I don't know what you think. But I think that, as we incorporate information, we base ourselves on that information to create, compose, etc.
And I don't mean "create" but to create "fresh" things, things that do not exist.
So you want to compose pop, and you resort to information, you want to compose rock, and you resort to that information. But you want to do something new and I think it's hard for our brain to accept that "new" or never heard it before. That is to say, let's suppose we do something "strange" our brain will search if that information exists, then it will give us a feeling of rejection or that it sounds bad, because there is no coincidence in our knowledge to allow that to be something new.
Well, even though this idea was always in the back of my mind. I've always wanted to make music for cinema, movies, etc. But I know very little about it, so I will have to resort to "information". I tried to do something these days and it sounds like the music of "back to the future" or "ET" and I think that's because in my head I recognize that information as "acceptable" information for film music. And when I play with other chords and tonalities, it sounds "weird", "not acceptable" it sounds like "pop song" "rock" "indie" etc. I feel that I must follow other parameters. So here again the question I ask myself "is it really necessary to resort to existing information" and the answer I give myself is "yes, if you want it to sound like movie music". And I think this happens with all music, and not only in music, I think in art in general.

So.....what do you think about this? I mean whether knowledge can limit fresh or new creativity.

 

It depends if you want to make a serious contribution. If you want to find new things then you had better listen to as much as you can and use that knowledge to avoid the known. The beginner often feels 'spoiled' or 'rail-roaded' by their first foray into the world of what has already been done. Trammeled by the ancients! You need to get over that and assess your creativity dispassionately. Most of us are synthesisers and there are many combinations yet to be found. Try this as a starting point: I am not special. Discuss ;)

 

Great question. I've thought about this before. I think knowledge can hinder certain aspects of inspiration, but at the same time I think it can open up entirely new rabbit holes. It can definitely box you in if you allow it to.... Learning to treat knowledge as a sort of solid platform, & my creativity as a sort of bungie cord attached to that platform is something I wish I could master.

 

Know.

 

For every single person whose creativity is inhibited by learning music theory, there's several thousands of people whose creativity is unlocked by learning music theory.

Unless you're the chosen one out of those several thousands, you're better off experiencing and learning as much as you can or you'll be forever mediocre.

Replace 'music theory' with whatever comes to mind.

 

Short answer: NO
Longer answer: You may need time to assimilate what you've learned and make it part of your own expression, but once it's done, it does not make you less original. You just have more tools at your disposal, which you may or may not use. (ie: I know theory, I dont use theory every time i compose)

 

So you telling me I have to not know any words if I want to write an interesting story?

 

Interesting point, I had not thought of that.

Edit:
Well, that's an interesting point. Of course, you can't write a story if you don't know how to write.
But, now think that before you wrote the story, your story was bigger than what the words now allow you to write. Maybe that's hard to imagine, since we know how to communicate (apparently in its entirety). How do you know the totality of the words?
I think I got it.
You have that feeling that is in your mind, that story full of passion and magic. But you can't put that feeling into words, because it is conditioned precisely by the way you put that feeling into words.

 

The problem is, other people can't go into your head. If you want to communicate something, you have to put it into a form.

 

Nothing anyone says or thinks of hasn't been thought of before. Its the human condition. Sacrificing the amount of time and effort doesn't satisfy most peoples ROI to materialize that said idea etc .The beatles were revolutionary , but that was also because of the limitations.They had large constraints technologically, and information wise. Thats why the Indian influence on some of their tracks was "new" . The merging 0f genres was hard because it was so difficult to get exposure to other world music unless you traveled there . the travel experience prob also added to creativity ( think theory vs practice in terms of life experience and which one holds weight ). Think about how many steps it would take to get specific music from other countries into the record stores. Think about how theres no marketing to those records and you wouldn't really know some genres exist. new information is added to your palette. Adversity/exposure/ trait openness/ trait conscientiousness s creates new things

 

Last edited: Aug 21, 2022

For example, I also believe that when we like a song and it produces certain feelings in us, we have previously listened to a similar song in our youth or childhood. So it can make us happy, sad, thoughtful, reflective, etc. And as musicians, we can recognize the way that song is made. For example for me chords like Fmaj7 give me a feeling of nostalgia and "magic" so to speak. The major chords sound to me like joy, the minor chords also like nostalgia. But why? if we look at the music industry, many sad songs are composed with chords like fmaj7 or minor chords, as well as happy songs with major chords. I'm not saying it's all exactly like that. But I think (maybe I'm wrong) that if you want to make a sad song, you will resort to certain information, or if you want to compose a happy song. From this perspective, I think that there is also a conditioning factor.

 

Pitching your arm hurts. Eating food feels nice. The way major minor effects the brain are similar across humans ( for the most part ). When you have anatomical functions that react in a specific pattern , it creates an algorithm/ expected response. There is also a fair amount of literature on the psychological/physiological in regards to music that you would prob find interesting.

 

My answer is Bach (and he known theory more than most musicians ever)

 

You should acquire knowledge and learn something, otherwise there is no progress either.
You should keep your curiosity and learn to be amazed again.

As children, we were all in a good mood and then came school and work.
As a musician or artist, one uses more often the other half of the brain, namely the not rational, but intuitive/creative.

But you should also be able to enjoy the music of others and not constantly analyze.
It's like with food you don't want to know how it was made, which animal died in agony for it.

Also you do not want to know and what efforts and hardships so many a song was created. So actually you don't want to know everything.
Major is the happy and minor the sad tone gender. However, we have a 12 tone music system - in it are the 7 root tones. That's all there is and it's amazing what you can do with it. It's like ABC with its 26 letters + 5 umlauts. From this is the whole language.

Something else to the music industry: Most of it is done by a few extraordinary talents - see film music.
The rest is simply copied and copied or stolen. Then there are studio musicians who are paid per hour.
The industry wants to earn money with it and become rich or stay rich.

If you are looking for good music experiences go to music pubs, where live music is played and also get something of the live atmosphere. Sitting in front of YouTube at a desk is somehow very sterile and lonely..... !

 

What a good point this is. Just since I was learning how a song is made, the magic in which I perceived that song, went away, I mean, it's not the same anymore, I don't have the same perception and even that "magic" that it provoked me when I didn't understand almost nothing of what the song did. And I wish I couldn't analyze the songs, I really wish I could push a button and my brain just listens to the song without analyzing it. I think it becomes intuitive. I think it happens to all musicians, or maybe mostly to those of us who play music by ear. I don't know.

 

No. I does not happen to me. I can still listen to a song without analysing it. Just to enjoy.
Only if there is something that is particularly interesting to me, but not obvious, I will trigger my theory tools and try to understand what is this and how it's made.
When you learn theory, there is a stage when you use to pass every music trough this analysis, but at some point it becomes part of you and you can use it or not, at your own will.

 

Knowledge becomes an issue when you start getting comfortable with it and treat what you know like it's all there is.
You should systemically do some weird random shit. You can and should always learn more.You should always use your accumulated knowledge, but treat your *ago* like you know *nothing*.
Apart from job interviews, that is. There you should treat interviewer's ego like *they* know nothing. That's the only exception.

 

Last edited: Aug 22, 2022

Knowledge can make less talented people less creative because they're more likely to select well-used methods of doing things, such as strictly following conventional music theory rules. They often don't have the creativity to recognise when something is leaning towards sounding trite and derivative - or worse, they realise that this is happening and feel frustrated with their work. Creative people on the other hand constantly review what they do and watch out for tired, overworked elements. The more creatively experienced they are (I believe it's a skill we can develop) the less likely it is they will produce mediocre output.

Then there are the naturally creative types who pick things up without reference to theory, although this isn't really true because in fact they've probably internally and unconsciously analysed how music works, they know the difference between major and minor and many other elements, but they have a limited basic knowledge of these things... Complexity isn't important though, it would be quite refreshing to watch Paul McCartney hammer out his songs on a piano moments after a dazzling Chopin performance by Artur Rubinstein.*

*I have no idea who Rubinstein is but it's important to appear like you know what you're talking about, just like it's important to give the impression that you know what the hell you're doing when you're playing music.

 

Last edited: Aug 22, 2022

This debate has become very interesting (at least for me). I find many interesting points of view, and I've been thinking about it all day long. And analyzing things that were said here. It is worth noting that you are very intelligent people when it comes to reflecting.
I have also thought about other situations outside of music and it leads me to think that we also live conditioned by information. But I don't want to go off topic.
I wanted to share with you these audios with 3 different siutations. I hope not to bore you.
And as for my point of view, the musical information tells us what may be happening, but this musical information, at some point was suggested to us, and we have taken this as a reference, and it is in turn what we will take to create.

In this Situation A
Even though you do not understand what the person is saying. The music is suggesting something dramatic, suspenseful, right? . I don't think it's suggesting a romantic situation, for example.


Situation B.
Now I have changed the riff from minor to major and I didn't make a degree change as in the other one.
Well, this information already sounds more cheerful, suggesting that something good is happening, even though the person speaking is not understood at all. Again the information



Situation C.
Here I respected more or less the same by doing the same degree change as in Situation A, but with major chords playing with octaves and seconds.
Now again this kind of information, suggest us another information, maybe of adventure, of emotion.


Well then the point is that, when it comes to making songs, I think that I or at least in my case, this information conditions us to do new things. Since if we want to do something sad, happy, etc.. We are going to resort to different types of information, since our brain will recognize that as valid.

Privileged are those people who break these "chains" and do totally different things, as has happened in history.

 

You definitely need foundations, so you can speak the same musical language and understand what and why others do their way.
Then you have to decide whether you want to follow the trends in which case, I'm sorry, you will always be late. Trendy IMO means going after the trends, in other words: being late.
Creating new trends: either you need some kind of obsession of something odd others have never understood/valued and you just have to keep persistently representing that by the time it is finally valued by the dispirited audience (by the new lows of the latest trends) or you must have a sort of autism for that same approach.

But the most common way is, if you want to accelerate and kind of cheat the process, your success (of achieving new ideas) will depend on the amount of mind-altering drugs you take.