Rant on music theory ignorance.

[McLilith]

So. All of you who dislike the idea of theory...

Say somebody came up with a plugin that handed it all to you on a plate. Would you use it?

Hell yeah! But only as long as it didnt make me sound generic.

What if it only helped you create technically perfect Gangsta Bluegrass Trance?


take care,
McLilith

[Hovmod]

....

[tee boy]

With a hard style West coast flavor?

[Hink]

If I accomplish anything in this thread, I hope it's to help point out the folly of such over-simplified absolute statements.

Here's a simple statement:

Ignorance is bad. Chosen ignorance is moronic.
Learn everything, *then* subtract or ignore what you don't like. You can't disapprove of music theory if you don't know what it is, FFS!

no but it's quite common to validate your ignorance by disapproving and quite often being outspoken to empower your assertiveness, which is in actuality fear of the unknown. Which by the way, ignorance is not bad, we're all ignorant when it comes to many things. Stupid is bad...ignorance is not knowing something, stupid is not knowing something and still insisting you're right. Chosen ignorance is just another way of saying complacency, which is most often the final stage before the end...

[McLilith]

With a hard style West coast flavor?

Yes, but that would be the XL Pro version of the plugin.


McLilith

[nuffink]

So. All of you who dislike the idea of theory...

Say somebody came up with a plugin that handed it all to you on a plate. Would you use it?

Hell yeah! But only as long as it didnt make me sound generic.

What if it only helped you create technically perfect Gangsta Bluegrass Trance?


take care,
McLilith

What if it, hypothetically, made jazz harmony theory available to someone with no training and no manual dexterity?

[Hink]

So. All of you who dislike the idea of theory...

Say somebody came up with a plugin that handed it all to you on a plate. Would you use it?

Hell yeah! But only as long as it didnt make me sound generic.

What if it only helped you create technically perfect Gangsta Bluegrass Trance?


take care,
McLilith

What if it, hypothetically, made jazz harmony theory available to someone with no training and no manual dexterity?

then technically it would be an industrial product...no? I mean if all you did was turn on a pc...define the style of the song and it randomly created it, then the pc create it not you...I dunno

[tee boy]

I wouldnt use such a plug in, no. But Id imagine it would be very useful to commerical producers - video game developers, jingle writers etc.

I like to think of it like this:

When I make track I love to get down and dirty with all the little details. I love making sounds, synth patches, live recordings, because with this comes a depth of understanding that cant be achieved otherwise. For example, have a good knowledge of sound design is invaluable not just for sound creation, but for all aspects of production.

Same would go for your example. You may be able to get by with this hypothetical plugin, but without an active understanding of what you're doing, you're really just ambling around in the dark.

If fact, knowing about music theory is quite analogous to producing your own sound design. Its about knowing the inner workings of the craft. You dont have to do it, but if you do you're skills will increase exponentially.

[McLilith]

So. All of you who dislike the idea of theory...

Say somebody came up with a plugin that handed it all to you on a plate. Would you use it?

Hell yeah! But only as long as it didnt make me sound generic.

What if it only helped you create technically perfect Gangsta Bluegrass Trance?


take care,
McLilith

What if it, hypothetically, made jazz harmony theory available to someone with no training and no manual dexterity?

What if it did? Gee, I don't know. I suppose there would be a perceived "danger" of lots of people making generic music with jazz harmony.

I'm sure that a lot of the "more educated" musicians would look down their nose at anything which was created with such a plugin. They probably wouldn't give the music itself much consideration.

I don't have a very strong opinion on this imaginary plugin one way or the other. I suspect that I might not want to rely on it too heavily, even if I did use it. After all, the primary point of my doing music is to express myself, not to listen to a machine express itself. I could possibly see myself augmenting what I created with what the machine created, at least in small doses.

I might have a limited interest in such a plugin.

How is that for an answer?


take care,
McLilith

[tee boy]

With a hard style West coast flavor?

Yes, but that would be the XL Pro version of the plugin.


McLilith

Sweet, I get on Kazaa and dl it pronto. Thanks for the heads up

[tee boy]

Ironically, a lot of jazz / classical muso's actually think that such a device already exsists - the computer!

I used to work part time in a music shop which specialised in high end brass and woodwind. There were some great players who visited that place, but some of the misconceptions they had were criminal.

[nuffink]

What if it did? Gee, I don't know. I suppose there would be a perceived "danger" of lots of people making generic music with jazz harmony.

I only used jazz harmony as an example because it's fairly comprehensive. If our hypothetical plugin could handle jazz harmony...

[Hink]

you know nuffink...I wonder if a parallel could be formed with what you suggest and what television has done for people's imagination?

[McLilith]

If I accomplish anything in this thread, I hope it's to help point out the folly of such over-simplified absolute statements.

Here's a simple statement:

Ignorance is bad. Chosen ignorance is moronic.
Learn everything, *then* subtract or ignore what you don't like. You can't disapprove of music theory if you don't know what it is, FFS!

Since you insist on using such language:

FFS Hovmod!

I don't disapprove of music theory in general. I find it to be a helpful tool in many cases, and I respect many of the people who have invested the time and energy required to master it. (I'm pretty sure that I've indicated this earlier in this thread.)

In this thread, I have explained that I have taken a very casual attitude to learning more music theory. I am in no hurry to master traditional music theory, because I'm personally having enough fun as it is.

I repeat, I don't disapprove of music theory, or most music theorists. I simply choose not to pursue it agressively for my own personal reasons, and I would hope that people could still respect me, in spite of that personal choice.

What I do disapprove of, is people who insist on making over-simplified, emotionally-charged, over-reaching statements appended with little barbs like "FFS!" !

If you are going to argue with me, at least read what I wrote, and argue about what I truly did say--not something totally orthogonal to what I said. You have over-simplified and misstated my position on music theory. You then employed your own over-reaching and over-simplified "absolute" statements to attack what you incorrectly claimed my position to be.

I repeat:

If I accomplish anything in this thread, I hope it's to help point out the folly of such over-simplified absolute statements.

You post actually goes a long way toward proving the validity of the remark you were responding to.


sweet dreams,
McLilith

[nuffink]

you know nuffink...I wonder if a parallel could be formed with what you suggest and what television has done for people's imagination?

I'm not talking about some kind of auto-accompaniment program here, Hink. I'm imagining a plug-in where the user chooses the chord. Just that the whole palette is available to choose from.