What is the point of jazz theory?

Short answer:
None

Long answer:
As the nights close in and winter looms, I find myself pondering the meaning of it all. As anyone who knows me will tell you, quite a lot of my brain is taken up with thinking about jazz. Unfortunately, this does not appear to translate in my ability to play the correct chords in the bridge of Take the A Train. ;-)

Which is basically what it comes down to. My favourite guitar players ever in the world are Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery and Jimi Hendrix. What all of these guys had in common apart from being, like, AWESOME was little or no technical 'book' music theory - I don't think any of them could even read chord symbols. What they did have was incredible musicality and well.. genius for want of a better word. Genius. There, I said it.

That's not to say that many of the greats - Eddie Lang, George Van Eps, Joe Pass, and so on - weren't great readers, but the immediate thing it calls attention to is that the ability to play like AWESOME music AWESOMELY has little to do with the 'knowledge' about music. Simply put, the path of academic and musician are different. Some players I know manage to be both highly knowledgeable about who played what when and how and play brilliantly. Others seem to know nothing about music history and theory and tear it up every night (fewer these days it seems thanks to colleges that teach you how to be a jazz or pop musician via the Western education model.)

There are also those who seem to 'know' everything about music but are unable to play.

If your path is performance, you need to be a musician, not a thinker.

(Aside: as always with these types of essays, in a way this is addressed to myself. If anyone else takes anything away from it, that's a nice bonus.)

So why all the theory then?

For me, I have a curiosity about music in general - e.g. what is Charlie Parker doing on bars 5-6 of a Rhythm tune, when did jazzers start using upper extensions, what the real difference between bebop and swing and so on. This is nothing to do with being a musician.

On the other hand, you might listen early on to your favourite musician and learn to sing every single solo, and be able to play them on your instrument. (Not the only path, but true of Wes, for one.) That's a different type of study.

Don't get 'book' learning confused with engine of real musicianship.

Needless to say that's harder to get a grip on. Listening to and 'transcribing' favourite musicians is really just the very beginning. It seems clear that the very best musicians had:

1) Great time/feel and rhythm
2) A great ear
3) Mountains of live experience with legends of music at an early point

Many say that 3) is the clincher. You become a great player by playing with great players, being in the right place at the right time and having the right qualities. Never easy, and harder now these days with the death of the apprenticeship system in jazz and the decline of live music performance in general. So go easy on yourself. If you don't become a world class player, it's not your fault. It's not necessarily that you aren't working hard enough.

Maybe if it feels like work that's part of the problem. We are brought up to feel there is a narrative to our lives, that we are putting effort x into working towards goal y. That's what they teach us at school. That's what the rags to riches narratives of Hollywood biopics say. It's a good structure for a story, nothing more. The happiest musicians I know - people in general, now I think about it - are those who ignore this useless construct.

Don't buy into the work ethic myth. Don't buy into the 10,000 hours theory. Relax and enjoy playing, practicing and above all, listening. Much easier.

In any case, I digress. Theory?

Well here's the theory I've been thinking about over the years. I want to make things simpler. Perhaps it's my training as a scientist. I see a sea of chords and what I want to do is boil it down to simple laws, to make it easier to solo. But what could be simpler than just trusting your ears and playing what you hear? If you hear nothing, listen to some music and let it inspire you.

SO: music theory does not exist. There is only music practice.

There are some really interesting thinkers on music education out there. Here are some of the ones I've enjoyed recently:

• Lennie Tristano/Warne Marsh
• Hal Galper
• Mike Longo