Music Theory Rule I Dont Like

[ShawnG]

there are two points here where we diverge:

1. you seem the sort of anti-intellectual that actually believes that expertise, skill, and knowledge don't really exist and are simply the product of arrogance and gatekeeping. someone who makes a complex subject seem simple COULD be a genius that understands it fully, and has an empathy that allows them to communicate that to others, but more likely they tend to be people who simply pass on their flawed misunderstandings, or demagogues. AKA "dumbing it down". Not just in music, this trend, is among the absolute worst things to happen to modern society with the advent of the internet. Sure, there's arrogance and gatekeeping, it exists. it's not the real issue. No matter what you do, there are people who do it better, and know more about it than you. It's real. Aspire to know more and do better, rather than demand they recede.

2. you aren't actually proposing a system, and the idea is not at all new. you aren't the first person on the planet who has thought about whether it would be nice to have a system of musical notation that is more digestible. For example, with my primary instrument, there is a thing called guitar tablature, that enabled me to flip my middle finger at standard notation in the mid 80's and hunker down with the latest issue of guitar world instead (now replaced by internet tab sites). And certainly that made learning songs on the guitar easier, and became a cottage industry of its own, and ALSO resulted in a multiple generations of guitarists that can't read music, can't identify the chords they are playing or play inversions, and learned box soloing instead of learning the fretboard. The tabs help you get to a certain place, and if that's all you want to do, that's great, but if you need to interface with musicians outside of a garage band environment, you're fooked. there's been tons of EZ sheet music as well, that spell everything out, and piano roll tutorials etc... but in the end, if you really want to do music, you should understand it. Do the work. you are only hurting you. Take it from me, I hurt my own development with this crap.

[juno987654321]

We do not actually diverge that much. What you wrote there is quite sensible to me. I'm also not an anti-intellectual and I can see the danger of dumbing things down. Sure! And still there's nothing like good tutorials (or musical sheets) that break things down. Such things won't prevent me from learning. They will help me making progress much faster! If I could download some sheet music of my favorite piano pieces and there would be the kind of notes on it that students make when they analyse such a piece (like chords, colors, circles around units that belong together...) then how come you think this might somehow prevent me from learning? That must be some kind of misunderstanding? Students could just share their analyses and put them online as edited sheet music. I don't see the problem!

If you can think about the information that you get and if you compare you will find out where they go wrong in tutorials but I can't really see why the internet should be blamed for spreading too much misinformation. Most explanations you find are still good and often if people try to explain stuff they make their human mistakes but at least they often try to help and they don't want to misguide you on purpose. It's a gesture of good will and benevolence and that's what counts most!

If I'm not proposing anything new then let me at least have remarked that the realization of this idea hasn't spread enough yet and it would be good if it did. You simply misunderstood my message a bit but actually not that much, and after all I appreciate it that you didn't judge as quickly and as destructively as others here did because I'm sure the concept of sharing ideas and showing some compassion isn't that bad after all and you seem to at least have gotten the gist of it.

Good luck with your band!

[jancivil]

Yeah, no, the disrespect for music teachers, or really everyone in a position to sort you, is sehr uncool. People deserve to be paid, musicians have a bad enough time getting by.

[vurt]

We do not actually diverge that much. What you wrote there is quite sensible to me. I'm also not an anti-intellectual and I can see the danger of dumbing things down. Sure! And still there's nothing like good tutorials (or musical sheets) that break things down. Such things won't prevent me from learning. They will help me making progress much faster! If I could download some sheet music of my favorite piano pieces and there would be the kind of notes on it that students make when they analyse such a piece (like chords, colors, circles around units that belong together...) then how come you think this might somehow prevent me from learning? That must be some kind of misunderstanding? Students could just share their analyses and put them online as edited sheet music. I don't see the problem!

there are such books, unfortunately they are for beginners, so will have "beginner" songs.
theres trying to run before you can walk, youre trying to run before youve been born here.
you have to start easy and work your way up, you cant just magickally read it and overnight become a "pianist". its not that easy, on the other hand, its not that difficult either, if you start easy!

i didnt read music very well, preferred tablature (guitarist at the start of my journey)and then didnt really need either for what i was doing.
then i grew up, had a family, settled down a bit, got more seriously in to doing things, synths became accessible with vsts, so was then trying to work stuff out on guitar, not really knowing the neck positions/note names and doing very basic stuff (suited the edm type dance ) or more ambient, not really caring about notes.
then i wanted more!
so signed up for a music course, one part of which was i needed to perform a piano piece for a grade towards my degree oh shit!
got a tutor, showed me hand positions and a lot of stuff you dont think about, that will save you lots of hand pain later on, correct fingerings and such.
within a few months i was able to play, sadly not sight read, still cant do that, have to practice bar by bar, or maybe 4 if its easier stuff.
but i had to start, at about 30, playing baa baa black sheep and other rubbish
by the time the performance came round, i managed the piece, fur elise
not a terribly difficult piece, but i was fairly pleased and passed

only time ive ever played a real grand, on a stage scary shit!

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Fortunately, my sequencers do not a living fck about notation, so neither do I. I haven’t written on sheet since music school in prime 90s. My machines and me stick to the piano roll and automation lanes. Clear and unambigious musical communication.

[juno987654321]

You two guys are nice! Let me hug you!

If you managed to play Für Elise, Vurt, you're quite good. The fast passages and what comes afterwards aren't that easy at all! Good!

It's the piece I chose to learn when I did this together with a friend from the music department when I studied myself back then (something other than music).
I gave private lessons in my subjects as well when I was a student, though of course not in music. I'd always want to support the right kind of guys first nowadays, knowing from my own experience how much they have to struggle their way through...

But yeah, there were also the kind of creepy people in this department who were total snobs and who were never able to think out of their little boxes. I used to ignore or just laugh about such people, especially if they were "professors" who thought they "got it". Luckily they were always replacable so you could just dodge their courses and stick to those who were really able to teach you something in more understandable ways. So I left the others bragging with their little specialized knowledge and so you could always think "f**k them!" to yourself...

I'm still very open for reading and analysing sheet music, sight reading, music theory and all that, but it's just very depressing if people think this is something that only the elite could do and I can understand that a lot of people then find it scary to even start with this. Everybody could do it! It's just about practice and time! People don't have time any more. That's the problem. If people had more time and if playing music was somehow "sponsored" like they sponsor commercials or soccer or drinking beer and smoking cigarrettes, then all of my neighbors who live in the same street could do it! Don't even think that you're something special if you can play something from Chopin or Rachmaninov. Everybody could do it if they just had the time and the money OR if they had grown up in families where they are taught how to play this stuff right from the beginning without even being asked if they like it or not!

[vurt]

earlier, you said something about the title of the for dummies book, being self deprecating

as a learner/beginner or if we are seeking knowledge someone else has, then there is nothing wrong with admitting "i know nothing" and even making jokes about it to lessen the embarrassment "oh god no, im a complete idiot at that!"

[juno987654321]

But that's not necessary, Vurt. There's no need to do that EVER. It's just natural that as a beginner you know "almost nothing" and nobody should be expected to somehow feel sorry or small about that or apologize for this. We all know much better than others in the fields we've specialized in and they may know nothing about that whatsoever. An idiot would rather be someone who shows no interest in anything. But a beginner who is curious about something new should be welcomed and treated gently and in accordance to their level of knowledge. That's why I don't like such titles even though they are meant in a jocular sense. It just feels wrong and it does not feel funny to me. They should have chosen a title like "... for new explorers" or something thelike.

I can't remember that I ever disrespected any good teacher, just ignored the ones who obviously wanted to show off more than really teach others. Real teachers have always been my friends. But a good teacher has the ability to come down to the same level as the learner and talk in plain and understandable language and NEVER diss a student or make it seem like a certain idea or question was stupid or talk back in a language that the learner obviously can't understand and that will just make him or her feel small. This does need a good amount of empathy and flexibility in thinking I must admit, but a certain amount of that should be expected from everybody...

I also never said that teachers shouldn't be paid. I just choose the ones I get along with best - that's all. I'll leave the others alone and that's just natural and no big deal. I've always been glad if I could walk around people who didn't show the compassion I felt I deserved. You make your life a lot easier if you stick to those who you get along with best and avoid all the unnecessary trouble.

I hope that has clarified things a bit. I generally don't bear grudges but I do speak my mind.

[BertKoor]

Everybody could do it! It's just about practice and time! People don't have time any more. That's the problem.

Available time is in the core not the problem. Got any idea how much time a day on average a teenager wastes on FaceBook, Instagram, TikTok, NetFlix, whatever? Hours & hours. People choose not to invest time in learning music.

When I was a kid I got lessons on the recorder with a classroom full of kids. It costed next to nothing. Two seasons, I think it was 20 lessons per season. After that I could basically read music. Not very good, because I found it easier to just listen to what others were playing and repeat it. I pick it up by ear with less effort than reading the notes.

When moving house some years ago I found the music sheets I used when playing a theatre piece in school, all music we had written ourselves. Sheets? I had just one page for a thing that lasted well over an our. For each song I wrote down maybe two lines with some chord names, the general structure. Can't make head or tails of these "notes" anymore, I basically did it all from memory. Others that used proper staff notation can still reconstruct it.

Anyway, low threshold cheap access to a music school is important for kids. But that's politics, your local government needs to sponsor it.

And popular music has changed. You don't need any knowledge to make it. It does help when talking to others about it, but we've had some generations already of successful musicians that can't read or write notes.


Oh and there's another thing. Learning to read and write takes a considerable amount of effort. Not talking about music now, just yer ABC-XYZ. Kids from 6 to 12 spend at least an hour per day in school learning to read and write. 5 hours a week, 40 weeks a year, in six years that sums up to 1200 hours and I may well have underestimated it. That is a mind boggling amount of time invested in that one skill. It is not simple. The teacher knows best what material to give the kids so it has a bit of a challenge so they learn something new, but not too challenging so they give up.

One page back you sounded a bit like a 7-years old demanding for newspapers to be printed with all words hyphenated and somewhat bigger line distance, making it easier to read. That ain't gonna happen, and you know it. If you want the skill to read everything they throw at you, you have to invest time in the skill. I'm not sure it's worth it, each to their own...

[jancivil]

"If I could download some sheet music of my favorite piano pieces and there would be the kind of notes on it that students make when they analyse such a piece (like chords, colors, circles around units that belong together...) then how come you think this might somehow prevent me from learning? That must be some kind of misunderstanding?"
How does the goalpost get shifted to this flagrant strawman? That isn't what happened here, why lie?

Underneath this deliberate and constructed misunderstanding, you have a misconstruction of the function of a sheet music. You could *actually* do that work for yourself, just head down/do the work instead of all of this posturing how it's not your deficiency, it's everything else. How are all of these extra jobs like teaching you theory or form to be funded in this sheet music? Wouldn't add to the cost now would it? Guess it should be a free download or that's corrupt as well.

You should listen rather than talk. Seriously.

[jancivil]

Fortunately, my sequencers do not a living fck about notation, so neither do I. I haven’t written on sheet since music school in prime 90s. My machines and me stick to the piano roll and automation lanes. Clear and unambigious musical communication.

I haven't composed music from notation since early 2006. I was in the habit of writing everything down, more than one way and ideas were generated on paper, not necessarily through staff notation (I wrote a lot of rhythm down, I had a system, worked on any kind of paper). I remember that change, I remember fully realizing it's an extraneous whole layer or layers of activity; capture the idea by the record button (or 'write' notes directly to disk and hear them) and yer on yer way home.

The durations in musical notation are but strong hints; we don't *know* until we hear it. It's exceedingly rare for a person to not only believe the notation is sufficient but try to realize a viable music product in a notation app. I've seen exactly one person do it, and it was beyond impressive (while being to me an insane waste of time which we find was spent in avoidance of getting familiar with the DAW ways).
In the piano roll application, duration is real, it's the length of the bar you draw. In a samples library a staccatissimo is concrete and definite, on a page it's a shorthand sign. Shorts? How short.

In the world before the modern fully developed DAW, there was a huge gap between the initial notion or idea and its realization. It took having many skills quite exceeding one's musical toolbox, fitness in society, in terms of material wherewithal, let alone luck, to get there

The expectation of bypassing these steps, however, should one want to have useful chops, is bogus.
What's the goal, though?

[juno987654321]

Everybody could do it! It's just about practice and time! People don't have time any more. That's the problem.

Available time is in the core not the problem. Got any idea how much time a day on average a teenager wastes on FaceBook, Instagram, TikTok, NetFlix, whatever? Hours & hours. People choose not to invest time in learning music.

When I was a kid I got lessons on the recorder with a classroom full of kids. It costed next to nothing. Two seasons, I think it was 20 lessons per season. After that I could basically read music. Not very good, because I found it easier to just listen to what others were playing and repeat it. I pick it up by ear with less effort than reading the notes.

When moving house some years ago I found the music sheets I used when playing a theatre piece in school, all music we had written ourselves. Sheets? I had just one page for a thing that lasted well over an our. For each song I wrote down maybe two lines with some chord names, the general structure. Can't make head or tails of these "notes" anymore, I basically did it all from memory. Others that used proper staff notation can still reconstruct it.

Anyway, low threshold cheap access to a music school is important for kids. But that's politics, your local government needs to sponsor it.

And popular music has changed. You don't need any knowledge to make it. It does help when talking to others about it, but we've had some generations already of successful musicians that can't read or write notes.


Oh and there's another thing. Learning to read and write takes a considerable amount of effort. Not talking about music now, just yer ABC-XYZ. Kids from 6 to 12 spend at least an hour per day in school learning to read and write. 5 hours a week, 40 weeks a year, in six years that sums up to 1200 hours and I may well have underestimated it. That is a mind boggling amount of time invested in that one skill. It is not simple. The teacher knows best what material to give the kids so it has a bit of a challenge so they learn something new, but not too challenging so they give up.

One page back you sounded a bit like a 7-years old demanding for newspapers to be printed with all words hyphenated and somewhat bigger line distance, making it easier to read. That ain't gonna happen, and you know it. If you want the skill to read everything they throw at you, you have to invest time in the skill. I'm not sure it's worth it, each to their own...

This time I must say I really like your post BertKoor. There's some message to it and it's constructive, thoughtful and more "philosophical".

To the other post I won't comment too much further because I can already see where this is going.
It's negativity I prefer to keep out of my life. I'm not here to cause any trouble or fall into the trap of being made to do so. I expressed my opinion about snobbish people IN GENERAL, nothing personal.
Music to me is one of the last things to take refuge in in such a society.
I don't feel like arguing about shullbit now. I wanted to share some ideas that may be constructive and interesting to some who are willing to understand things in more benevolent ways, but sorry: I've got more "important" things to do, like learning how to play music, even though it won't get me any money or material stuff they nowadays focus on so much. But trouble is nothing I want to find here...
It's all good. Sorry about upsetting you. I didn't mean it like that. Let's move on to different topics then, shall we?...

[jancivil]

The thing that occurred here was someone tells another who has asserted that this should all be available in downloaded sheets, how there is a process where you work with a teacher; and that gets knocked down in a gesture, how teachers aren't really the teachers. Self-defeating and it doesn't impress as critical but just negative.

I remember about as much of learning to read music as I do about learning to read language. Slightly more, actually as I remember getting the difference between written at concert pitch and written for the transposing instrument, in my case Bb trumpet (sounds a tone below the written note). So before I gave up on that due to orthodontry I was reading and transposing, and in the fifth grade (the material in class was already transposed but I was looking at other sheet music, lead sheets/popular songs etc 'at C'). And I'm not a particularly early bloomer here.

I guess this is a big deal to the extent of one's aptitude. A course in form and analysis is a pretty advanced thing, it's never going to be attached for free to sheet music. I would say that the student who is going to get all of this purely independently or in isolation, rather than have teachers and courses is exceedingly rare. And that someone in their forties will be a bit further along...

By the time I had 'Form and Analysis' available to me it wasn't an actual course, it was 'fine, so you want a course in Form, write a paper on something significant and we'll grade you on what we thought of that effort'. I'd guess that this kind of thing as a graduate student involves a sort of guidance counselor. To have that opportunity reflected years of work (and you find the time or you don't), tho. But no, now we should all be able to grab a free download and be sorted at once.

[juno987654321]

If I can afford it in the future I will get back to my concept of paying and supporting the right people, such as students. I generally like to teach and be taught by the young ones. That's always been my thing.
It's just all very complex if you have to struggle your way through and that stuff you can find online always helps a bit, though, truely there is NOTHING like a human being who you can work with on a very individual level to build up something of personal value (as opposed to for outward success).
Taking part in such courses would also be something I'd be VERY open for, but, you know, managing your life and finding the time to breathe... As BertKoor pointed out above (or at least as I understood it), society has changed and time for the more musical things or time for thinking has not really been promoted in those last decades of ours. This is something that could actually make you become a bit grumpy because it's just very bothersome and there's nothing wrong about being grumpy for the right reasons from time to time...