if that makes sense. If I could do it the balanced way (learn and apply theory while playing,) I would have by now. Obsession and excessive force usually nets me with better, faster and more consistent results. 


I have books with cds and training software and all kinds of other tools to help me out. I also took college courses as well and the plan was to major in music...dropped out...long story. 






Thanks everyone for your input. Work today and then we start with square one.


----------



## Waelstrum (May 1, 2013)

If you're starting at square one, I suggest learning species counterpoint sonata form. From there you can branch out into gradually more chromatic harmony and other forms such as theme and variation and fugue. Two books I recommend are Form in Tonal Music and Hindemith's A Concentrated Course in Traditional Harmony. They go through really basic stuff in such detail that by the time they get to the complex stuff you're pretty much already there. If you get through that, then Schoenberg Fundamentals of Musical Composition has some great stuff on theme development. (It's not about serialism, in fact, he uses a ton of 19th century examples.)

EDIT: That's probably a bit much for just one month, although in 124 hours you might get through it... Hindemith reckoned that an enthusiastic student could get about two years out of his book if they did a few exercises from it each week.)


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (May 1, 2013)

Waelstrum said:


> If you're starting at square one, I suggest learning species counterpoint sonata form.



Should be species counterpoint _*and*_ sonata form. And I agree, though maybe not for a 'beginner', that those are two very rich areas to study: sonata form because it is a logical and very flexible framework that is great for musical expression, and species counterpoint because you'll learn how to construct melodies like a boss. Keep in mind that you can slave away at counterpoint and sonata form all your life and still find more to do. I wish you could work up to fourth or fifth species counterpoint in a month, but I don't think it's possible. Maybe you can do first species or even second species decently.



> From there you can branch out into gradually more chromatic harmony and other forms such as theme and variation and fugue.


I teach harmony before counterpoint, but you could certainly do it the other way around. Counterpoint is tough, but it results in music pretty much immediately (as opposed to four part harmony, which is just working on voice leading for the most part).

As for form, this is my take on the order in which you should look at these things:

Small forms: Strophic (AAAAAA) > Binary (AB) > Ternary (ABA) > Rounded binary (ABa)
Large forms: (Theme and variations, though I don't pay much attention to this form myself.) > Sonata form > Rondo (5 part, 7 part) > Rondo Sonata

And I don't think of fugue as a form. A developmental process, yes, but a standalone form, no. 



> Two books I recommend are Form in Tonal Music and Hindemith's A Concentrated Course in Traditional Harmony. They go through really basic stuff in such detail that by the time they get to the complex stuff you're pretty much already there. If you get through that, then Schoenberg Fundamentals of Musical Composition has some great stuff on theme development. (It's not about serialism, in fact, he uses a ton of 19th century examples.)


^ Both good books. I like these ones as well:

Stefan Kostka & Dorothy Payne - Tonal Harmony (Harmony)
Miguel Roig-Francoli - Harmony In Context (Harmony)
Kent Kennan - Counterpoint (Counterpoint/Composition)
Paul Hindemith - Exercises in Two-Part Writing (Counterpoint/Composition)


----------



## Overtone (May 2, 2013)

May 2 is almost over dude


----------



## 80H (May 3, 2013)

been busy! thanks for the nudge though

Yesterday was eh, today was better. My mind is shifting a bit - I'm noticing that I had a lot of biases towards theory because of the guitar. Without an instrument, theory is very pure and organized, but my sense of theory with the guitar is chaotic. Hopefully that will change by the 1st. Today and the rest of this week are looking to be more systematic memorization of intervals and chord construction, probably the 5th I'll be done there and can start to move on. Also memorizing every major key on the fretboard (from A to G#) which is a huge bitch but also a lot of fun


Big thanks for the book recs, hopefully they're not too massive for me to finish in the month. I'm already reading 4 books (you are not so smart - mcraney, the war of art - pressfield, outliers - gladwell, primal blueprint - scisson). 

i can go for 1 per 5 days but that's pretty intense with work + 4 hours of theory + reading...and still making it out tomorrow night...gah fuck this is gonna be hectic. i think im gonna get a lot of 6 hour sleeps this month


----------



## 80H (May 3, 2013)

p.s. the day isn't over until you sleep or you say its over


----------



## Solodini (May 3, 2013)

I don't think memorising every key is necessary, just having a visual idea of intervals to find notes from your tuning to find a note and a visual idea of the intervals between strings in whatever tuning so you can find notes quickly and easily from there. If you learn to work out key signatures quickly then you only need to remember the accidentals and you can find all of the notes pretty easily from that. It'll take more than a month of memorising to get that down but it'll be more fluent, in the same way that you probably can't list all the words you know whenever asked but you can use them in conversation/writing.


----------



## 80H (May 3, 2013)

Solodini said:


> I don't think memorising every key is necessary, just having a visual idea of intervals to find notes from your tuning to find a note and a visual idea of the intervals between strings in whatever tuning so you can find notes quickly and easily from there. If you learn to work out key signatures quickly then you only need to remember the accidentals and you can find all of the notes pretty easily from that. It'll take more than a month of memorising to get that down but it'll be more fluent, in the same way that you probably can't list all the words you know whenever asked but you can use them in conversation/writing.



haha man, if I was doing what was necessary I wouldn't be doing this at all. 

The point of memorizing them all was because I said I was going to do it a few years back and I never did - keeping good on my word. Everything just moves half a step at a time anyways, so for the most part, I'm seeing the major scale as it is (a pattern over the pattern created by the strings) instead of as something that I use. 

I see what you mean though, and I think that will be closer to my approach when I'm done with all of this. Until then, I have my coffee and it's May 3rd. Got about 2-3 hours before I have to start working, gonna get some reading done and then start today's exercises


----------



## 80H (May 3, 2013)

*@waelstrum & SW*, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou for the book recs, not sure which one I'm going to start with but all of them that you recommended are going into the book rotation for next month. I'm going to go for 7 books this month (1 per 4 days, ~60-150 pages per day) so I might be able to fit them in now 


Today: 
-Reviewed the names and sounds of every interval until I had 95-100% accuracy for a good 20 minutes (~1 hour)
*[1 hr]*


-Same with 4 triad types (only took about 10 minutes til 100% accuracy, did not do inversions though because hollllly shit i'm bad at inversions lol) 
*[1 hr 10 min]*


-Idiot's guide to music theory is helping - nice and simple. Going to finish that this week while reading primal blueprint (unrelated but awesome book, see Mark's Daily Apple). 1.5 hrs *
[2 hr 40 min total] *


-Converting old tabs to sheet music, 2 hours 
*[4 hours 40 min total]*


-Guthrie Govan, Satch, Vai theory videos, ~45 mins *
[5 hours 25 mins total]*


-did not work, guilty, still have plenty of time tonight but there's no decent work orders yet from what I can see and I work from right here where I'm typing in my room 



Might keep going today, the day is young. Might go out tonight, might be a hermity composer in training. Who knows? I kinda wanna get drunk and flirt with a thousand of this city's finest mediocre women, but I also really want to get to chromaticism against the major/minor scale, the modes against every major scale, basic harmony & meter by the 8th of May (Week 2). Going to keep going w/intervals, triads and basic written music for the rest of this week or until I'm exhausted and crying. Might squeeze more in as time permits. 



champioooooooooooon


edit: bahahaha i just accidentally figured out ragtime


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (May 4, 2013)

80H said:


> edit: bahahaha i just accidentally figured out ragtime



You have found your calling.


----------



## Grimbold (May 4, 2013)

80H said:


> I kinda wanna get drunk and flirt with a thousand of this city's finest mediocre women, but I also really want to get to chromaticism against the major/minor scale, the modes against every major scale, basic harmony & meter by the 8th of May (Week 2)



this made my day...
also, where do you get all the time to do this?


----------



## meambobbo (May 5, 2013)

very nice that you're keeping track of what you're doing and really pushing yourself. i think this will certainly pay off for you. keep up the good work!


----------



## Waelstrum (May 5, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> Should be species counterpoint _*and*_ sonata form. And I agree, though maybe not for a 'beginner', that those are two very rich areas to study: sonata form because it is a logical and very flexible framework that is great for musical expression, and species counterpoint because you'll learn how to construct melodies like a boss. Keep in mind that you can slave away at counterpoint and sonata form all your life and still find more to do. I wish you could work up to fourth or fifth species counterpoint in a month, but I don't think it's possible. Maybe you can do first species or even second species decently.



I find it frustrating that I can't edit my post to put the 'and' in there. I agree that counterpoint and the sonata form are pretty much unending skills to learn, but their basics are pretty basic. They're a bit like a good video game: easy to learn, hard to master.



SchecterWhore said:


> I teach harmony before counterpoint, but you could certainly do it the other way around. Counterpoint is tough, but it results in music pretty much immediately (as opposed to four part harmony, which is just working on voice leading for the most part).



I learned harmony and counterpoint at the same time, so to me they just go together. I hadn't even considered separating them. Now that you mention it, I guess it makes sense to go with harmony and then counterpoint.



SchecterWhore said:


> As for form, this is my take on the order in which you should look at these things:
> 
> Small forms: Strophic (AAAAAA) > Binary (AB) > Ternary (ABA) > Rounded binary (ABa)
> Large forms: (Theme and variations, though I don't pay much attention to this form myself.) > Sonata form > Rondo (5 part, 7 part) > Rondo Sonata



I guess I tend to forget about those smaller forms, but if the OP is starting at square one, perhaps he should start with those.



SchecterWhore said:


> And I don't think of fugue as a form. A developmental process, yes, but a standalone form, no.



While it is a developmental process, it does tend to leave music organised in a certain way, which some may call a form, although I get your point.


----------



## 80H (May 5, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> You have found your calling.



nooooooooooooo  at the very least, I've got some ice cream truck sounds in my arsenal now 




Grimbold said:


> this made my day...
> also, where do you get all the time to do this?



I don't get the time, I make it. Clear out my schedule, intentionally remove any distractions, push myself when I get bored or mentally fatigued, etc


I try to keep track of how much time I'm spending. If I logically know how much time I want to put in, I'll logically know how much more I need to push. 


It also helps to be obsessed




meambobbo said:


> very nice that you're keeping track of what you're doing and really pushing yourself. i think this will certainly pay off for you. keep up the good work!



Thanks, it's definitely already starting to pay off. Amazing how quickly some of this stuff comes with enough concentration and focus on getting it done and learned 





Yesterday: 

-Did 2 sessions of ear training @ 1 hour each (30 mins, 5 min break, 30 mins). Intervals/Triads/Inversions/Naming notes in every register
*[2 hours]*


-Memorizing every major key's position w/left hand & my eyes from the open strings to fret 22, ~1 hour
*[3 hours]*


-idiots guide to music theory, aka the bible. ~2 hours 
*[5 hours]*




today: 
-Ear training, 2 hours. Grueling/boring as hell for the 2nd hour, no more tomorrow I think, brain doesn't wanna do it anymore
*[2 hours]*


-Idiot's guide, 1 hour of rereading, 1 hour of new stuff
*[4 hr 45 m]*


-Converting Tabs to sheet music (ran out after just under 40 mins from start time)
*[~5 hr 30 min]






*no idea what i'm going to do tomorrow, chord progressions probably. Think I have 10-20 hours worth of that to cover, then I can work on harmony & counterpoint while I work on modes/pentatonic major & minor/odd scales as time permits. I thiiiiiiiiink that will probably fill out the rest of my week, as I imagine I'm going to be spending 2 hours at a time per mode per day (ex 2 hours memorizing dorian, 2 hours memorizing lydian in every key of its relative major)


not sure what else I can do or need to do, probably going to start looking into rhythm & melody a little bit more and reverse engineer the timing of the first animals as leaders release


----------



## Duelbart (May 7, 2013)

I really like what you're doing and your motivation looks stellar so far. One thing I may suggest to keep it that way is setting up some small repercussions in case you failed (give your friend 10$ to be returned if you succeed or something like that).

Anyway, I wish you good luck!


----------



## 80H (May 7, 2013)

Duelbart said:


> I really like what you're doing and your motivation looks stellar so far. One thing I may suggest to keep it that way is setting up some small repercussions in case you failed (give your friend 10$ to be returned if you succeed or something like that).
> 
> Anyway, I wish you good luck!




Thanks for the advice, maybe it'll come in handy later. 


Yesterday's practice was inspired by malmsteen, today continues that but with a little bit of diagonal dissection of the fretboard. Major scale memorization looks good, chromaticism has started annnnnnd I forgot what else I'm going to do but I can pretty much throw darts at a wall at this point and find something worth practicing



Modes tomorrow I think? Not sure, will know in a few hours


----------



## 80H (May 8, 2013)

Been a week! 

In review: 
-My interval knowledge is ridiculous compared to 1 week ago 
-My Triad knowledge ' ' 
-I will soon know the layout of every major key on my fretboard with 100% accuracy, probably by next week at this rate. Taking a break from it for a little while though cuz it's now extremely boring
-i am now a ragtime god (kidding) 
-I'm much more comfortable with the idea of writing music, but not necessarily with the act of writing music. It still feels a little bit foreign, but that shouldn't last much longer
-My wrist feels better 
-I'm starting to work things out with nothing but my eyes and mind on my fretboard. This has lead me to a much stronger sense of what I'm hearing, totally invaluable. Still fledgling though. 




*This week! Day one:*

-Practiced accidentals against A major. Have a great feel for their tonality after a mere two hours, but hopefully there's still a lot of room to go. This is fun. 
*[2 hours on the money, 8:45 AM to 10:45 AM]*

-Yngwie vids. Fuck this was helpful. Technical and theoretical skills improved just by understanding a few little approaches. 
*[~1 hour, 12:45 to 1:45ish]*

-Idiot's guide, chord extensions, common chord progressions, harmony
*[~3.5 hours....lost track of time  loved this part]

[Total ~6.5 hours]

*I even squeezed some work in there too, roughly $40 bucks. Need a fucking NAP. Have about $12 worth of work to do as well but my brain hurts and won't stop fucking making chord progressions without my permission


----------



## 80H (May 9, 2013)

Week 2 Day 2: 

-More Chord Progression, extension, harmony
*[2 hours~]*

-Reviewing notes from last week
*[1 hour~]* 

Ear training intervals, triads, inversions and extensions 
*[1 hour~]*

-The bible aka the idiot's guide to music theory
*[1 hour~]*



Roughly 5 hours, only worked for 30 minutes though so I'm just gonna work til I fall asleep


----------



## 80H (May 10, 2013)

6 am, rise & shine


Going to try and seal the deal on the idiot's guide today, do short review sessions and move onto the books listed by the fine gentlemen of page one by tomorrow. possibly today if i make it that far 


I should have more than enough work to do until about 10-11 AM, and then after that I'm just going to do music til I pass out. I've been awake since 2 am....fell asleep at 8....long story. 

The plan is for a 24 hour day. I figure I'm going to be delirious kinda right around 3-4pm, but I will combat that with heavy caffeine medication and video lessons


decided to start tracking all of my new ideas that i have during this project via google docs, which is cool because it's right in my browser and i don't have to tab out or switch to my word processor of choice (oo.o cuz that shits free)


----------



## 80H (May 11, 2013)

Yesterday was a LOT of chromaticism. I'm insanely comfortable with intervals, triads and inversions, and I can almost construct all of them (edit: that I know comfortably) in my head without a fretboard because of the visual exercises that I've been doing. I kind of want to compile a massive list of the exercises that I've accidentally invented from this process...but it's still only day 11. I'm not even half way. 



What blows my mind is that without a guitar, I have learned more than I did with it over the last few months in the span of 11 days by concentrating on theory alone. I can turn left, look at my guitar and construct chord progressions in every key by sight, even though it's a bit unnatural and takes me a little bit of time to work out properly. I'm literally seeing hundreds of triads over the 12 major keys at a rate faster than I can consciously process. There's so many that my brain is filling in all the holes without me, and it's both awesome and a little overwhelming. 



I have NEVER been this comfortable with the guitar, and I'm not even playing it. It's only day 11 and I feel like I could just stop now and be a completely different guitarist. But we have 19 days to go. 




My practice time today was almost entirely chord progressions via ear training software. I also have begun to visualize dorian across all 12 major scales, and will do this for one more day before moving onto lydian, then 2 days of mixolydian, 2 days of phrygian, 2 days of aeolian and 2 days of locrian. After that I will be practicing all of the modes as a single exercise until the end of the month while applying chromaticism to them. This part is pretty easy since I've already applied it to their parent majors, but the tonality change is going to be tricky. I'll have lots of time to mess with them in the future though, so no sweat. 

I'll only have time to apply the modes to their parent major, but um, I'm pretty sure I have the rest of my life to apply them to each other and mix them up. 

I didn't keep track of hours today because I kind of got carried away with the ear training, but I started at around 9 AM and looked down and it was almost noon, 3 hours of nonstop ear training without even realizing I hadn't had a thing to eat or drink and still needed to shit like a madman. After that I started a few other things and finished off around 2, and my workday is going to start now (gotta make some money unfortunately). 



Hope your day was as productive as mine, it's the best feeling ever. Cloud nine.


----------



## Matthew (May 11, 2013)

This is inspiring. I can't devote as much time as you can, but I do waste a lot of the free time I have. I might try this.


----------



## 80H (May 11, 2013)

MStriewski said:


> This is inspiring. I can't devote as much time as you can, but I do waste a lot of the free time I have. I might try this.



Gotta get organized in general first. I recommend writing out a list of what you want to accomplish from theory, what you think you can accomplish in a day, and then write out 30 days worth of work in a logical sequence. For example, I started with the single note, moved to intervals, moved to triads and the major scale, started working with harmony/chromaticism/modes and have been getting other small nuggets of info along the way on accident. It was all a logical progression from a to b to c to d, etc, and here I am now. 


There's a ton of ear training vids on YT, lenmus phonascus is free, and then there's always the DVDs that come with books (bookstores still exit, also lots of cute nerds there and a lot of the stores have coffeeshop excuses built right in) 


Finished reading idiot's guide, gonna go through the whole thing again next month to get everything in it even more engrained in my brain, but until then I'm definitely on another level because of it, and for that, I am appreciative


----------



## Chuck (May 12, 2013)

Love these updates man. You must have some insane brain power 

If you have any videos of yourself just randomly noodling away from before you started this then you should totally do one after so we can see/hear the difference and progress you have made.


----------



## Winspear (May 12, 2013)

Man, this thread is the best thing ever. Truly inspiring. I'm going to be putting 60 hours a week towards some form of sound work for the next 2 years of my life, so I'm really considering taking a few weeks to do something like this!


----------



## 80H (May 12, 2013)

Misery Theory said:


> Love these updates man. You must have some insane brain power
> 
> If you have any videos of yourself just randomly noodling away from before you started this then you should totally do one after so we can see/hear the difference and progress you have made.



Yeah that would've been awesome, can't afford a good setup yet though. Soon. 



EtherealEntity said:


> Man, this thread is the best thing ever. Truly inspiring. I'm going to be putting 60 hours a week towards some form of sound work for the next 2 years of my life, so I'm really considering taking a few weeks to do something like this!




do it, it is awesome, 10000000000000000% worth it. I am on a different plane than I was before, it's not even comparable and I still have a lot of time left. I have no idea what it's going to be like when I can play again


edit: p.s. playing is an addiction, first 2-3 days were really hard to not play but after that it was much easier


----------



## Winspear (May 12, 2013)

80H said:


> Y
> edit: p.s. playing is an addiction, first 2-3 days were really hard to not play but after that it was much easier



I bet. I haven't had time to play in 2013 really aside from a bit of session bass, so perhaps I should do this as soon as I set up my new workspace next month, before I start playing guitar again! I'll feel better about going back to guitar without any chops whatsoever if my theory skills are better, haha.


----------



## 80H (May 15, 2013)

Business as usual at this point. 

Modes are kinda meh right now - very easy but this isn't applied so who knows what's next. 

I've been getting my 4 hours per day to the ears, and I'll be getting more advanced books in a few weeks. A lot of rereading my notes, memorizing locations on the fretboard and what feels like engineering with complex shapes and relationships. Writing is better now than it ever was, almost more comfortable with it than I am with tabs at this point. 

Comfortably coasting on my momentum for now. Not sure if I want to push harder yet or if I want to reinforce the beginning of the month. 


Halfway point reached.


----------



## 80H (May 16, 2013)

chords chords chords chords chords chords chords

My god the chords, all damn day. Every major scale down 100% accuracy, including notes. Can probably make 1,000 triads per major scale at this point (including repeaters and inversions obviously), who the fuck knows. I'm not counting anymore, this is nuts. Can't wait to get back to playing with capo+spider capo. Must make Trace Bundy proud. 

Memorizing modes w/2 days to work with is pointless in case anyone was wondering, it's not hard to memorize their positions against the major scale as-is, asinine to try and memorize them from anything but tonality imo. 


Just gonna keep focusing on harmony and chord construction until the 20th probably. I want most of this stuff down 2nd nature, so I'm not worried if it gets boring in a few days. Eat breathe sleep chords rawwwhwhwwhwklahfkjksdafhksdfghsdkjfgdskjfgsdfjgsdkfgsdjfhdg CHAMPION


----------



## 80H (May 17, 2013)

making chord progressions with web browser pianos and mocking beethoven
- *1 hour *

musically throwing pretzels at my niece ("this is an F# pretzel! here comes the A#!" "NO STOP IT" "BUT THE C## IS NEXT AND E# IS RIGHT BEHIND HIM" "MOM HES THROWING PRETZELS AT ME" "THREW. THREW PRETZELS. I'M DONE."
- *2 minutes*

dim/aug 7ths because i watched too many russell malone videos 
-*1 hour*


Species counterpoint because apparently i hate being happy, very easy though and is explaining a lot of what's going on in my head that I couldn't figure out. I also just like saying cantus firmus because it makes me sound smart 
-*2 hours, reading & ear training *


-Modes of harmonic minor because why not
*30 mins, information overload headache though*


and that concludes my friday's theory


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (May 18, 2013)

I have to say, I'm impressed that you're taking so much on. How's the counterpoint treating you?


----------



## 80H (May 20, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> I have to say, I'm impressed that you're taking so much on. How's the counterpoint treating you?




To be blunt, it mind****ed me. 100%. I had to throw out my nice comfy perception of harmony because I always considered polyphony and harmony to be more or less interchangeable. It definitely humbled me a little bit, but once I made the distinction between harmony and polyphony it all made a lot more sense. I've been using counterpoint a LOT without realizing I was doing it, so it's not foreign, but the conceptual idea is a million times deeper than my basic understanding is now. Just a foundational misconception. 




Lots of ear training and counterpoint these last few days. Haven't been keeping track of time because of my birthday weekend (family & friends = kidnap artists), but the chaos of that is over and I can get back on track now. Will be starting the day with ear training modes of harmonic minor, lots of counterpoint reading (species) and hopefully I can get enough time in to reread my notes from the beginning of the month for an hour or two.


----------



## 80H (May 21, 2013)

Done for the day, lot of writing to try and work out something that I'm hearing in my head. This took up about 2 hours and I didn't even make it through 2 minutes of music, but it's like getting a thorn out of my side because I've been hearing this same song for the better part of the last year. First I had trouble with the key, then 2 different parts were confusing me rhythmically (13s and 17s against each other, don't ask me why my brain works like this, but it does. I blame tool.)


Other than that, modes of harmonic minor and ear training. I also put down some more time with the major scale in every key but I'm about as consistent as I think I'll be for a good while with those, and the modes are boring when they're not being applied. 


Little bit of counterpoint, might do more tonight since I'll probably be up until 6 or 7 am due to caffeine + ....ed up sleep schedule from work last night. Good times


----------



## 80H (May 22, 2013)

3:50 AM. 

Chord progressions, yngwie vids and modes of harm minor since midnight. I can go to sleep whenever, but I'm wide awake right now and don't wanna waste it. 


Super locrian hurting my head, feeling like I'm in deep water here. Love it. Getting another hazy funk like I usually get before my brain reconfigures itself.


----------



## Matthew (May 22, 2013)

Do you have a master list of materials you've used? I'd be interested in knowing.


----------



## 80H (May 22, 2013)

MStriewski said:


> Do you have a master list of materials you've used? I'd be interested in knowing.




For the most part yes - It'll take me a little while to whip it up though. I turned most of my lessons into notes so that I could keep everything in one place, but I didn't save the URL for some of the links/lessons/videos so it might take a little while to backtrack them. A lot of what I got was just raw idiot's guide to music theory & various open-source ear training software (lenmus phonascus seems to be the best overall of the ones that I found)


As of now, most of my practice was: 

*Memorization & Ear Training:*


Notes
Intervals
Major Scale (Every Key + Fretboard Map)
Triads of the Major Scale (Every Key + Fretboard Map)
Triad Inversions (It hurts)
Harmony (Basic to Intermediate Progressions & Extensions)
Modes (Basic Runthrough)
Counterpoint (Species)
Harmonic Minor & Its Modes




I haven't added up the recorded hours yet, but it's definitely over 100 at this point. One of the problems with this stuff is that there's a lot of different guides floating around the internet. Gotta find the ones that make the most sense to you, but yeah I can work my way through each of them and find some of the info that was most helpful to me.


----------



## Matthew (May 22, 2013)

I'm going to start a theory learning month myself. I won't be able to dedicate as much time, as I said, but the idea of taking a month off and improving my musical knowledge overall is very tempting. I'm at the point where my technical skill is impressing other guitarists, but I'm not happy with anything I actually write. I guess that's what happens when you learn everything from tabs.


----------



## 80H (May 22, 2013)

MStriewski said:


> I'm going to start a theory learning month myself. I won't be able to dedicate as much time, as I said, but the idea of taking a month off and improving my musical knowledge overall is very tempting. I'm at the point where my technical skill is impressing other guitarists, but I'm not happy with anything I actually write. I guess that's what happens when you learn everything from tabs.




Written music is such an amazing language, and I think it's sad that more guitarists are kind of thrown into the world of tabs early because of guitar culture. 


Technical skill doesn't really matter to me anymore. I feel like I can play anything with enough practice, so all I have time to concern myself with is the music that's going on in my head that I'd rather be hearing through my headphones. I also just like fiddling around and finding stuff that sounds good, getting inspired in general and training myself to appreciate musical elements that I never really cared for. Music theory only helps that process. 


Moving into fourth and fifth species and entering the free range of counterpoint with a solid foundation is so worth all of the tedious stuff that I did in the beginning of the month that I'd stop playing for an entire year if the payoff was proportional to what I now understand.


----------



## Matthew (May 23, 2013)

80H said:


> Technical skill doesn't really matter to me anymore. I feel like I can play anything with enough practice, so all I have time to concern myself with is the music that's going on in my head that I'd rather be hearing through my headphones. I also just like fiddling around and finding stuff that sounds good, getting inspired in general and training myself to appreciate musical elements that I never really cared for.



This. So much this.


----------



## 80H (May 24, 2013)

Been reviewing all of my old stuff for the last couple of days along with refining my writing skills. I think I hit my mental point of exhaustion after counterpoint, but I just dialed back the intensity a little bit without actually stopping at any point. Simple stuff like listening to triads and naming them is very peaceful right now, whereas counterpoint is super hectic. I love the species approach but working with species rules for a few days straight is mind numbing.


----------



## Tommy (May 24, 2013)

This thread is so inspirational. Thanks you to you I've bought the complete idiot's guide to music theory. 

I plan are somewhat doing what you are doing but to a lesser extent. I don't have much free time to commit to it. I do want to learn though.

I just wanted to say thank you.


----------



## Veritech Zero (May 25, 2013)

Good for you. Seriously, this is pretty awesome. I've had the luck of being able to go to school to learn all of what you are learning. I would say that I do find it weird that you tried to do it without playing guitar, I would go crazy if I had to do that. Playing what I learned and applying it to songs was my favorite part. That and learning the violin, piano and how to sing was a bonus of going to school for it as well. 

but seriously, good on you. I know that when I started to learn theory it REALLY opened my ears when I listened to technical music. It went from a bunch of random notes to chord progressions and arpeggios and scales/modulations etc. etc. Before it would take me forever to figure out what someone was doing during a solo and twice as long to learn how to do whatever it was myself. Now I pick up on stuff in a snap, and can pretty much visualize in my head how it is supposed to be played on whatever instrument I want to implement it with, and then it is all about muscle memory after that, the hard work is done near instantly in my head


----------



## 80H (May 26, 2013)

Missed "yesterday's" update but I havent slept yet (it's 5:20 AM). 

My head's pretty fuzzy at this point. I know that I know what I've learned, but trying to access it produces this huge mental block that almost gives me a headache. I think I officially hit the point of mental exhaustion and it feels awesome. 


With that said, I've mostly been listening to examples and applying my ear training - namely Bach because I never spent very much time with classical music. I can easily lose track of 2 hours just picking out keys and notes at this point. I also just sat down and wrote music for an hour or two without even realizing it'd been that long. Haven't been this happy in too long.


----------



## 80H (May 29, 2013)

Been 3 days since last update. Booo. Boooo you suck. Booooooooo. 


Haha. Anyways. Lots of looking through old notes and listening with new ears. Love it. There's not a lot more that I want to learn right now that isn't just meticulous, systematic and repetitive practice.

I'm pretty sure I've already got what I want out of this with 2 days to spare. Woo! Victory. Going to keep going anyways 'cause it isn't June 1st though. Arbitrary commitments are commitments nonetheless.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (May 29, 2013)

Now that the end is in sight, how's that hand? I foresee a thread titled "One Month Technique Challenge: A Lament For What Once Was".


----------



## 80H (May 30, 2013)

It's better. I'd say it's close to 100% when I'm not typing too much or work more than 6 hours a day, but it's definitely still not happy with me when I use this armrest too much (rubs against my elbow, radial/ulnar nerve irritant). Guitar wasn't directly the problem but it was stopping me from healing properly.


----------



## stuglue (May 30, 2013)

Haven't read all this thread, however I see you are focused on chords. I advise you to learn voice leading and semi tonal movement. That was the big one for me in understanding how to navigate chords as well as integrating melodies into them. Very inspiring.


----------



## stuglue (May 30, 2013)

When I say integrating melodies into chords I mean the ability to see a melodic line within the progression.


----------



## 80H (May 31, 2013)

stuglue said:


> When I say integrating melodies into chords I mean the ability to see a melodic line within the progression.




Melody is already easily my biggest strength. At this point I'm not even concerned with the notes, I'm more concerned with creating phonetics, and notes are an afterthought. The only specific areas of melody that I was concerned with were smoothly playing chromatic notes against the major scale, harmonic minor and their respective modes because I'm hearing them in my head and was having trouble identifying them. 

I didn't specifically focus on chords, though they were a large part of what I was doing because they are so fundamental. Most of my practice was in ear training and systematic re-memorization of elements that I already knew in small fragments. Cohesion was the goal. 


-----





Only 15 hours left. Going back over all of my notes today starting with day one and solidifying everything that I learned this month. Going to write out about 2 hours per day worth of stuff to practice for the next month or two and say goodbye to the theory routine.


----------



## 80H (Jun 1, 2013)

YESSSSSSS MY FINGERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


edit: i'll do the update later, back to playing


----------



## Matthew (Jun 1, 2013)

I just got off work, so I'm starting now. Gonna dig into Tonal Harmony and the Idiot's Guide.

How do you feel being done?


----------



## 80H (Jun 1, 2013)

well it's 2:35 and i've worked for 20 minutes, spent 20 minutes eating, did a few other misc small activities and the rest of the time has been spent playing. I had to stretch my fret hand for a good 10 minutes before it was comfortable again, but I'm making all kinds of ridiculous stretches just for the sake of playing the chord I'm hearing. 

I really should be getting more work done because I have at least 30 hours worth of work for this week lined up already, but my fingers aren't raw yet so clearly I should keep going


----------



## Matthew (Jun 1, 2013)

As I don't have a hand injury and am currently finding my piano rather helpful, I think I'll be skipping the no instrument part. I'll probably limit myself to my classical when I apply it to guitar during the month, however.


----------



## 80H (Jun 1, 2013)

MStriewski said:


> As I don't have a hand injury and am currently finding my piano rather helpful, I think I'll be skipping the no instrument part. I'll probably limit myself to my classical when I apply it to guitar during the month, however.



My rule was just no guitar. I used browser pianos when I was going to go insane, but that was it. All I really need is a major scale to blow off steam if I need to. 


Keep track of it, start a thread, keep a journal, whatever. It keeps you honest, it keeps you going from point a to point b and it makes it so much easier to see how far you've come. 


The fingers on my left hand are totally raw. I knew this was going to happen but I don't even care. After going from 2-5 hours a day to zero for an entire month, there is no reason I want to stop. I would have kept going if I could have but it's just too painful right now and probably verging on bleeding. I might not be able to play tomorrow but .... that felt good


----------



## octatoan (Jun 5, 2014)

This thread 0_0


----------



## octatoan (Aug 12, 2014)

80H said:


> I kind of *want to compile a massive list of the exercises that I've accidentally invented* from this process...but it's still only day 11. I'm not even half way.





80H said:


> *For the most part yes - It'll take me a little while to whip it up though.* I turned most of my lessons into notes so that I could keep everything in one place, but I didn't save the URL for some of the links/lessons/videos so it might take a little while to backtrack them. A lot of what I got was just raw idiot's guide to music theory & various open-source ear training software (lenmus phonascus seems to be the best overall of the ones that I found)
> 
> I haven't added up the recorded hours yet, but it's definitely over 100 at this point. One of the problems with this stuff is that there's a lot of different guides floating around the internet. Gotta find the ones that make the most sense to you, but yeah I can work my way through each of them and find some of the info that was most helpful to me.



Please?


----------

