Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend accompanies me when I’m cooking or doing the dishes and I think that’s mostly why I enjoy those two activities. So, earlier today, while making some spaghetti I listened to Conan talking to Elvis Costello who I knew was a musician but I had never heard a song by him (and up till the moment I’m writing this I still haven’t). The conversation revolved around Costello’s new book How to Play the Guitar and Y (new at the time the podcast was published, which was October 31, 2021) and how he thought that the usual books that taught chords would usually guide the players into a path of pain and resentment because they started with the C chord (a farely easy chord to play) and would follow up with the F chord (the subdominant chord which is usually the natural follow-up chord in harmony theory and harmonizing in general), which actually sucks, because it’s tremendously difficult and uncomfortable and most novice players will be unable to place the hand in the right position even less make the guitar produce a decent sound.
Based on this, they started ranting a little bit about how “music theory” might not be necessary to start learning an instrument and in-between this discussion, Costello suggested that the progression G-C-D would be way more natural and easier to play. Also, they later started talking how “playing for the sake of playing” would actually be more benefitial for a novice and that these could be arranged by allowing the players to just play two chords (C-G-C or G-D-G) and singing along songs that only used this basic tonic-dominant-tonic progression (which are actually a lot). Eventually, as the Beatles did when they were searching for the one person who could teach them the B7 chord, you’ll get into theory and widen your knowledge for the sake of enjoying music.
Now, I don’t know how much of that you, the reader, has understood, since I don’t know if you’re a musician or you know about these musical things or the positions in the guitar but I wrote it as it happened in the podcast to prove two points about previous entries on this blog that I have mentioned.
First, the fact that Costello and Conan O’Brien needed the concepts of musical theory (in this case chords progressions) to get their ideas across indicate how important it is to have musical theory to actually convey and reflect about the best way to teach people music. And I agree with them, certainly, you don’t need to tell a novice apprentice the names of the chords they’re playing and if you are a teacher of music you should choose chords that are comfortable to play. Also, it’s important that students enjoy what they’re doing by playing pieces they know and that are simple enough to be learnt fast, and in the guitar, through pop music, that is tremendously easy to achieve. Certainly, you don’t need the theory or names to enjoy playing music first, but you will need it to reach the higher levels of performance and skill (find the B7 chord) as well as the physical discipline (and the guidance of a good teacher or tutor) to be able to communicate and learn what you need.
Second, the progression that Costello suggested to be easier and his reflection about C major and F major reminded me of two different things.
a) The Suzuki Method always starts its instruction in every instument with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (since it’s a song known all over the world) and it always chooses for each instrument the key where it will be easier to play that tune. For the piano, it is C major, for the violin it is A major and for the guitar it is, of course G major which leads me to…
b) The problem is not music theory, it’s the method of teaching and learning. Most chord books start with the C major chord because they are based on piano methods where it is easy to play certain melodies and scales in said key (and, come to think of it, you only need to stretch a little bit your fingers to play an F chord and a G chord, so, doing that on the piano is tremendously easy), and, it should be logical that you shouldn’t start playing the guitar in the way you play the piano, but people who make those chord books don’t know much about pedagogy or real music, for that matter.
So, in conclussion, I really enjoyed the reflections about music on that podcast and I suggest you listen to it if you rather listen to them expressing their ideas. I’ll leave the link down here:
Finally, Costello mentions the following song as the one that inspired him to learn the guitar and I also think is quite a beautiful song. Enjoy:
Ideas Vagas 