Experiential discovery vs. formal training in music theory

[jancivil]

"self-discovery" sounds...


dirty

[N__K]

as youve said yourself, we often don't have the terminology, even when we have the technique.

Very good point.

I always try to do my homework in that regard, or at least be sure that I understand in my own way what I'm saying - but for formal traditional things I have not studied at length, even when I get nomenclature and vocabulary right, I am at risk of missing larger contexts.

[vurt]

as youve said yourself, we often don't have the terminology, even when we have the technique.

Very good point.

I always try to do my homework in that regard, or at least be sure that I understand in my own way what I'm saying - but for formal traditional things I have not studied at length, even when I get nomenclature and vocabulary right, I am at risk of missing larger contexts.

yes, and if someone is asking for example, in regards to passing an important exam, we may cost them percentage points by confusing the issue.

we all get excited by things we learn and can do, and we of course want to help, but we have to realise sometimes, the best help we can give, is stfu. let others who can better answer put the information out clearly, so in future, others can see it too...
we also get the benefit of that wisdom too

[HAL76]

I was impressed. Until that theory monster started composing and playing an own little pop song

But yeah - I guess it´d be better to know all that like she does. But unfortunately most of us are not that patient since they don´t have that much time - ahm - over.

well, being the best ever at theory, doesn't guarantee taste

just because her song isn't great, doesn't mean the tools used to create it aren't great.

I read that as a dichtomy between knowing a lot of 'music theory' and 'creating a pop song'.
I didn't read into 'an own little pop song' as 'some music that wasn't good'.

Her litle song made me realize that she taught the theory for "not my music".

How to say? Let´s say I learned something about priorities again. Those lessons are not that relevant right now - especially sice I´d quickly unlearn them without daily practice.

I think what made music great "back then" wes the cooperation of people who brought in their skills. I am not a physician, not an engineer and for sure no piano player, too.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Part of why I started studying traditional theory is to be able to make "less weird" and "more popular" music. Predictably, my "theoretically informed", mostly-tonal tunes ended up pleasing more people than the "experiential-experimental" ones.

Really? Is this the correlation? More theory-less wierdness-more popular? Seems like Vurt has been exceptionally resistent to any course he's taken. Donkey T's music is eardriven but pretty far from wierd in my ears. Countless musicans have made music on ear only, which sound commercial, and countless of innovative groundbreaking composer's "breaking the ground" have been dependent on a trained understanding of what they were trying to break (which is not exactly the rule on KVR, all right ). Sounds more like you have been fooled by one of those "Make billlions on your music" YT-courses

There is no simple correlation to this in my book. At the Gearslutz-thread I referred to earlier people became busy lining up examples of groundbreaking artists who are/were trained or not, but with no shared pattern to be exposed. The cases point in as many directions as there are stands, and you can cherrypick examples as they fit your own.

[N__K]

Part of why I started studying traditional theory is to be able to make "less weird" and "more popular" music. Predictably, my "theoretically informed", mostly-tonal tunes ended up pleasing more people than the "experiential-experimental" ones.

Really? Is this the correlation? More theory-less wierdness-more popular?

It was so in my case. As you said, it can be different for others.

When I was composing by personal discovery, I released for years stuff about which I was told things like "your melodies are somehow 'difficult'" etc. - which they were, from a certain point of view. Most of that material was not popular in its genre, with a few exceptions where I managed to follow fairly closely the composition of some previously popular tune.

After I learned some theory (and utilized conceptual tools it provided), I intentionally made stuff [in a particular genre, for particular labels] clearly based on popular chord progressions. That was received better by larger audiences.

Some of comments I've heard after that were along the lines of "I listened to your music, I liked this one track". The liked track was in most cases some intentionally generic product based on a well-known harmonic progression, for example i-bVI-bIII-bVII (or "i-VI-III-VII in natural minor").

Countless musicans have made music on ear only, which sound commercial [...]

I am not quite one of those, unfortunately

Without at least some adherence to genre conventions learned via theoretical analysis of those genres, my stuff ends up being too "weird" and/or "difficult" for most other people.

In other words, in my case, theory is helpful in making music for others who have different tastes than myself.

Sounds more like you have been fooled by one of those "Make billlions on your music" YT-courses

Nope, I tested the hypothesis of "masses tend to like relative simplicity and re-experiencing constructs they have been previously conditioned by" through releasing various stuff for a decade or so. Some other lessons I learned from that were importance of promotion, and impermanence of trends and popularity.

There is no simple correlation to this in my book. At the Gearslutz-thread I referred to earlier people became busy with lining up examples of which famous artists who are/were trained or not, but with no shared pattern to be exposed. The cases point in as many directions as there are stands, and you can cherrypick examples as they fit your own.

I agree in general.

However, I would say that for a person who wishes to achieve at least some measure of popular success via making music, learning pre-existing music theory - even just some basics like note names, note lengths, interval names, the idea of harmonic progressions etc. - can be of help, especially when used for analysis and reproduction of musical constructs that have been proven to be popular [in particular time windows].

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

However, I would say that for a person who wishes to achieve at least some measure of popular success via making music, learning pre-existing music theory - even just some basics like note names, note lengths, interval names, the idea of harmonic progressions etc. - can be of help,

Can or can not. It may kill a musican´s motivation to rehearse names on things his body already knows and can do as easy as walking (a few gifted instrumentalists felt like that at my schools). Popular music is embedded in our culture and thus introduced to our brains from birth. No wonder our senso-motorical systems can deal with much of this without naming or deeper cognitive understanding of it.

[N__K]

yes, and if someone is asking for example, in regards to passing an important exam, we may cost them percentage points by confusing the issue.

Another very good point.

That said, is it common for people to crowdsource solutions for their coursework or exams at forums? I would expect such answers to be easier to find in textbooks, as (hopefully) suggested by teachers of the course.

Also, from my experiences in schools, doing such things during exams was usually considered cheating. Albeit, that depends on specifics and may be allowed in some cases. And, it must be said, times have probably moved on...



In any case, personally I have always thought of general music forums - including music theory sections - as places to exchange ideas between music makers.
So I have to admit that the advice to refrain from telling of personal methods sounds to me as philosophically uncomfortable, on some levels - even though there are indeed cases where it is the right choice.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

A note to theoretical training vs wierdness/innovation. Sometimes it takes training to even know whether you are "innovative" or not. Our Reason contest tune, The Plough and the Sickle, will likely sound trivial and tonal in broadest sense of the word to most, but to us, it is innovative because we strive for a subtile use of both modal and tonal cadences. We also follow Fux' rules strictly with regard to some instruments (the bells), but break them with others, like having choirs moving in parallel fifths, which breaks the first rule of counterpoint. Finally, we put it into a non-church timeparameter, namely 5/8, to reach for paganism. Together with the electronics, this is exciting alchemy to us, resulting in moods from different periods in the same tune. Trivial to others but experimental to us because we know the difference between the elements.

[jancivil]

I only ever composed for personal discovery. It just happens that I understand well that to be a radical or an innovator one is grounded in a practice, even a tradition.
"Sometimes it takes training to even know whether you are "innovative" or not." Not sometimes, this is how it is. If you aren't trained what are you innovating? Your own ass?
The notion one is going to do some sui generis shit out of nowhere is a bit of self-delusion afaic.

I remember recognizing this well looking at an interview with Morton Feldman.
(it must have been this, actually: https://www.cnvill.net/mftakemitsu.pdf)
He and Takemitsu were hanging out one day and MF asking him to pick a record off the shelf to listen to. Takemitsu picked a Sibelius piece. So MF remarks in the interview what I just said. I knew this by the time I began composing like it's going to be a way of life (at 24, after what's widely considered that decade one needs under her belt to be a musician).
My tradition, and whether you hear it in my music or not, was blues.

[jancivil]

that's the universal "you" there, note well, not je t'accuse

"the advice to refrain from telling of personal methods"
But that kind of strawmans something vurt said, doesn't it

[jancivil]

"by ear only" - this is too vague IMO
I think the late great George Shaw (he and his musical partner John Wilhelm died in a car crash coming back from a gig down to SC, both in their 20s) kind of did, but as a post-bop jazz improviser you cannot say he didn't know one hell of a lot, it was just internalized with no driving need to verbalize it.
Paul McCartney knows no theory, but he grew up with a musical household and knew how those tunes worked by osmosis and in the doing.

I knew no classroom before I was 18, one may be tempted to say I did it all by ear, but since I, like everybody else began copying off of records (and watching everybody I could and being a bit of a pest), it's not out of nowhere, my ear had to be educated even as it was entirely self-education up to then.

[jancivil]

So. If what you do is as I did, you learn how blues goes, in general, you learn a I, goes to a IV, back to I, then a turnaround typically doing V, IV, I. but if there's changes, it's going to involve the V. (OTOH there's eg., John Lee Hooker stuff that doesn't do changes or need that form)
If we're not seriously addled, we soon recognize that this is true per se, so when we recognize that E, A, E, B A E is replicatable as C, F, C, G F C we're DOING MUSIC THEORY. Come on, now.

[jancivil]

Did The Beatles innovate? Debatably, yes. Was it grounded in training? Is being around music since birth and being active with it training? It isn't out of nothing. Out of nothing there is nothing.* People that do this 'all by ear' are grounded in the past just like those who grok 'the past' largely in a book or in a room or something with a teacher's guidance.

The whole argument is pinned as formal = knowledge. "Nothing formal" means "nothing at all"? It doesn't work, does it.

(*: Big Bang out of an absolute emptiness before? Educated speculation has a singularity out of some remnant of an expired universe. Making an assertion of what was there before this universe is speculative, period. The universe happens to be made of stuff. There was no stuff at all at one time? Ok but...)

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

By ear only would imply practise to me, like rehearsing songs on your instruments, but not necessarily by reading notes. Nothing comes out of nothing. Guess it starts for many with picking up an instrument and simply start to play. Did for me too. My first keyboard was a Bontempi organ To some this ear bound imitation is enough for their bodies to learn relations they cannot even name, e.g. what a blues round is, yet they recognize the sound and know what to do. More than a few coped that way at music school making low grades in theory, but skyhigh in performance. They were not completely without concepts tho, many knew about chords and could name some scales but not much more. If you want to compose and voicelead like I did, ear bound imitation would deffo be hardest way and would likely have failed in my case.