The ignorance is bliss fallacy

[Topiness]

After all, which is better: learning from your own experience? Or learning from your experience plus the experiences of every other musician since the dawn of written communication?

Seemingly a rhetorical question - but of course the latter is impossible to obtain.

And the breadth of musical experience is not evenly published. The massive bias in favour of 'western classical' is one reason why a lot of more recent endeavours are 'murky' when it comes to theory, as you said before.

The question is, if your style of music is timbral interaction, as you put it, then what would be most worth your time doing:

search for 'Music theory' in google / your bookstore?
search for 'Psychoacoustics'? or a guide to digital audio?
or just twiddle some knobs, and listen?

[Toxikator]

All of the above.

The way I see it you will be the best musician you can when you understand everything there is to understand about music. And, while it's an unattainable goal, working toward it means expanding your horizons, enriching your current knowledge, and practicing.

[Topiness]

All of the above.

The way I see it you will be the best musician you can when you understand everything there is to understand about music. And, while it's an unattainable goal, working toward it means expanding your horizons, enriching your current knowledge, and practicing.

I think we're converging. But I did ask 'what would be most worth doing'. Another way of putting this is, what would be the thing to do first?

no right answer, of course - but if you agree with me that there is at least validity in just twiddling knobs first - the 'stupid' or 'ignorant' route, as we were talking about before, then we don't disagree at all.

sadly, life is too short to travel all the roads we might like to - sometimes you have to just choose a route and enjoy it...

[The Colorado Kid]

I think trying to be fairly encompassing of as much of what's going on now + stuff from yesteryears is what frees you up as a composer to do almost anything, as just about everything that could be done (almost), has been done.

Classical is good to study because it came 1st in almost every way. At 1st, slowly, & then quicker & quicker. Every other music I can think of has followed a similar path (only quicker), but if you want to see who started eloctronic music, you have to go back to the 30's, 40's, & 50's to the classicly trained experomentors doing their thing long before anybody ever heard of Eno or The Orb.

Personly, I've followed a conservative path, but I'm aware (more & more) of most of the musical stuff that's going on. By knowing quite a bit about most phases of music, I can sprtinkle a little bit of this & a little bit of that into what I compose.

Better not to be ignorant. Of course, you're always going to have the occasional Paul McCartneys who can do quite well w/out even being able to read music, but I note that in his younger years, he was friends with both Stochausen & Berio.

[Toxikator]

I think we're converging. But I did ask 'what would be most worth doing'. Another way of putting this is, what would be the thing to do first?

no right answer, of course - but if you agree with me that there is at least validity in just twiddling knobs first - the 'stupid' or 'ignorant' route, as we were talking about before, then we don't disagree at all.

sadly, life is too short to travel all the roads we might like to - sometimes you have to just choose a route and enjoy it...

I'd say that by the time you're writing music you're "practicing" and "experiencing" music. Everytime you put fingers to instrument or fire up your sequencer you're gaining experience. I'd say couple it with constant reading/learning of new techniques, concepts, approaches, etc. which you then in turn practice, so when the time comes you are well versed in a wide variety of things. I think you'd find that in so doing you gained the practical, "unteachable" musical experience as well.

[Freeform]

music theory is a slave to environmental influence anyways.

[Goggle]

It's pretty much human nature to NOT want to learn from others and make your own mistakes. Hence tons of wars and bad attitude all around.

[metrosechual]

Kurt Cobain.

End of story.

[nuffink]

Kurt Cobain.

End of story.

Hardly.

[shinken]

It's a question of: do I benefit if others attribute subjective notions of value to received doctrine? It depends what I'm selling. If you're not in it for attention or for money, then you have your theory and I have mine, but it's unlikely we will ever know even a tiny fraction of the multitude of musical theories in the world today (although software might help us to do a convincing imitation of any genre).
Let's start another thread: The money is bliss falacy...

[metrosechual]

Kurt Cobain.

End of story.

Hardly.

actually i think it says alot. That someone could know nothing of music theory and yet write some very cool stuff -- but at the same time, the opposite can be true. It really depends on each person. Just dont let personal feelings, pride, or preconceptions get in your way.

but of course, your way is probably best right, fink?

[shinken]

If mum doesn't like my music then I know it's no good LOL.

[nuffink]

Kurt Cobain.

End of story.

Hardly.

actually i think it says alot. That someone could know nothing of music theory and yet write some very cool stuff -- but at the same time, the opposite can be true. It really depends on each person. Just dont let personal feelings, pride, or preconceptions get in your way.

but of course, your way is probably best right, fink?

Probably. I suspect that music theory will outlast the death of the patron saint of emo.

Just a guess.

[shinken]

Immortality AND bliss?? Where do I sign?

[Amberience]

If mum doesn't like my music then I know it's no good LOL.

If mum doesn't like it then I know it's probably pretty good.