Victor Wooten: Music Theory is SIMPLE!

but theory doesn't have to be difficult let me show you hey how many people practice in all keys raise your hand high be proud keep your hand up how many key oh no I'm not I can't ask Lucas that's Bob son all right okay how many keys are there I say it 12 good answer but wrong how many how many keys you were about to say 12 right that was my answer who's going to keep your hand up if you have our answer different from 12 what's the answer 24 is logical more logical than 12 because there's majors and minors so we would double it makes sense right still wrong okay don't guess tell me if you know one what one is not a good answer but now we're trying to be clever what's the answer 30 is the answer eight years ago we're having our very first Theory camp we 2010 Nashville got hit with a huge flood it was like the flooded of a lifetime I had to take all the students to my house basically we ended up having theory with Bob and Anthony at my house right candle light electricity went out but Anthony Wellington asked the students how many people practice in all keys now I'm the teacher my name's on the camp so I'm sitting in the back I'm cool I don't raise my hand of course I practice in all keys I'm Victor Wooten right so people raise their hand but I'm cool I don't and he says well how many keys are there in my head I say 12 dummy you know why are you asking stupid he says how do you say you practice in all keys if you miss an 18 of them I went 18 and he said well you got to think there's major keys and there's minor keys and I went all 24 he's like oh yeah but I was doing all this in my head other people were doing it out loud and I was so glad I kept quiet because people didn't know I didn't know either every major key has a relative minor right most of us don't realize that we only have major and minor keys is it Dorian is not a key it's a mode sure right harmonic minor is a scale not a key keys are only major or minor that simplifies it already let's figure out how many major keys are there are and then we'll just double the answer for the total which we already know how many major keys have no sharps or no flats how many one somebody keep track there's one we can have a key with one sharp a major key we're talking about we can have a major key with one sharp we can have a major key with two sharps up to how many sharps seven so there's seven major keys one that's neither what are we up to so far eight let's keep going we can have a major key with one flat we can have a major key with two flats up to how many flats seven so we have seven flat keys 7:00 sharp keys one that's neither for a total of how many major keys fifteen that's not rocket science that's second grade knowledge should be double it for a total of thirty keys my man is right right you could have figured that out on your own this is what my friend Anthony Wellington showed me at my own camp that's why I heard him so I can take their classes that's why you kept the camp going so you can keep learning about you know what absolutely right I was taking a bunch of nature classes and because of touring I would sign up for nature class I love the outdoors I'd pay my deposit and then a tour would come up and I lose my deposit and have to miss the camp so I decided in late 90s I'm gonna make my own camp I'm gonna bring the world's best instructors and I'm not gonna miss it this time I'm not going to lose my deposit and I'm gonna take their classes and that's how I've gotten better at theory and I found out that theory is easy it's not hard one more can I please two more how many sharps are in a major three how many flats are in a flat major okay what does that add up to seven seven second grade okay a major three sharps a flat major four flats only ad don't do anymore Theory only ad if G major has one sharp how many flats does G flat major have six it adds up to seven are the light bulbs going off right remember what Einstein said if you can't explain it simply all right it's that easy how many flats are in E flat major three so that means how many sharps are in E major bingo you don't even have to do work anymore you got it after all these years exactly after after semesters it's easy right okay if G if G major has one sharp we already now know that G flat major has six flats that means G flat major only has one natural note guess what it is it's that F that was sharp in the other key right so if a major has three sharps and they're FC and G guess what the three natural notes are an A flat major F CNG it's that hard could you have not learned this in the second grade you could have for sure right so we have taken all of music theory and dumbed it down really smart and it up smarten it up to that simple

Channel: Shlome Spielman

Views: 976,278

Rating: 4.9352622 out of 5

Keywords: music theory, music, victor wooten, anthony wellington, bob franceschini

Id: E3vYVGMgZYY

Length: 5min 40sec (340 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 28 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

As a music teacher...I’m no longer surprised when great musicians don’t understand how music students learn.

[u/one-hour-photo]

ITT-Proof that music theory is NOT that simple

[u/mavck]

I greatly disagree with Mr. Wooten. I love his style and positivity, and he is a great teacher, but I disagree with him on this one.

[u/lolstaz]

can somebody explain this?

How can there be more than 24?

[u/Ojrsh]

30 keys is not the answer, it's one of them.

https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/7296/how-many-major-and-minor-keys-are-there-why

[u/werewolfcat]

Here's the full interview this was taken from: https://youtu.be/wA_A1aXlMTw

[u/soulofboop]

I was going to ask someone to explain this step by step as I don’t read notation and it all seemed very confusing. But I did a bit of googling and what not, and now I have other questions...

Are the extra 6 really different keys even though they contain the exact same notes as another 6 of the 30?

Is this due to the fact that they would be written differently and therefore would require practice to be able to read and play the 2 variations? (Is this the point about practicing in all 30 keys? As in for someone who is writing and playing in this key, but not using standard notation, would notice any difference at all?

And an extra... Why are relative minors keys, while the other scales off the major just called modes, and not counted as keys?

Thanks!

[u/spdorsey]

Saw him in Santa Cruz a few years ago, amazing!!

[u/thelittlestrummerboy]

Check out his book "The Music Lesson" if his way of thinking interests you. I found some of it a little more hippy-dippy/mystical than I expected but I got a lot out of it!