So why DO people get so emotional about music theory topics?

[fabi]

BTW....

This isn't the main reason I "might" be emotional about music theory, but it's close to the top of the list:

Lots of time has been wasted trying to work with people that can't even play in tune, in various bands.

I just had to type that to restore "thread integrity"....

that i can understand and sympathise... still a different story if you're 'solo', 'experimental' or with a couple of guys who are all into ambient or noise and don't care much for what would be required in your scenario. i DO sympathise, though. my girlfriend's in a band and that's one of the problems they face every time they rehearse.

[VicDiesel]

With a rare exception I think the theory threads so far have been pretty civil.

The thing that gets my goat has been mostly absent from the threads so far: the "I'm better than you because I know less" attitude. That's something I've encountered a number of times in the past and it bugs me every time.

Victor.

[Bubblo]

""I'm better than you because I know less""

Less is more

[Barf]

I just don't know what to say anymore. I'd like tell you about my 'journey into music' to explain my feelings about this subject but that would take too long and I just dont know where to start.
For me personally I have to say that finally giving up studying music theory was a big liberation and brought it back the fun in making music. I also think it made me more creative although I probably cant deny I learned something from studying music theory all those years. I know some people who never learned any theory in their life but have a level of playing and/or composing that I will never reach. Its these people that still inspire me today, not the people that know very much about music theory.
Not learning music theory anymore doesnt mean I'm not learning anything anymore. It just makes me angry when people imply that when you're not learning theory you're not learning anything or dont want to learn anything, there are just different ways of learning I think.
I've played with lots of people all through the years and a lot of them knew bollocks about scales or keys but most of them were still able to play in tune. The ones that werent were mostly people who just dont listen to what they or the rest of the band were playing.

[Kingston]

trying to justify one's very personal choices in a rather anonymous forum, no wonder it gets a bit heated up in these threads.

I mean, talking to a faceless bunch on pseudonyms, I must always be right, otherwise I might lose face as well.

[Sascha Franck]

Late to the party, but well...
First of: Happy new year to everybody (even to those new years are almost pointless - as they are for me).

Anyways, I won't be able to say anything about the "emotional quality" of theory threads, but interestingly enough (at least for me), my takes on theory knowledge have changed quite a bit over the last years.

A bit of my own personal history:
I started out all "self-teached". Well, ok, someone once introduced an open string A min chord (I'm a guitar player) and the principle of barré chords to me, but that's been it, at least more or less.
Yet, it seems one of my main interests has always been to actually understand the "musical mechanics" behind what I was doing. In the end, it went out in a way that I could describe a lot of theoretical scenarios by myself. Just that I haven't been able to do it in any sort of widely acknowledged language.
Finally, I got myself some theory books and learned some things (some of them I could't agree with straight from the start - and I still can't, but that's stuff for some other threads...).
And then, I just studied music (at some music university).

Ok, during my studies, I have been intensively exploring music theory (might be connected to my faible for maths, but again, that's stuff for other threads).
Now, after a while of doing so, I really (really!) felt I was limiting myself. In those days, I have been in a band (ended up being some wannabe rockstar thing, major deal and all...) and the singer was always coming up with quite some unusual chord progressions, melodies and whatever. I have always been like "no, you can't do that!". Well, not always, but quite sometimes. And it's not been happening because I thought of some rules that one shouldn't break, but merely because I have been adjusting my mindset too much to follow those rules.
As a result (because the songs sounded just great in the singers original version) I was blaming theory a lot to actually spoil my creative senses. If you want, you can just read back some of my KVR posts on similar subjects.
But, after thinking about it for a while, I had to realize that theory knowledge defenitely hasn't been the reason for me to not be creative anymore. This seems to be related to something *entirely* different.
For instance, I have always been able to come up with nice ideas once I was distracted from everyday life - such as in longer holidays. And (obviously) I haven't lost my theoretical knowledge during any holidays.
So, I finally *had* to change my mind about "theory is getting in my way". It's not. It'll only happen once you get trapped into it too much. And that's the very reason why any advice such as "learn theory, then try to ignore it on certain occasions" has to be the single most valuable advice ever given.

I mean, as said, I'm a guitar player. Would I be able to succeed in a single rock gig if I'd be taking theory literally? No parallel 5ths? Good god, not a single famous rock guitar riff/pattern would be "allowed" anymore!

Thinking about such things really opened my eyes.

IMO, theory is absolutely great once you *need* to accomplish something "common". So, if you *need* to write a string/choire arrangement sounding like XYZ in the style of ZYX, you may as well *need* to know about things such as avoiding parallel 5ths.

Further, theory is absolutely kickass to explore and expand certain options.
Simple example: I learned all 3 inversions of a C major triad. Now, theory knowledge will tell me that those triads, superimposed over some A bass note, will result in a nice (well, ok, at least highly useful) Amin7 chord. Or a D7/9sus4. Or a Bb6/9/#11. Learn one thing, get several others for free! It couldn't become any better, really! You defenitely *won't* go there easily without any theoretical knowledge.

In the end, as much as I may have felt limited by theory at one point, it came out that all my experienced drawbacks were related to something entirely unrelated to music theory (again stuff for another thread...).

Bottomline: Theory knowledge itself IMO doesn't limit yourself at all. It's a tool. And as with every tool, you need to ignore its initial purpose every now and then.
Why do you think Eddie Van Halens Makita drill performances got so famous? Yeah right, he simply ignored the fact that a Makita drill is originally meant to fix some screws, rather than having it scrapping over your guitar strings!
Would you learn to use a Makita drill in a musical lesson? No way!


Theory "rules" IMO have to be taken as "advices".
"If you want to do a traditional 4-part choire section, you better keep an eye on those parallel 5ths". Cool advice, no? Finally you just know why your guitar chords won't translate into a choire score instantly.
On the other hand, proper theory knowledge should *never* ever keep you away from bangung out those great sounding power chords.

It's just another tool, nothing else.

[Toxikator]

But (and this is the umpteenth time it will be brought up), making a statement like "parallel 5ths isn't allowed!" is not applicable. Guitar parts aren't contrapuntal, therefore those principles don't apply. The whole "throw out everything you know whenever you need to" was an idea I used to subscribe to, but that was before I studied theory further. I was under the misguided impression that theory was only applicable for certain conditions, and that's not true. The mechanics of rock are highly different from the mechanics of classical are highly different from the mechanics of jazz are highly different from the mechanics of IDM. But theory applies to all of them. Cross pollenating "rule" sets is what confuses people, because they assume the concepts which underly one form or style or approach are laid down by theorists as rules of music.

That's not true. If theory is "letting you down" in the sense that good musical ideas are "against the rules", you should focus less on "forgetting" theory in those cases and focus more on learning the unknown (to you) theory which explains them.

Theory isn't about telling you what to do, it's about telling you what you're doing.

[xtp]

Theory isn't about telling you what to do, it's about telling you what you're doing.

I like that perception. I always pull the theory books out after I have improvised something to figure out what I have done. Then It looks like I actually know what i'm doing.

[Toxikator]

Similar story, I was in an improvisational thrash/hardcore band called the Anthropophobics. We had this one song that would play a b6-5-4-b3-2-1 note pattern, then play an identical (nondiatonic) pattern on the V below, then again on the ii, then again on the natural 6 below.

Very odd, and not theoretical in the least... at least until I understood the concept of transposed phrases, rapid modulations, etc.

[the_nihilist]

Music theory should be treated like a big set of legos for your brain and instrument. It's something that you learn from by playing with. I like playing with music theory, and I think that's the attitude one should take towards it. Too many people equate learning theory as sitting down and looking at a bunch of notes in a textbook. I think that's completely dull and utterly misses the point.

Grab your instrument and play something! Music theory is played. It's not static notes sitting in a dusty book, it's just the things you would do on your instrument naturally. It sounds beautiful, strange, familiar, sad, joyful, reticent, ugly... all theory does is just give you a way to communicate specific musical concepts. It's not the music you play.

[BASSDRIVE]

...Because people look at the same things in different ways. What may sound technically correct to one, may sound wrong to the other. It's all a matter of personal preference, there's no right or wrong answer. That's why music is so beautiful and comes natural to us humans, the possibility of sounds and how you manipulate and arrange those sounds is endless.

[camsr]

trying to justify one's very personal choices in a rather anonymous forum, no wonder it gets a bit heated up in these threads.

I mean, talking to a faceless bunch on pseudonyms, I must always be right, otherwise I might lose face as well.

And if you can't show up a bunch of faceless pseudonyms, well gosh, they're not even real people! No wonder everyone else is right always.

[Toxikator]

all theory does is just give you a way to communicate specific musical concepts. It's not the music you play.

Someone else (I forget who, unfortunately) said it best when they said "Music Theory is like Physics. Even if you do not study it you are still governed by its laws".

Music Theory is the academic effort to explain how music works. It is not relegated to specific musical concepts and, in a sense, it is the music you play.

[the_nihilist]

all theory does is just give you a way to communicate specific musical concepts. It's not the music you play.

Someone else (I forget who, unfortunately) said it best when they said "Music Theory is like Physics. Even if you do not study it you are still governed by its laws".

Music Theory is the academic effort to explain how music works. It is not relegated to specific musical concepts and, in a sense, it is the music you play.

And if I try to make music that deliberately avoids known theory, someone will attempt to extend theory to explain what I'm doing.

[Toxikator]

Assuming that the music is good enough to warrant trying to figure it out, yes .

The key word there is "known" theory.

TBH though I think you'd be hard pressed to compose a piece that was a) listenable to any single person and b) not already at least MOSTLY covered by known theory.