Is using chord plugins and tools cheating if you do not know music theory?

[ghettosynth]

BB KING CAN'T PLAY CHORDS

So it stands to reason all the songs he wrote needed somebody if not Chord VST to sort it, because 'can't play' means' 'has no understanding of'. slow clap for that

Nope, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that one can be instinctual and create music, even using tools like a chord VST, which BTW, is little different from the thousands of different chord books for guitarists that have sold since the beginning of time. One does not need to know how to construct those chords in order to learn the fingerings and play them in time.

One can write songs without even knowing chords. I've played with singer/songwriters who would just start singing a melody and had absolutely no idea what notes they were singing or what chords would harmonize with their melody. The band would just play along, details to be worked as the process progressed. I would argue that a significant number of rock bands write this way.

How much theory and when you learn it is completely a function of one's goals. Learning theory has a value, and an opportunity cost. You have to decide whether one trumps the other.

[Forgotten]

I think the significant difference between someone using a chord VST and B.B. King is that he decides which chords to use in his songs rather than get a piece of software to do it for him. He might not be the best chord player in the world and might not have any knowledge of theory, but he does it himself.

Someone can of course create music with a chord VST, but it feels much more akin to playing prefabricated music as opposed to actually composing something. As has been said a few times, composing doesn't necessarily mean knowledge of theory or even how to form chords or pick out the correct notes from a scale, but people with an instinctive talent still make the decisions about chords and melody themselves.

Not sure I agree that chord books are little different from a chord VST though - chord books don't compose music for you, they're just a reference for a musician who still has the task of deciding which chords to use in a piece of music.

[jancivil]

BB KING CAN'T PLAY CHORDS

So it stands to reason all the songs he wrote needed somebody if not Chord VST to sort it, because 'can't play' means' 'has no understanding of'. slow clap for that

Nope, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that one can be instinctual and create music, even using tools like a chord VST, which BTW, is little different from the thousands of different chord books for guitarists that have sold since the beginning of time. One does not need to know how to construct those chords in order to learn the fingerings and play them in time.

And you know for a fact that all this individual does is ape chord fingerings out of... wait!
Which chord books? Was the exercise of looking at the video of BB King discussing his use of chords (Next Up in my playlist, hilariously enough) just to cherry pick whatever you could in order to gainsay the posting of it? Is that what this is for you?
So BB King, knowing how to construct the chords, as the video Next Up in the YT playlist illustrates, still illustrates BB KING DOESN'T KNOW FROM CHORDS, as you feel perfectly free to stick to your points even though there's that refutation right there for you. Typical.

which BTW, is little different from the thousands of chord books

1) so, the new goalpost, rather than 'chords plugins versus music theory' is firmly 'learning music theory from the tools'?
Ok then.
2) If you really listened to BB talk you'll have heard him say when you go to your V, between there and the turnaround there can be this open space where you can try all sorts of things. That's awareness of music theory, that's not somebody just aping fingerings. He clearly knew what a 9th chord was and he knew when he was leaving off the root in what the interviewer called 'fragmented' chords; he, like most of us, preferred not to use all six strings, but 3 or 4. That could be innate but knowing the chord is essential to it. And this from someone that didn't bother much to play chords, a lead player preferring to play lines. On electric I was that type, and I was never a rhythm guitarist. I've outsourced that role later in life. It does not mean I don't understand it.

One can write songs without even knowing chords. I've played with singer/songwriters who would just start singing a melody and had absolutely no idea what notes they were singing or what chords would harmonize with their melody. The band would just play along, details to be worked as the process progressed. I would argue that a significant number of rock bands write this way.

I would argue that a significant number of rock songs suck donkey dick for beer money. And that the more interesting music is not all your chords from a guitar in parallel because the guitar player doesn't know how to voice. Et cetera. Yeah, different goals, no kidding, I never realized.

I pretty much acknowledged people work by ear. I worked with a singer with no theory for years, sorting it, creating something more viable for the studio for demos and I totally know where his deficiencies located in order to do it. We had a prog band later as his curiosity grew. He had an aversion to more formal learning up to then and here was quite a different growth level than my own; eventually he learned enough to notate what he did on a piano. I'm certain once he married a nice Christian woman this all ended, however. I've touched on this era more than once. So, I find you seeking to instruct by anecdote like that passing silly if not completely pointless.

I don't know the resemblance of that methodology to someone in a DAW sequencer with Chord VST or whatever.
The last one I looked at was here from a video where the idea is to work more quickly but a fair amount of time was spent grabbing a 2 chord ("sus 2", no 3rd) and a minor chord where if_you_knew_it you would do it in appx 1/2 of a second, illustrating the exact opposite of _that_ goal.
But it works to gainsay 'it's better to know' for you, sure.


You really know how to miss a point, don't you. WHOOSH! In favor of talking and seeking to gainsay. Typical.

Here's an anecdote: I remember at around 16 picking up a little Mickey Baker chord book. I learned the flat five substitution principle even though it was one of those books that just gave the fingerings. And I grokked the voice leading:

ii7 11 - bII7#11 - i711 {i is the new ii and on down}.
bass to treble voicing:
D C F G; Db Cb F G; C Bb F G...
I didn't have a music theory class for a couple of years but I did know how to count.

is it cheating when you use chord plugins vs learning music theory?
Which chord plugins? It was asserted that this is where you get your circle of fifths and chord construction basics. In a DAW sequencer as a plugin; the idea of which is you're writing a track. If you're going to start from knowing nothing and your impulse is to get a plugin you kind of are. If the idea is other than the stated: "versus" theory, you want to get it all in one go I would say there are better, more cogent, better-designed and in all probability more efficient ways to get your stuff together, which you maybe should have thought of before 'it's time to write a track'.

[ghettosynth]

I think the significant difference between someone using a chord VST and B.B. King is that he decides which chords to use in his songs rather than get a piece of software to do it for him. He might not be the best chord player in the world and might not have any knowledge of theory, but he does it himself.

Which chords is he deciding to play here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPeTtg3fTB8

[jancivil]

I'm done, my time for sorting bullshit has exceeded a reasonable allotment by a ways. Typical wild intellectual dishonesty, I don't know who you think you're kidding trying revisionism right in front of our eyes. You think to complete in the realm of ideas on this and you simply aren't keeping up, you lack both the tools of the trade and the rhetorical skillset.

[ghettosynth]

I'm done, my time for sorting bullshit has exceeded a reasonable allotment by a ways.

Or, you could accept that BB King had a very successful music career without knowing very much at all about theory. He pursued music from a perspective that interested him, that he enjoyed, and that he was passionate about. You posted the obvious video that clearly shows him being prompted by his interviewer who clearly knew what I'm telling you and what, if you were honest, you'd admit that you know as well.

[ghettosynth]

You might be surprised to hear…

Many working blues guitarists really don’t know a lot of music theory. They developed good ears when they were young and learned the basic chords, so they manage to get by without knowing what’s going on “under the hood.”

Some started with a basic style of rock music or blues and never “graduated” to more sophisticated styles of music that required a high level knowledge of scales, chords and harmony. My view is that being a great blues guitarist is about tone, taste, and technique. And technique is last for a reason.

https://www.bluesguitarinsider.com/lear ... sic-theory

[jancivil]

Oh, one last thing (I have to try to see that post and "I'm done" means no on that) in case you don't get 'revisionism' in your failure of self-awareness:

BB KING CAN'T PLAY CHORDS, once countered as any sort of point illustrated, went right away to
"I'm saying that one can be instinctual and create music," only compounded by you thinking you needed to point that out... which that video does exactly nothing towards, so you CAN'T have been saying that, you were only trying to argue. This was compounded by sticking to your story even as there was now a video which showed specific knowledge of the use of chords. And on it goes.

It's better to know, the vast majority of efforts of guessing cluelessly in that stupid rock band scenario notwithstanding, and in any case that amount of wasted time not knowing is avoidable. WHOOOSH!

Back to something useful: again, the idea of 'music theory' has been misconstructed here. I knew a guitar player, he was one of the top jazz players in my hometown, who didn't read and couldn't really talk about what he does; yet, to play on those changes, to know what to play, innately or with whatever internal goings-on he had, is still knowing. Not needing to articulate it in those terms is actually something only possible from the vantage point of a higher level of talent. This is not a sign of 'instinct', you have to have learned the thing. One may be a Mozart and know things far faster than average. Genetically or past lives, I really do not know,

Paul McCartney knows what he's doing; if you know this move will produce that result not only this time but the next time is totally the goal of music theory.

[Distorted Horizon]

Hello,

Is using chord plugins and tools cheating if you do not know music theory?

No. You just don't get as much out from them.

[jancivil]

duplicate

[ghettosynth]

Hello,

Is using chord plugins and tools cheating if you do not know music theory?

No. You just don't get as much out from them.

Exactly correct!

[perpetual3]

If you don’t know music theory, you can speed up the initial process with a MIDI tool like Scaler and an entry level book (and website) like Hook Theory. This way you can learn while making music.

[perpetual3]

MG The Future has hours of videos on chord plugins, and he used/uses them to. Learn the theory and become a better musician.

[ghettosynth]

BB KING CAN'T PLAY CHORDS, once countered as any sort of point illustrated, went right away to
"I'm saying that one can be instinctual and create music," only compounded by you thinking you needed to point that out... which that video does exactly nothing towards, so you CAN'T have been saying that

That is what I was saying. I didn't write the title of the video, I was looking for the clip because I knew that it was a good example of the point that I was trying to make. In the clip BB King says, not anyone else but he himself says "I'm terrible at chords."

[ghettosynth]

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-exa ... sic-theory

The reason everyone cites the Beatles as great untrained musicians is that they were great. But Courtney is right: the Beatles weren't exceptionally great guitarists, or drummers, or keyboard players, or even singers. They were pretty good at those things, and had flashes of greatness. They wrote brilliant songs, but they wrote plenty of clunkers too. The main reason the Beatles are so revered is because of their ability to create studio recordings. Their albums from Revolver onwards are greater than the sum of the material, arrangements, and performances. Those late albums are masterpieces of recording, editing, mixing, and effects, of hyperrealist timbral and spatial manipulation, and of surrealist tape editing.

Traditional instrumentalists tend to discount "playing the studio" as a form of musicianship, but they're wrong to do so. We live in the recorded music era. To a good approximation, all of the music that a person hears in modern Western society is recorded. In this world, playing the studio is the most culturally significant kind of musical creativity. It's a form that's understood much better by pop listeners than "real" musicians, because we don't have the formal and analytical vocabulary to understand recordings the way we do for music theory. But that vocabulary is starting to emerge. The Beatles are standard reference points for scholars of the recording studio the same way that Bach is for scholars of counterpoint, or Coltrane is for scholars of jazz improvisation, and for the same reasons.