will i benefit from a Knowledge of musical theory

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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ive gotten into trance music and i have looked at some of the complex melodies people are using. I was just wondering (since my melodies havent been up to par) will i benefit from a knowledge of music theory? and if so, where can i get lesson? :help: :help: :D :D

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Of course, you will. But you'll have to adapt the music theory to your music genre. If you need a private music teacher in the forum, you can ask tapper mike...:hihi:

However, if you want to read a good, EASY UNDERSTANDABLE book about music theory, I recommend: "Music Theory for Computer Musicians" by Michael Hewitt

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Tricky-Loops his advice is gold. "Music Theory for Computer Musicians" is a good read.

Here are some free resources:

Raven Spiral Guide:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Musictheory.net:

http://www.musictheory.net/

Downloadable version of musictheory.net:

http://classic.musictheory.net/

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Tricky-Loops wrote:Of course, you will. But you'll have to adapt the music theory to your music genre. If you need a private music teacher in the forum, you can ask tapper mike...:hihi:

However, if you want to read a good, EASY UNDERSTANDABLE book about music theory, I recommend: "Music Theory for Computer Musicians" by Michael Hewitt
Aww Gee thanks.
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This one's a good start, video #2 of the series is also worth watching.
Don't be fooled by the name and the way it looks, might be a little childish, but it's definitely worth it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hj9v6pwTf8

Once you're done with those, you should digest what you can find here:
http://audio.tutsplus.com/category/tuto ... ?tag=basix

The Audio part of Tuts+ is a good source in general, helped me a lot recently to refresh my theory.
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No, knowledge is bad. Stay away specially of books, they are full of stuff you might learn!!

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I think theory can be a good thing if it is really getting us closer to how the ear perceives. Traditional theory ended up being very limited to me. I wasn't finding why things worked. It took the greater part of my life to figure out why I was drawn to certain things musically.

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This is a tough call actually. Some people are musically gifted and the direction they choose sometimes works better if they don't think that much about the big musical picture. When they go seeking it actually hinders their performance/writing ability for awhile till they reach the breaking point when they can move beyond fundamentals.


For others like myself who wasn't gods gift to music and had to practice and study it's a different matter. Naturals have to work like anyone else perfecting their technique and sometimes technique isn't enough.

What matters most oddly is technique and dedication. Don't try to be all things to all people all at once. Focus in on your most favored listening habits. If you're not studying jazz to study jazz or because you are in love with jazz then don't study jazz. It will cloud your mind with things you'll never use and distract you from where you need to go.


Play scales only so much as you need to improve your dexterity. If you are a heavy metal player you'll be beating the hell out of scale patterns and arpeggios. Rock, Funk, and most popular forms of music also require that you be fairly well versed in scales but they require more that you are able to learn licks and improvise with them.

Chords mean nothing out of context. It's in the rhythm aspect that chords are bread life. The best way to learn chords is to learn songs with them in it. Preferably supervised. I learned three chords before I could play a song and I never learned another chord unless it was used in a song. I know a lot of chords but more importantly I know how to put them together in a musical sense.
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tapper mike wrote: Chords mean nothing out of context. It's in the rhythm aspect that chords are bread life.
This is very true. Lots of things can work if we play them at the right time.

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No one gifted was given their talent, it was earned or drilled into them.

The principles of music haven't changed in over a hundred years, only the presentation of it has. Unfortunately, a lot of the important stuff has been left as common knowledge out of context and, as a result, is often misunderstood. That's what those 'Computer Musician' books build upon: misunderstanding and lack of context.

Chords are made from stacked melodies, and the interactions between those melodies are known as 'counterpoint'. 'Harmony' is used to describe common interactions in the context of a scale or mode, and the simplified vertical snapshot of a greater harmony is called a 'chord'. Sometimes you'll write a homophonic melody that shows up as a chord, but you'll never just write a chord into a piece.

Learning to write a melody that sticks to within an effective range for an instrument is exactly what you do with counterpoint, and every 'intro to music' trash-book glazes over it, describing it as 'part writing' for 8 pages and moving on to dedicate the rest of the book to chords and harmonic analysis.

Now, you don't need to know harmony to learn counterpoint, but you do need to know counterpoint to be able to put any meaningful effort into harmony. Before any of that, however, you need to know the basic vocabulary and be able to read notation. Those are usually taught in music theory or music fundamentals books and courses. The truth is that you'll spend a majority of your time learning the basics and spend less and less learning the more advanced stuff as you march forward, but these books have that pyramid upside-down. That should tell you something.


The most useful skill you can have as a composer / musician is orchestration, since that's the end-game: finding new timbres and making them fit together. Effective orchestration relies entirely on principles learned in counterpoint, and if all the education you have on that is 8 pages of 'part writing', then you're going to have a rough time making music for the rest of your career.

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Plasuma!!! wrote:No one gifted was given their talent, it was earned or drilled into them.
I doubt that. History is very complete with people who having little to no formalized musical education who went on to having rather successful careers in music. Irving Berlin and Paul McCartney, had no early musical training studied no traditional classical music and went on to having written not only huge volumes of music but very popular music at that.

How chords came to be and there later implementation in contemporary music form is not linear and does not require counterpoint.

One can choose to write from the chord progression first or from the melody first. The former rather then the later is the most common method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_progression
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tapper mike wrote:The former rather then the later is the most common method.
Are you sure about that? My impression is that many genres (including some soul, R&B, funk, rock, and even jazz) start from melody or even lyrics and don't ever get around to a chord progression, or apply chords after the fact. I know I keep challenging you on this point, but I really don't know if you're right and you seem to be implying that you're certain without supporting evidence other than just reasserting your own anecdotal observations.

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Perhaps you would like to provide some documentation to support your claim.

Such as Going to a Go-go. No wait that's progression based.
My Girl,.... No that's progression based as well.
Sitting on the Cock of a bay .... That too is progression based.
Repect.... Okay that's a vamp.
Stand By Me....That's progression based.

Aint no woman like the one I got.....Yeah that is melody based.

Much of what we know as "Soul music" was first developed applying gospel and blues to secular music. Sam Cooke amongst others would commonly graft familiar progressions of Gospel standards to his own work.
As well

http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/ex ... eras/C1110
Motown began in Detroit in the 1950s with Berry Gordy. His early music put simple lyrics over the chord progressions introduced by T-Bone Walker, an array of woodwinds and percussion, and a gospel chorus.
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Everyone can benefit from a working knowledge of basic music theory. How far you need to go with your studies and how much you benefit from what you have learned depends entirely on how tone deaf/devoid of rhythm you are to begin with. :lol:

Those who are unlucky enough to be 100% tone deaf AND unable to keep a beat to save their lives (but who nonetheless were forced into music by their parents or by some kind of stupidity/insanity) would have to depend 100% on the study and application of music theory to create a piece of music that won't sound like someone banging a bucket while howling like a constipated dog.
At the other end of the scale you would have some kind of savant who can compose and perform any kind of music without studying a jot.
The vast majority of us are somewhere between these two extremes. Although as someone mentioned already, too much adherence to the rules may partially or fully bury your natural instincts for music if you so have them.
Figure out honestly where on the scale you lie and go from there.

Personally, I feel I have a good sense of melody, rhythm etc in part from my paternal DNA and in part from a youth of listening to and absorbing music long before I even knew what a chord was.
These days, it's enough for me to know how scales are built, how chords are built from scales, what KEY is and to understand the circle of fifths. It's all I need, the rest is about enjoying what I do and going with the flow. If it becomes too much of an academic, almost mathematical exercise then I don't feel like I'm being creative no matter how correct the piece may be from a theoretical point of view. So like I said, it depends on where you are on the scale (pun intended).

TONE DEAF/RHYTHMICALLY INEPT------------------------------///------------------------------SAVANT
:hihi:

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The concept of savant in music is greatly misunderstand. Sure there are those who can recreate a passage well but that does not make them the writer of the passage.

Those who study music from an early age think differently then those who do not. Sight reading utilizes more brain function in different areas then any other activity.

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content ... /2794.full

There are quite a number of professionals who started early and if you are going to do something in life it's best to start early. As well there are certain non musical benefits to learning music at an early age.

While we can't reverse time and go back to the point of optimal music education we can make the most of our abilities and knowledge to expand them both.

Great knowledge is not required to compose a pop song or for that matter a jazz song.
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