Ok, here's my problem:
My brother plays bass in our band. He never learned anything about music theory or concept what-so-ever....he just wings it. And for doing that, I'll admit, he's pretty good for being self-taught, but there comes a time where it's just not enough. Example: we set out to play Quinn The Eskimo the other night (a good friend just found out they're having a boy and they're naming him Quin, so we thought it'd be neat to play it for them at our next gig). Well, I've seen so many different keys to play this song in, so when I printed it out for everybody, in place of where the chords would go, I just put I, IV, V above the appropriate words. Simple enough, right? Wrong. I was scolded (he's my older brother) because I could've "just as easily put the chords in", but I wasn't sure what key we were going to play it in.
Anyways, not to get too far off on a tangent, the problem I have with him is that because he doesn't "really" know what he's doing, I think he often gets bored w/ his bass part(s) and then starts going off into "bass solo land", and out the window goes the basic groove that holds down the song for the keys/lead guitar to go off on.
It's frustrating, and I've tried in every which way to teach him even a little bit about theory, at least the major scale, for Christ's sake, and he won't take to it. I'm afraid he's fallen into the "you can tell a guitarist, but you can't tell him much" world.
I would really like him to get invigorated again about playing music, like when we all first picked up our instruments, and I feel the next step for him, as it was for me a year ago, is to learn more about it, in this case, learning some scales and theory to apply to the music we're playing.
I would love any suggestions y'all may have for me.
Thanks for listening!
My brother plays bass in our band. He never learned anything about music theory or concept what-so-ever....he just wings it. And for doing that, I'll admit, he's pretty good for being self-taught, but there comes a time where it's just not enough. Example: we set out to play Quinn The Eskimo the other night (a good friend just found out they're having a boy and they're naming him Quin, so we thought it'd be neat to play it for them at our next gig). Well, I've seen so many different keys to play this song in, so when I printed it out for everybody, in place of where the chords would go, I just put I, IV, V above the appropriate words. Simple enough, right? Wrong. I was scolded (he's my older brother) because I could've "just as easily put the chords in", but I wasn't sure what key we were going to play it in.
Anyways, not to get too far off on a tangent, the problem I have with him is that because he doesn't "really" know what he's doing, I think he often gets bored w/ his bass part(s) and then starts going off into "bass solo land", and out the window goes the basic groove that holds down the song for the keys/lead guitar to go off on.
It's frustrating, and I've tried in every which way to teach him even a little bit about theory, at least the major scale, for Christ's sake, and he won't take to it. I'm afraid he's fallen into the "you can tell a guitarist, but you can't tell him much" world.
I would really like him to get invigorated again about playing music, like when we all first picked up our instruments, and I feel the next step for him, as it was for me a year ago, is to learn more about it, in this case, learning some scales and theory to apply to the music we're playing.
I would love any suggestions y'all may have for me.
Thanks for listening!
Play music, expand the mind, inspire...
"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey" - Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa
www.myspace.com/heavydime
"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey" - Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa
www.myspace.com/heavydime
