O/T: Read this article about Music Theory from Spring Day Music

I will mail it too you.

Cheers

Danny,

Well, you can always make up a great melody without theory. We all got music in our soul waiting to be sung. And notation is just a primitive way to put music on paper. If you got a good ear and practice a lot, you'll probably do things the right way by instinct without knowing why.

If you on the other hand is arranging music, making orchestral symphonies or trying to find some nice chords on the guitar, every bit of theory you can digest will become a very handy tool (I don't like the taste of theory!). A prime example is my pal Jan, he knows a bit about musical theory. Every tune I do sounds 25% better after he has figured out the best style and chord progression to go with the tune. And that might be the difference between good and great!

Cheers,

You know... When I play by ear, my mind is telling my fingers I - IV - V - ii and so on. and my ears have been trained to know what each sounds like.

You can't make a direct comparison between things. You can only draw a simile to help explain. Either way, it sounds like you know enough theory to talk about it and I doubt, in fact would be willing to bet, that you would never opt to forget what you know. I can't remember the last time I sat down with a score and tried to figure out where I was using parallel octaves or where my leading tone didn't rise but I know what it sounds like and fix it intuitively when I play. I often catch the subtle mistakes in players I have over and those players are the theory deprived ones nearly every time. When I point out that a different inversion or a subtle change in melody would make the performance stronger, they always agree but they don't know why. We do because it is easy when you know the math. That is the meat and potatoes of why all musicians (and songwriters) should know theory.

Danny Taddei

Hey blues man,

Give yourself the treat of learning some of what jan has to share with you. You'll be amazed at what comes out of you after you do.

Well, I don't like to rule out intuition and instinct. Music Notation was developed in order to be able to 'Record' the music so others could play it and thus entertain. I guess we children of the 20th century have never had to worry much about that because we could just put on a record or turn on the radio for instant musical entertainment. Never forget, however, there were traveling minstrels in the middle ages, most of whom could not read a lick of music yet moved from town to town singing and playing while spreading news from town to town. These guys would be the early Singer-Songwriters of which we have such a richness in today's world.

There are so many great musicians and songwriters that can not read a lick of music and know little if any theory. I'm not saying it's not good to know theory, but I am saying don't let it stifle your creativity in the process. 'Rules' are broken in art forms by those that are not shackled down to the 'rules'. I can think of many, many times I have seen rules broken in art where the results were fantastic. I see theory more as guidelines rather than rules.

I posted this on the wrong thread as I had the one above (on my reader anyway) expanded and it looked like this thread was part of the one above, sorry.

There's a lot more to it than reading the script, my friend! In actual fact, as you learn to write songs, you are picking up theory automatically - you can't really not use it. Theory, and by this I'm talking more about rules of harmony etc. is a tool to enable you to develop your creative instincts. The only people who see it the other way round are those who just couldn't be arsed looking at it.

and they justify it by saying it stifles their individuality!

I know this because I used to be just like you, and I bet you hate being told that as well.

Your only problem (and the problem is yours!) is contempt prior to investigation.

P.S. How can you be sure you break the rules when you don't know what they are? (cos I'll bet you ain't broke one yet!)

Mike

You're right on the mark Mike! I thought we were talking about rules of harmony. Reading music isn't theory, it's more like walking upright. Theory is the physics of music while script is science week report on what was discovered written in layman's terms. If you don't study theory then you haven't studied music. If you learn a piece of music by ear then good for you but I'll bet anyone $100 that I could learn a piece of music faster then them if you put the script in front of me and not them.

Either way you slice it, you are not a competent writer unless you fully understand theory. You are an incompetent player unless you can sit down and play what I have written. These are not snobby words. They are words of fact and reality and if you take offense to them then you had better rethink why. You either know or you don't. If you know a little then you will undoubtedly crave more. And for those that need another simile, think of it as writing lyrics without any vocabulary. You might mumble some pretty syllables but what good would it be. You did intend to tell a story and paint a picture didn't you? That is what theory is to music. It is physics and vocabulary.

I'd study some music theory but I'm afraid it would turn me into Jarl Sigurd. Jay Seeley

I finally figured I'd read part of this thread and these lines really made me think. A few years ago I took my old car to a repair shop. It wasn't a franchise or a part of a big company, just locally owned. The owner races cars on weekend. He made the comment that 'real mechanics are hard to find.' I figure that explains why a lot of times car repairs have to be redone. Re-repairs have had to be done on my 23 year old Chevy's brakes and on the complicated computer driven cars where I work. I don't know much about music theory but I know more than I did two years ago and hopefully know less than I will two years from now. From cashiers who can't make change, people who can't hardly add or write without machines, mechanics who can't find that obvious vacuum hose hanging loose, we've all seen the effects of the lack of training. Music of course is more like a luxury than a necessity like reading, writing, arithmetic, and mechanical skills. We make music (sound) from the time we're born so maybe it is more basic and the abolition of it's beauty and perfection really does make a difference. After all, they didn't play music in Afghanistan for five years, did they?

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, I don't know if these statements are true Danny.

If you can play what I've written, does that mean you're a competent player? If you can't, could it be that I am a competent writer but you are not a competent player? If Itzhak Perlman can't play The Devil Went Down To Georgia, hmmmmmm, what does that mean? Of coruse, Perlman and Charlie Daniels can probably play each other's music to some extent. What does that mean? Is Perlman alive? Does he even play fiddle......uh, I mean violin?