Hey Shawn,
I always feel a bit bad for highjacking a thread, but in this case it has come around full circle. You asked how people learn this stuff… the original post was about Larry completing the first volume of the Berklee text. I went and looked at it. Man, it’s a monster. There is no tab, it’s standard notation. It’s drills and etudes and not a song I saw was familiar. In the sections I saw on Amazon, there did not appear to be much text description, just exercise followed by exercise. Even though it is not a book about “music theory,” I am pretty sure Larry learned some applied theory going through the exercises. If nothing else, he can probably sight read pretty well. He probably has some great scale, arpeggio and interval ideas that he can now use at will. To me, there is a world of difference between music theory and applying it to an instrument. I might know the intervals to make a major or minor scale, but until I learn how to make it work on a given instrument, it’s just kind of sterile knowledge. You can learn music theory from classes or books or the web, at sites like youtube or musictheory.net/ . To apply it to playing takes some time and experience (and to do it quickly takes work). What Larry did in tackling that daunting text was an example of what it takes. Again, nice job Larry! That was an impressive undertaking.
It was interesting reading about Jesse’s experience. Mine probably won’t be as interesting, but I’ll share it nonetheless. I started out on violin somewhere around 8 or 9. I learned a little theory there. In high school, I started playing in a rock band, jazz band, marching band, and concert playing various instruments. I took music theory for a few years. With all that exposure, I had a good basis for understanding some theory. One thing I loved about guitar and blues or rock was, that I didn’t need to think too much. It was fun just playing. I never spent consistent effort on learning to sight read standard notation for guitar. Some of the theory applied naturally to guitar and just came with experience. And just playing, you will learn some theory. For example, people just learn that a common progression that works well is 1 4 1 5 1… they may not think of it in those terms, but sooner or later they learn it in some form. They will probably learn about relative minors (such as G and Em) just from exposure to music that utilizes it. Again, they might not know that is what it is called, but they learn the chords work together in a special way. Anyway, now I am at a point where I feel the a bit of a need to start dragging up the old knowledge of theory and applying it to the guitar. So it’s gonna take some work. You don’t have to have theory to be a good picker, but it greatly expands where you can take it. There are a multitude of ways to do it, and what works for one person may not work for another. But everyday you pick up the guitar to learn something new, odds are you are going to be picking up a little theory along the way. These forums have been helping my theory knowledge a great deal.
Graduation
Thanks for the nice words, Mike! You are right about the Berklee text being devoid of much text, but if anyone decides to work through it, I’d recommend the accompanying DVD taught by the head of the Berklee guitar department. It allows you to hear the music, provides a duet partner and does a good job of explaining the underlying concepts of the drills.
I used to read theory columns in various magazines, learned some writing parts for a luchtime jam we had of high school band memvers, learned some from people I’ve picked with over the years, figured some out on my own, and try not to think too much about it unless I need to.
Dissecting everything I played would take the fun out of it and sometimes I just like to look for notes while playing instead of ‘doing the math’ to figure out what I should be playing (and sometimes it is the quicker method or brings about better results).
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I’d recommend the accompanying DVD taught by the head of the Berklee guitar department. It allows you to hear the music, provides a duet partner and does a good job of explaining the underlying concepts of the drills.
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Well, that DVD would seem to make it a bit more accessible. I might give it a shot in the future, I haven’t ruled it out. But then again, 15 months… man, that’s brutal. I once started into “Pumping Nylon.” I didn’t give it 10% of the effort I put into BG (fun is a great motivator), but I stuck with it regularly for maybe a month. I was a terrible student. I didn’t want to work on my rest stroke, I wanted to work on my tremolo so I could play “Leyenda” like John Williams. You can guess how that turned out…if I didn’t have the solid fundamental strokes, I wasn’t going to be able to do the more complicated stuff. I gotta learn to stand before I can run.
Thanks for the replies guys!
Oldhat, you almost had me thinking theory was going to be easy until you said it was the hardest thing out of all the great stuff you’ve accomplished. 
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To me, there is a world of difference between music theory and applying it to an instrument. I might know the intervals to make a major or minor scale, but until I learn how to make it work on a given instrument, it’s just kind of sterile knowledge. You can learn music theory from classes or books or the web, at sites like youtube or musictheory.net/ . To apply it to playing takes some time and experience (and to do it quickly takes work).
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Mike, that’s kinda what worries me. I’ll spend all this time reading about it and will not be able to understand how to apply it unless I have some one on one instruction.
I pretty much just started out with someone showing me some chords and after that, it was all over for me. I was hooked. I wanted to play all the time and the only way to learn by myself was the internet. If I couldn’t hear what was going on in a song, I immediately went to tabs. I’ve learned alot about playing music in the last 10 years but I know absolutely nothing about making music. I was ok with that because when you learn a Led Zep song, what more to it is there? Are you going to improve upon what Page did? Or Tommy Emmanuel, what are you going to do, add licks to that? I just played it, and I was happy. Not so with Bluegrass. This music has inspired me more than anything I’ve ever played to learn about what’s going on with the music.I think I can come close to making my own leads now. I just need some more ear training and some basic theory guidelines to keep me on track.
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Mike, that’s kinda what worries me. I’ll spend all this time reading about it and will not be able to understand how to apply it unless I have some one on one instruction.
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No worries! You will learn some stuff that is useful, and some that is not. Some of the stuff that doesn’t seem useful will come back to help you later. It’s almost like learning math. Learning to solve an equation is not generally that compelling by itself for many people. But… when I use a little math to help me figure out how to build something, then that’s pretty cool. You don’t really know how useful the different parts of theory will be until you find a use for the information.
There is nothing that you must learn, so I would just approach it from a viewpoint of what interests you and what you think you will find useful. You might find it real compelling, and on the other hand, it may not be your cup of tea. I think most musicians fall somewhere between the extremes.
Mike- Great explanation above man! It would have been like doing a thesis for me to explain it the way you did!
Spot on!
Thanks. I’m glad I could contribute.
Heck I play with some who cant read books, much less music. I will say this, I was at a pickin and there was a lady there trying to play with us that could only play by sheet music. I admire those who can read music but she was having a difficult time playing with us as we play what we hear and then many times put our own twist to it.
I asked her could she teach me to read music and she ask how long I had been playing. I told her 25 years and she told me no, I would be unteachable…lol.
I have a friend that is highly musical educated and degreed in music. he plays jazz mostly but where he lives, when big names come to town, he is always asked to perform with them. he plays with a lot of jazz legends as well as country and western folks. I attribute that to hime being able to read music.
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I admire those who can read music but she was having a difficult time playing with us as we play what we hear and then many times put our own twist to it.
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I think this happens not only with sheet music (standard notation), but with tablature, too. It’s analogous to reading a book aloud. When I read, I’m conveying the ideas of others instead of my own thoughts. Nothing wrong with that -there’s plenty of worthwhile stuff to read - but sometimes I like to express my own ideas, too.
Well I will only say this, I can read std. notation and tab and know basic theory. But being able to play it is the problem, I don’t need to figure out where the notes are read them fine but playing up to tempo is tough and that is where the work comes in for me. I am presently working on Grandfather’s Clock and having a heck of a time, need to go measure by measure and then connect them until I have a string that are up to speed. Takes me a long time. I am looking forward to when I can just sit down and play these tunes at speed and be able to play with others. I know one thing for sure, it’s nice to be educated on theory etc. but if you can’t play it don’t mean nothing…never saw someone hold a crowds interest discussing the theory and how they play…you can always take time for the books later.
Good thoughts Jerry. I was really hoping to wow the crowds with my discussions of music theory 
It sure seems to take a large amount of time to get comfortable with bluegrass speeds. I think that is part of what makes it so compelling. If getting our chops down was too easy, we’d probably get bored.
congrats on all the hard work !!!