Is it always necessary to follow Music Theory rules?

[The Nerdy Music Guy]

Yes, you have to, all the time. I have to be able to wake you up in the middle of the night, tell you to sing the notes of the c# phrygian dominant scale backwards in 11/8 while I scream random notes from the F double harmonic scale in your ear.
If you can't do that, you music making license will be revoked!

Seriously, music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive.
There are no rules, not even guidelines.
Music theory is just a way of naming things and making them repeatable. Hear something you like? Music theory can tell you what it is, so you can add it to your tool box. Next time you want that sound, you know how to get it. That's all there is to it.

[digitalboytn]

Music theory describes and prescribes the architectural form...

Structural focus is important because most objects require some degree of framework...

But creativity is the spark that takes that form and translates it into another dimension

[Erisian]

Learn the rules then learn how to break them creatively. The same with any art form.

[vurt]

yes! just do as youre told!
no room for rebels in art.

Dude.. Stop it!

You know full well that there's loads of room for rebels in all arts... But the idea that any musical conformist, anarchist, agnostic or even AntiChrist can join in effectively without at least a bit of basic music theory is total bollocks!

Music theory is an enabler and it expands possibilities rather than restricting them... Anyone who argues against that just doesn't understand the wide scope of the phrase!!!

Now Vurt. I want at least two unicorns or even a flying horse.

🦩
you can crossbreed the last 2 for a flying horse type thing

[Erisian]

A unicorn is a good analogy. We have the existing formalities of a horse and a horn but we break the rules when we put them together. As long as the artist is happy with the end result of course. Against love, there is no law.

[vurt]

love is the law.

of course theory is important i did not mean to imply it wasn't.
schools and grading curriculum do ruin people perception of it though.

being told 'you can't do that' when your heroes do it, makes it a confrontation rather than a learning experience.
curriculums could do with updating a little.
yes! bach and co are important, but if little timmy or tammy, love edm, you're gonna bore the shit out of them.
whereas if you approach it from their side, you can encourage growth and as they grok more, widen horizons.

obviously, not all music tutors/teachers are the same, some will do as i suggest. others won't.
same as any subject, the right teacher can make all the difference, just here unlike science or maths, taste plays a role.

get em hooked, that's the goal. then they will desire more knowledge!

[Erisian]

+1

[Melkor]

My impression is that academically classically trained musicians like Michael Crețu ("Enigma") have an advantage over those who don't know any music theory. So studying music isn't useless!

On the other hand, having a palette of colors doesn't make you a great painter, so creativity is important, too. Not only painting by numbers.

He would've had a difficult time creating that harmonic atmosphere suitable for laying samples of Gregorian chant.

Those singers hit some really funky notes sometimes

That first album seems to be almost entirely based around an Am-G "Aeolian" motif and vibe, which keeps recurring throughout the album, in different tracks and variations.

My older brother bought that album on its release, and hammered it for months, so I became pretty familiar with it, at age 12.
But, it seems I was more preoccupied with learning the solo to "Enter Sandman" at the time, so it was later that I came to appreciate that album.

[Tricky-Loops]

My impression is that academically classically trained musicians like Michael Crețu ("Enigma") have an advantage over those who don't know any music theory. So studying music isn't useless!

On the other hand, having a palette of colors doesn't make you a great painter, so creativity is important, too. Not only painting by numbers.

He would've had a difficult time creating that harmonic atmosphere suitable for laying samples of Gregorian chant.

Those singers hit some really funky notes sometimes

That first album seems to be almost entirely based around an Am-G "Aeolian" motif and vibe, which keeps recurring throughout the album, in different tracks and variations.

My older brother bought that album on its release, and hammered it for months, so I became pretty familiar with it, at age 12.
But, it seems I was more preoccupied with learning the solo to "Enter Sandman" at the time, so it was later that I came to appreciate that album.

I wasn't that much into music theory in the 90ies that I would have analyzed the "Enigma" albums.

I was more into literature, writing, journalism, making layout and posters on my AMIGA 500 (I never heard of trackers, unfortunately, as I didn't know computer musicians), poetry, nature, plants, essential oils, religions and philosophies (after leaving my local Evangelical church) and later learning how to drive my red Fiat Uno...

But I still have somewhere at home the cassettes from his first album "MCMXC a.D." and of his second album "The Cross of Changes" which I bought in the 90ies. Nowadays it's easier to me to listen to the complete "This is Enigma" playlist on Spotify (a few times in the year)!

Anyway, I changed from an enemy of music theory (I had the most boring music teachers of this planet at school and had to sing the most boring songs in the school choir) lately to a friend of music theory and wish I would have studied it like Michael Crețu!

[Melkor]

Another thing that is recurring on that album, is the half time drum loop that repeats endlessly throughout.. he got a ton of mileage from that by, essentially, adding slight variations in complexity and tempo, and tastefully bringing it in and out as needed.

He basically extrapolated an album, from just 2 chords and a drumloop.

Creative stuff

I don't know how he got the chant on there, but I'm ASSuming that he got them from a CD or sample disc.

[Tricky-Loops]

Why all this KVR-typical negativity again

Michael Crețu made more creative songs than most of the 90ies dance artists!

I even still love The KLF and I don't care whether they used 2 or 99 chords or samples from VHS cassettes. They even used the term "Chillout" for the first time. And I find The17 choirs boring as hell, better Bill Drummond would have continued with Punk music...

Music isn't about the amounts of chords you use, it's about feeling

[Tricky-Loops]

KVR members don't have to teach me which music I have to love and which I have to hate because of the amount of different keys, scales, modes and chords they used and whether they sampled it or used expensive singers...

[someone called simon]

Surely you must have known the answer to this question is "NO" even before you asked it?

Music has been made by people who don't 'know theory'. Therefore the answer is 'no'.

[Tricky-Loops]

People might desperately inject some positivity, then the next round of sarcasm and hate starts...

[Tricky-Loops]

I never listened to an album to count the amount of key, scale and mode changes and the numbers of different chords to decide whether it's good enough or it could be better than Paul McCartney...

It could be the most complicated song on the whole planet, if it's too complicated to listen to with pleasure, it's not worth...