LJS 115: How to Balance Music Theory and Playing by Ear

Welcome to episode 115 of the LJS Podcast where today we are talking about the balancing act of music theory and playing by ear. In the jazz world sometimes one or the other can be overemphasized and as a result, can cause a player to miss out on a balanced jazz education. Learn the importance of working on both and how to balance them in your practicing. Listen in!
Listen to episode 115







In our Learn Jazz Standards Facebook Community, emails I get from subscribers, and general conversations I have with musicians, I witness a few different philosophies about learning jazz.
The two extremes are the world of learning music theory, and the world of playing and learning by ear. In reality, these two shouldn't be separated things. They should work together. Yet sometimes one or the other is overemphasized in someone's jazz education.
I think it's important to talk about creating a balance between the two. Both are important to our overall musical education and need to be apart of what we do.
Here's some of what I talk about in today's episode:
1. The benefits of learning music theory.
2. The benefits of learning and playing music by ear.
3. The negatives of leaving out or overemphasizing one or the other.
4. How a healthy balance creates a completed circuit.
I hope you enjoy today's episode and examine what role both of these play in your own practicing. Are your practice sessions balanced, or is one being ignored?
Important Links
Learn Jazz Standards Community Facebook Group
The Jazz Standards Playbook eBook and Companion Course







Read the Transcript
Brent: Check, check, check it out. What's up? My name is Brent. I am the jazz musician behind LearnJazzStandards.com, which is a blog, a podcast, and videos, all geared towards helping you become a better jazz musician.
Hey, welcome everybody. Whether this is your first time ever listening to the show or if you're a regular listener, I want to thank you so much. I appreciate you for just being here, hanging out with me, and taking a little time out of your week just to learn alongside of me. And so I appreciate it. I don't take it for granted.
And on today's episode 115, I did have an episode planned that was more music theory based, but it got me thinking, since we had such a heavy music theory episode last week ... which was an awesome episode, by the way, 114 with special guest Dan Carillo talking about minor tonality ... such a great episode, but a heavy episode. As I was thinking about today's episode, I thought it would be great to talk about how to balance music theory and playing by ear, because you know, sometimes we get overwhelmed with one or the other.
Sometimes we get overwhelmed with there being too much music theory to think about when it comes to jazz. Sometimes we get banged over the head as well with learn jazz solos by ear, learn jazz standards by ear, all these things by ear. We get hammered on both sides of the spectrum, so I thought it would be great to talk today a little bit about that, how we can balance that out and the importance of doing both of them. And so that's what we are going to have in store for today's show. So stick around, make sure you listen to the end.
But hey, before we get started here, if you've been listening to the show for a while, but you've never subscribed on iTunes or your favorite podcast listening service, now's the time to hit that subscribe button. Make sure you're not missing any of these episodes that are coming out. Make sure you're checking this stuff out, because I don't want you to miss out on all the goodies that we have to offer on...