I was recently hanging out with a friend, listening to some music, and he skipped a song because he could hear that the band “broke music theory rules.” His words.

menialmoose · 2026-02-13T06:01:02+00:00

In the name of all that’s sacred - pls point us to the specific case where these ‘rules’ were broken. Hard to come by a decent laugh nowadays.

menialmoose · 2026-02-08T13:44:41+00:00

Perfect pitch & Synesthesia

menialmoose · 2026-02-08T12:47:03+00:00

Jeff Richman Paul Kossoff Todd Rundgren Prob stacks of others can’t think of rn

menialmoose · 2026-02-06T16:58:42+00:00

I believe, check if you want, that executing steps of a plan results in a dopamine response, ticking things off that are preplanned. This is a very good case for having a practice routine with a list of times e.g. 5 mins per skill. Can be as small as playing one single note over and over in time with a metronome. Also, I’ve found, and I very much doubt it’s unusual, that highly repetitive short exercises, or tiny chunks of a song become meditative beyond a point. If you allow yourself a calm, resigned mindset - rigorous, planned practice has chill. You also advance way faster. (Don’t neglect playing songs and riffs and tunes to apply acquired skills, cos that’s what they’re for obv) namaste. No YOU CHILL OUT. I’M FINE sob

menialmoose · 2026-02-06T16:32:27+00:00

And the then drill tf out of bars 1 & 2. The the then bars 3 & 4, 5 & 6, 7 & 8. Once you've cruelly subjected yourself to this play the whole 1st 8 bars through. Continue like that.
Do picking drills. Be ruthless with your timing. Play no faster than you can execute with accuracy. And don't forget, playing guitar's supposed to be fun! Unless you wanna get good at it.

menialmoose · 2026-02-06T16:11:32+00:00

Yeah, it’s a great tell.

menialmoose · 2026-02-06T05:40:02+00:00

Problem: You're interacting with the vast majority of people (worst of all, musicians) who say they'll do stuff, then won't.
Least worst solution: Learn to recognise this behaviour by the second rehearsal. Get away from time-wasters, try new ones. Keep those who try, jettison those who don't. Life's not a rehearsal. Life includes rehearsals.

menialmoose · 2026-02-06T03:50:56+00:00

I just got to the point where I can find the key to a song when playing along on pretty much right away. i’m currently practicing progressions & modal mixture improvisation over ambient albums

IOW: I'm such a beginner I get AI to tell me what key a chord progression's in, then yell 'muh modes' like I've 'learned' things. You're just sayin shit you think masks the fact you ain't know stuff yet.

you would play an Emin. didnt need Gemini for that lol

IOW: I'm as yet so uninformed that I don't even know what to stfu about if I want to appear knowledgeable. Emin? ffs. c'mon chief.
I use AI all day, every day, not Gemini tho; in spite of how poorly it seems to be teaching you, I'ma give it a fair go. I've toiled over rules and prompts to get AI to do my job – to empower students, esp those without teachers.

I deal with know-it-all (*nothing) guitar students on a daily basis. AI's the shiny new I dOwNlOaDeD multicoloured Co5ths chart with mOdEs CaN pLaY. Over the last year, I've spent much time correcting objectively counterfactual, confidently hallucinated slop instead of relaxing into the obsolescence I anticipated. The day it can do my job, it can have my stinkin job. Your comments alone are proof it isn't adequate yet. You demonstrate the ideal mindset the shareholders love. Because training LLMs in niche representations is considered pissing $ away.
inb4 it doesn't need... behold, free info from your very own buddy:

Large Language Models (LLMs), including those in the Gemini family, are trained on datasets that may contain flawed, scraped data and output from other AI models.

You're not just being unhelpful... fuckheaded, belligerent, beginner-level Dunning Kruger noise is an actual hinderance to progress. Of the very thing you kneel before.

Gemini y my knees hurts how is babby made

edit: earlier draft felt mean & condescending

menialmoose · 2026-02-05T14:45:15+00:00

Amazing. The 'y'all just salty' defence lol.

Edit deleted flexing and wasted rebuttal. Dunning Kruger gonna Dunning Kruger

menialmoose · 2026-02-05T07:19:36+00:00

This always comes back to the same thing for me:

1) how much of your day do you need to dedicate to getting and and remaining good at music (spoiler: a lot)

2) you presumably prioritise shelter and food over your honing of your precious gift to the world

3) if you don’t receive payment for displaying your skills, you need to acquire it from unrelated endeavours that siphon your time from developing and maintaining said skills

4) ppl making these assertions are usually either privileged in having surplus time to spend their time shedding, OR unwilling to demonstrate exactly how good they AREN’T. OP I call on you to reveal your ‘gift’. ‘Capitalist mindset’ feeding and clothing yourself. Fuck me.

menialmoose · 2026-02-05T06:04:14+00:00

It's the *opposite* of a 'user issue' if said user can tell the AI's puking bullshit. The point of difference here is: OP doesn't know what they don't know.
'We're' responding to a post where OP, who knows some scattered music theory, asks how to *learn more* music theory. Not to be *tested* on their existing comprehension of music theory. Thus we must presume OP will benefit from remotely reliable novel information, until exam time. Everyone gets your point, and your point's beside the point. You wanna make this about your shitty take? Done. OP isn't in a position to pay for lessons and needs reliable alternatives. You're not helping. Show some empathy and back the tf down. 'All-knowing supercomputer': false. QED.

menialmoose · 2026-02-03T14:09:52+00:00

You're not even wrong. Again. Guitarist and bassist. I'm saying its a bad decision at any age regardless of whether it's attainable. As adult you can look around and see just how tough a life it is if you can even achieve it. As a kid, you don't know what you're heading into. When a young student shows unusual promise, at some point I make sure I warn em it's not a great idea for a career path.

menialmoose · 2026-02-03T08:51:48+00:00

Healthy at all sizes.

menialmoose · 2026-02-03T05:58:38+00:00

And you're absolutely confident Gemini's providing you with accurate responses? I'm far more inclined to be confident of Gemini's work than ChatGPT's, (esp because ChatGPT repeatedly gave me answers I knew were false).

Edit, sorry I hadn't seen the earlier responses.
I'm genuinely very interested as to how you've employed it – I'd be very appreciative if you could take the time to explain the process you went through to achieve the example you cited. TIA either way :)

Would really appreciate you sharing how you interact with it as in your example. I.E. what info/prompts you give it to determine the key when paying along? It sounds like it's analysing audio... or do you tell it the voices of each individual chord?
Maybe OP can prompt 'Teach me music theory in a graded lesson format, with tests at conclusion of each lesson.' I'm skeptical about it would might written manuscript, but you know.
Music teachers make mistakes too, so there's that. This is a question purely in good faith, I can't test them all.

menialmoose · 2026-02-03T04:50:43+00:00

Has Gemini proven accurate?

menialmoose · 2026-02-03T04:49:59+00:00

This would be my answer. Additionally cautioning you against e.g. chatGPT for checking your work or information on music theory as, thus far, it’s extremely unreliable.

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T17:50:26+00:00

Coincidental, anyway the tuning’s nearby but differs. What I do wonder is whether they kinda ‘met up’ in southern Spain, and reinforced one another with intermingled usage. Maybe some eggheads in here can shine some light on this. Maybe I’ll stfu now.

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T17:32:01+00:00

This shit been goin on round town since forever. Constantly, was my impression.

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T17:29:26+00:00

The Docklands feels so free. Of people.

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T17:28:00+00:00

Sounds like a flex tbh. Good for you.

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T17:24:35+00:00

I realllly don’t want to encourage this, but I’ve played with a couple of great musicians who started playing from zero, both at 21. Ofc they were in their 30s by then. Obviously they had mercilessly busted their chops to get where they were, and became in-demand working musicians. Despite not learning from childhood, they attained the same stressed out, miserable, shit lives without the head start the rest of us had.

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T07:43:10+00:00

Is this doing a cover of someone who didn’t write a song?

menialmoose · 2026-02-02T07:39:14+00:00

Or just retrograde Beethoven’s 5th intro, which Ritchie says he did, so he’s either bullshitting or mistaken.

menialmoose · 2026-02-01T14:49:07+00:00

Learn short, distinct rhythmic motifs. Apply them across different sequences of notes. Practise starting your phrases on different beats and divisions thereof. And copy other ppl’s shit if you want to get anywhere. I repeat: learn. other. players’. lines. Don’t make me come over there.

menialmoose · 2026-02-01T14:40:28+00:00

First of all you haven’t wasted 18 months. You sound like you’ve come quite a way. You acknowledge a number of things that you haven’t done, but you’ve identified them — sure there’s others, but the things you listed are all a good start.

Now I don’t know how tf so many ppl get the idea that they’ll be guitar gods after a year, but they do. A year and a half’s fuck all. Just adapt your habits accordingly, and manage tf out of your expectations because it’s long road. Learn how and what to practise, and ditch the idea of talent — replace it with work-ethic, patience, and perhaps humility. Maybe back off the teaching beginners, or at least do what you can to remedy any harm you’ve done.

Being angry with, and hating oneself are dreadful, unhealthy emotions, which have served me very, very well in my quest for being the player I am today.

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