i am not advocating at all to not learn theory. I just feel and have experienced that the classical method of learning theory can be pretty irrelevant, and I feel it was much more useful (for me at least) to find my own way with learning how different tones interact.AK wrote:I don't think theory is going to make you write better music. I also don't see why some are against learning it either though. It's just knowledge at the end of the day, there's this irrational fear of 'if I learn theory, I'm musically trapped'. that's just complete nonesense, you just aquired some knowledge not a set of rules to stick to.
I've felt classical tonal theory was too abstracted/removed from actual personal knowledge of tonality. Resorting to a set of verbal interactions that have no relation to the mathematics of sound, or the fact that everyone understands tone deeply inside our genetic core. [Or maybe I was just exposed to too many stuffy elitist arseholes when I was younger.]
Whatever works for individual people I guess. I think there is always stuff that can be taken from anyone's theory... it's just I think it can be dangerous, and it can also be very helpful to find your own way without using anyone else's guidebook. Especially when you have totally different instruments that can play notes that people weren't using at the time, and explore texture in ways that no before could, and have all kinds of other freedom that historical musicians never had.
But, all imo, and maybe it's good to ignore me just as much as it (can be) good to ignore other things where people have said 'this is the way it is'.