What one bit of Music Theory was really helpful that caused your songwriting to improve ?

[jancivil]

so if everyone is playing a part in the song that goes from Bmin to Amaj to Gmaj, and you have to come up with a solo or a lick or a hook for that part of the song, and i have never heard what they are doing, i would be focusing on constructing my parts out of the notes that make up those chords.

per:

the scale is my own territory. meaning i can play notes in major or minor depending what other people are playing.

Terms need clarifying here: when musicians say "in major or minor" they mean key. Sticking to chord notes of the chords (this is unclear in the first statement: B min et al *chord* or *key*?) is not necessarily 'in major' or 'in minor'. Bm, A, G chords in a song can all belong to the key of D major: vi, V, IV; or B minor in its unaltered 'natural' state. 2 sharps.
Or G Lydian; or A Mixolydian.

...agreed before hand a rock & roll feel and vide to the music, and (I) do not want to explore experimental music.. i would not be trying to incorporate notes that might be found in fancy dorian or mixolodian scales

But Dorian or Mixolydian are not fancy experimental music concepts.

Carlos Santana's thing was Dorian: Gm to C vamp and Dorian soloing. Mixolydian is like major with a flat 7. Flat 7 is more 'rock' than major. Vamp A to G, when A feels like home, a simple 7 note set which belongs to it is the A Mixolydian mode. If G feels like home, G Lydian. Rock guitar solos use these all the time.

[telecode]

Ah, I'm not going to elaborate further, enough is enough. There's a nice-ish vibe in that track but the sound I find very cheesy and hyper-commercial.

Fair enough.

[jancivil]

In my experience, electronic musicians are of the opinion, mostly, that playing with their toys can account and make up for a lack of any real knowledge of music. Even a simple 3 chord progression with 7ths and 9ths is beyond those that don't put their hands on an instrument - unless they intend to trick their way out of that one and download some midi.

The disclaimer here is that I don't refer to all electronic music, but even in electronic music, I'm still of the opinion, that the notes and rhythm are king, and a single conscious musical decisicion is king over a thousand random results.

I literally despise the tricky, sneaky, easy way that avoids intent and elevates the result to the 100th floor of success, meanwhile, completely ignoring the fact that they've skipped the other 99 floors. Again, disclaimer, this is not ALL electronic music, but there is a lot of it.

It's a type of not-really-musicians you see eg., here, and this impression must have been fostered by the EDM crowd.
Electronic music is a far, far larger field of endeavor. I had an electronic music lab availed to me at SFCM which had been there for a while before I was there. Alden Jenks - I linked to in the other thread, "Oral History" - talks about the history, things were 'you could pretty much do whatever you wanted' back then and his lab there was just that. Everybody in there was highly motivated and pretty advanced (exception being me, still that pure modular for me is too much) technically and the whole enterprise was about experimentation. You weren't let in the doors not having your basics, it's a music conservatory at the end of the day.

Wendy Carlos is an electronic musician. Dalia Darbyshire. Morton Subotnick.

These infants have hijacked the term electronic music, and it's passing sad to see this remark for me.

Googled it just to see, and yep there's a bunch of images of Avicii and that lot.

[Stamped Records]

To be honest, I do make the distinction between electronic music and EDM, I don't find that electronic music is a fair term to be used for EDM, but likewise, I don't feel that 'dance' music is a fair term for what I would consider to be quality house and techno, of which there is some. Avicci was a bit too commercial for me, but he was good and brought something musical to the table so I don't do him down. Actually, EDM is often more musical than so-called progressive styles of house and techno, I struggle to comprehend where they got the audacity to hijack the term progressive from for a lot of this shit. I mean, Pink Floyd in comparison to, beat, beat, beat, beat, melody in the middle, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, finished. C'mon.

I think a lot of this 'dance' music just shouts laziness at me, I don't think it's because it's what anyone would really like to do, that they are doing it, but because it's the only thing they can do. I for one am chasing that all important intention, deliberacy. Art is a high word for it because I can't necessarily attribute a meaning to everything as much as I'd like to, but I'm trying to raise the bar, to climb the ladder, and it really really irritates me how many people are happy just sitting on the bottom floor, not even trying to find something uniquely musical, or looking for that uniqueness in the place that it's easy to find just by random actions alone.

Layer two synth sounds, out of the 10s of thousands on a typical hard drive, and it's likely nobody has done it before, automatic originality and open spacious stereoised sonic greatness to boot, this is, yuck.

[vurt]

why not enjoy your own journey instead of getting worked up over how others travel?

[jancivil]

I never could stand an Aviici track all the way through, the music is too vapid. I did hear around 1/3rd of this one thing by 'needle-dropping': a country music record which was very well produced. And I mean the literal use of the term as if producing a record, the engineering and mix etc, but it wasn't his music; except the arrangement, which in the end has the trademark infantile EDM characteristics. It seemed almost like taking the piss, a joke, but I suppose it was sincere. Gross. It was a nice, honest C&W track up to then.

IE: it strikes me it was the country cats who have it on the ball there, not him, and he appropriates it like it's hip to.

[jancivil]

why not enjoy your own journey instead of getting worked up over how others travel?

Well, one has to locate themselves vis a vis the rest. It's just being critical, talking about the cookie-cutter grossness of it all.

[Stamped Records]

If that's Avicci you're talking about, yeah, I think I know the song, or maybe more than one of his of that style. It was fresh and original within a category so I gave him credit for that from the perspective of production itself, rather than writing. But at the same time, once they reach a certain standard, I'm sure they have studio assistants do the most nitpicky parts of the production, I know I would.

With respect to queries as to why I bother observing other people, well, it affects me greatly in that my journey has been made more difficult by the lack of genuine understanding among the peers that could have helped me, and, in hindsight, it serves to give more drive towards what I see as an earnest goal. This observation has therefore become part of my journey. In a way, I think I'll be better for looking at how rubbish people actually are underneath the bells and whistles, that I would be if I was in an alternate universe, standing in awe of how great and immeasurable the work of every last musician is. Kinda a bonus how shitt people are, looking at it from a certain rose-tinted angle.

Another quite funny (but not actually funny) aspect of this whole scenario, is that if you go and look for a course to learn dance music production, it's all macro. I remember when I was starting out, the first bit of advice I was given as a newbie was, it's all about the kick and the bass - well, hey man, thanks for that top-class advice, but I think I'll try and learn some music before I become a kick/bass expert. It's all just zoomed out nonsense about how to join the parts together and very little genuine knowledge of what constitutes the parts.

Also, loopmasters now have a plugin that sits right in your DAW, you don't even have to browse the internet for samples and loops anymore, it's updated by a robot in your DAW. I mean, some people's idea of creative is using a house loop in a techno track. Imagine the novelty.

[jancivil]

If that's Avicci you're talking about

Apparently we're both spelling Avicii wrong
nom de plume anyway, he has a name, which I also care enough about to remember/not

[jancivil]

I took a music theory course at community college at age 18.
I knew some things about music and I was the arranger for a prog rock band, I knew jazz chords not too shabbily, and like that.
However I would try to get an idea of what JS Bach was doing in an organ fugue and I realized, I lack the skillset to get how this is constructed.
You literally have to know things I didn't. Even if you had this superhuman ear some people I knew did, you would have to understand the part-writing very specifically. Funnily enough, I never did have a counterpoint course (I did not want to spend my time with 'Species' and Fux) but ultimately I can wind up doing that Bach sort of thing as a matter of course in tonal 4-part writing.

I would say that if your peers are like that description of yours there, it was never where to look for guidance. Once upon a time, again this, there was no such thing as all that nonsense, where "production" is supposed to stand in for writing.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I gave him credit for that from the perspective of production itself, rather than writing.

Well, he co-wrote both of those original 'country' tracks, whether you give him credit or not. It may not be high-art (whatever bullshit that amounts to), but these tracks managed to fuse elements of Country, Pop, and EDM, in a way that not many other EDM artists would even think of doing.

From all evidence he had a vision, and from the very little I know about him - the talent, to break out of the confines of his 'given' genre. It's a shame he didn't live long enough to fully realise it.

[telecode]

so if everyone is playing a part in the song that goes from Bmin to Amaj to Gmaj, and you have to come up with a solo or a lick or a hook for that part of the song, and i have never heard what they are doing, i would be focusing on constructing my parts out of the notes that make up those chords.

per:

the scale is my own territory. meaning i can play notes in major or minor depending what other people are playing.

Terms need clarifying here: when musicians say "in major or minor" they mean key. Sticking to chord notes of the chords (this is unclear in the first statement: B min et al *chord* or *key*?) is not necessarily 'in major' or 'in minor'. Bm, A, G chords in a song can all belong to the key of D major: vi, V, IV; or B minor in its unaltered 'natural' state. 2 sharps.
Or G Lydian; or A Mixolydian.

...agreed before hand a rock & roll feel and vide to the music, and (I) do not want to explore experimental music.. i would not be trying to incorporate notes that might be found in fancy dorian or mixolodian scales

But Dorian or Mixolydian are not fancy experimental music concepts.

Carlos Santana's thing was Dorian: Gm to C vamp and Dorian soloing. Mixolydian is like major with a flat 7. Flat 7 is more 'rock' than major. Vamp A to G, when A feels like home, a simple 7 note set which belongs to it is the A Mixolydian mode. If G feels like home, G Lydian. Rock guitar solos use these all the time.

yeah. but carlos is a much much better player than me. plus, he's been playing much longer than me.

[Stamped Records]

I gave him credit for that from the perspective of production itself, rather than writing.

Well, he co-wrote both of those original 'country' tracks, whether you give him credit or not. It may not be high-art (whatever bullshit that amounts to), but these tracks managed to fuse elements of Country, Pop, and EDM, in a way that not many other EDM artists would even think of doing.

From all evidence he had a vision, and from the very little I know about him - the talent, to break out of the confines of his 'given' genre. It's a shame he didn't live long enough to fully realise it.

I agree, I'm just saying it wasn't really something I would hook onto myself, but I didn't hold anything against people for liking it, because it was different, fresh and creative, not just some regurgitated rubbish. I've read interviews of Avicci and liked him as a person.

[jancivil]

Whatever, if we're doing straight to opinions, I think C&W with EDM glommed onto it at the end is aesthetically a fail as to basic integrity, it doesn't so much as work IME. You can call it vision, fine, no skin off of me really, but I really don't buy that.

[jancivil]

As to really knowing who wrote something, there are things out there, published and distributed (and known) that are 100% my composition with other people taking some of the credit, for all that. Because they could.
As a real world sort of assessment, I like my supposition someone who writes C&W as a living wrote the actual music for the song better than reading a credit off a CD or whatever. There's a whole style o' life and worldview to latch onto all of a sudden there, so no, my guess is he stood on somebody else's shoulders for it.