damn.... am i glad i never bothered with music theory

 

your loss

 

Music theory is simply understanding music with an intellectual approach. Whatever method you use to understand your music is in fact a theory.

 

nah not really

....aaah shit, then i do know some and, apparently, my ears seem to know a lot

 

Without somekind of theory it is like exploring the world without ever drawing a map. You'll keep visiting the same places thinking it's the first time you are there, randomly visiting places without having a clue how to get back there and explore some more... among other things if you think of it.

If you build up your theory, you'll learn how to own the cool ideas you hear from others.. and if you don't, you'll probably be stuck at copying their ideas.

 

drawing a map along the way can also be alot of fun and it's not unlikely that you'll confuse other people along the way

 

That is what I said, "drawing a map". Not the same as "buying a map".

But it is true, non-theory people always get too defensive because they don't know what they're missing. Very often they feel dumb when after a few decades they start learning and realize it is nothing like they thought it was. All those ideas about theory being "recipes for music" are just plain dumb.

People should know first that THEORY arises from EXPERIENCE. We don't invent THEORY to create the EXPERIENCE afterwards. That would be like drawing maps and expecting the earth to shape itself to what we've drawn.

Stupid, isnt' it?

Food for thought.

 

think it's more that some get defensive as they are looked down upon by people that did try to learn and not just from experience. thought that is again depending on their ears hearing if the stuff they do is right or wrong. ofcourse theory doesnt mean you'll be able to make music and write the most incredible compositions, it takes more than that. ex-coworker of mine knew alot of theory and was able to play songs by others quite fast after hearing them but in his 20-30 years he wrote about 3 songs.

however someone with just ideas and a decent hearing for tones and harmonies will most of the time be able, after a few years of practice, to translate thought to actual notes on a keyboard. sure through that learning some theory but not being limited by theory (gitarist calls writer for who he wants to do a riff with the question 'dude wtf are you doing at 2:35 in the track, it goes to some note and i cant find it. -it goes from note to that note. -what?? huh?? thats not supposed to work.... how the hell...???).

but hell i dont know shit and what started with making a joke turned into a huge discussion for which, tho funny, i dont have time for atm. i'm gonna have a few drinks and later work on some more maps

 

Music theory isn't about right or wrong.. just like a map has no right or wrong places.

Another common misconception. If you want to limit yourself to some theoretical idea, that's fine, you do it as a framework and ultimately because YOU want to. I don't really know how people still think that freedom comes from moving your fingers on the fretboard expecting that something cool might come out.


But yeah, you're right, these discussions are almost always pointless and usually the ones picking up something from it are the silent readers.


To me, having a non-theory person talking about how much better it is to not theorize/analyze things is like having a virgin telling you that abstinence is much better than intercourse.

 

I see the "theory is limiting" argument occasionally. And it is as wrong now as it ever was. That's like saying, the manual to a piece of audio hardware is limiting your use of it. Theory enables you to, in full advance knowledge, access the sounds and expressions you would like--with no guesswork. It is actually intensely liberating to have even a basic understanding of intervals and chord building. A structural engineer would never argue that physics is irrelevant to building a skyscraper. Music comes down to the way that frequencies interrelate mathematically. Once you understand Pythagorean tuning, you will no longer doubt the wonder of music theory. I hope this helps. Good luck!

 

dude i thought we were gonna leave my virginity out of this....

 

Truth.

 

and yes ofcourse i know a few scales and work with them, i just found that some things were limiting possibilities, though it might make sense when knowing the whole theory and still fit in the theory. also being abstinent doesnt mean someone's a virgin but that's a whole different discussion

 

https://scontent-mxp1-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=91ea157d54e648fc5c506b3184aec359&oe=56CC8831

 

When you know it "correctly" you realize you don't have to memorize scales, shapes or whatever. When you really know things in a theoretical way, you KNOW.. and memorizing is not knowing.

You can build frameworks and look at theory like that too.. but if you find it limiting, that should only happen if that's what you wanted in the first place. Otherwise, you got it all wrong.

 

.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 29, 2018

I'm not a keyboard player, so I always transpose my keyboard to C = Tonic. This helps me a lot with inversions and other chord variations, and it's also fantastic for banging out melodies quickly. Basically I think in terms of I ii iii IV V vi and tonic, mediant, dominant, etc.. I appreciate this may be more suited to the writing process, as opposed to performance, which as I mentioned is not my forte. The upshot is I can compose and make demos well beyond my playing ability, and hand over decent performance guidelines to a competent keyboard player.

PS mastering piano is on my 'things to do' list, but this little fudge has allowed me to devote more time to learning other important stuff

 

Last edited: Oct 18, 2015

I am looking at lots of superfluous musical maths. You can have fun with that stuff but that should come AFTER you have the foundations down.. or else you'll only be dabbling with maths and getting more frustrated about music.

 

rahter than find weird formulas that take u countless hours in order to fin d a way to learn intervals,is it so difficult for u simply counting the number of semitones that divide a not from another, doing it over and over until u even tually learn that a certain note is a precise intervel distance from another?it s actually easier than all u re trying to do.
just a little eample since it seems u have to learn from scratch:
first, memorize how many intervals take to make a certain interval,for example five semitones upwards make a perfect fourth,right? Now, imagine u have a C and u want to use it as the root for a perfect fourth interval,just count five semitones and u get to F,simple isn t it?of imagine u have a perfect fourth interval but u don t know it,just count all the semitones and there u have it.Seriously i don t see why u have to mentally wank like u do when all u need is practice.Download earmaster and use that,a few days and u ll have the basics to progress i your studies.If u want to study,if u only want t o find loopholes to do things quickly and cheat yourself,well, good luck,but don t try to sell your attempts to revolutionize the way some music elements are here because there are people more qualified than u for that

 

Last edited: Oct 18, 2015

Absolute note names are totally irrelevant to music.. which is why the math exercise with the note names is also useless (to music). It's all in the relative distances between pitches.