Chords and single notes

[Brankis]

There is tonal music and there is atonal music.

are you saying that tonality and atonality cannot be mixed in a musical form?

techno ?

exactly

you can make the most "atonal" sounds imaginable that are seemingly devoid of any harmonic tone but they still have a note value and can be used in a scale. to me its the difference between real music and a bunch of random sounds on the timeline. probably why so much bad minimal techno exists more than other dance styles like house

[Brankis]

Also there's a great sounding Animal Collective album where they tuned every instrument used to a recording of a piano from a friends house that had naturally drifted out of tune over some years that they liked the sound of. There was a storey relayed by one of the members of band about the piano retuner that came to tune their studio piano to the recording of the old one... once finished he said... 'there you are... it's now perfectly out of tune' (!!!)

exactly, they tuned every instrument to the out of tune piano, meaning all the instruments were still "in-tune" with each other. still a structure and thats what matters.

[oblioblioblio]

exactly, they tuned every instrument to the out of tune piano, meaning all the instruments were still "in-tune" with each other. still a structure and thats what matters.

Of course I'm not saying to not follow any ideas about tonal structure.. just that Western Classical is not the only method.

[Casanova808]

I think another of the reasons that I stayed away from a lot of theory, was that a lot of theorists and musicians that i respected gave me reasons to do so.

For example, Wendy Carlos, one of the most talented composers (and theorists) of our time totally rejected traditional theory on one of her most innnovative and expressively brilliant pieces, the album 'the beauty in the beast'.

She was so against theory that she wrote the forward to a THEORY book about microtonality a few years after Beauty And The Beast.

http://www.amazon.com/Tuning-Microtonal ... 132&sr=8-2

This is after she had spent decades working in equal temperament.

I remember not knowing any theory and thinking that it was a waste of time. 18 years later, my only regret is that I didn't buckle down and learn the stuff sooner.

Basically what happens as a young musician is that you don't know anything and occasionally stumble into things that sound good. Then you learn a little theory and it starts to rule your music for a few years, and then you mature as a musician and you get to the point where you can take or leave the theory as you see fit.

Once you get past the awkward stages of learning the stuff, it is great to know. It doesn't limit you, if anything, it gives you a broader musical palette to work with. You can have more and bigger ideas because you have more tools in your bag of tricks.

If you ever want to make a career out of music, you are going to learn it. If for no other reason than the fact that you will start facing project deadlines and waiting around for happy accidents will not cut it anymore.

If I want to make noise, I can do that, If I want jazz progressions I can do that too. If something needs to be simple, I can leave it alone, if it needs to be more complex, I can go there too. Theory doesn't take away options. Being closed minded and forcing yourself into the straight jacket of "proper music" is what takes those options away. Steve Vai and Joe Satriani were always gonna suck because they have crappy taste, the theory only allowed them to suck more elaborately.

[oblioblioblio]

whatever works for you mate.

i can't be arsed to explain myself any further. i've said everything that i probably want to say about the topic. including that i don't wanna say there's a wrong way or a right way. and that i'm not totally against learning theory. in fact i'm 100% FOR learning theory. but just in a more independent manner than a lot of methods suggest. and with a flexible method that allows for interpretation and the recognises the value in personal discovery, and also that recognises the limited nature of 12tET, rater than building a whole black and white system around it.

about your last post.

'I think another of the reasons that I stayed away from a lot of theory,'

a lot of = most western theory.

i bail now.



(edit. sorry, I'm just in a slighlty bad mood about dealing with this topic... it definitely brings out everyone's defensive sides! (maybe i've been too brash about expressing myself also) and i'm sorry to be a bit short.

I respect what you, and a lot of other people have said about theory... and i warmly wish you all the best in your own methodology... it's made me a touch closer to thinking about browsing some stuff a little deeper one day (which I haven't ruled out, btw), to have sensible and open minded people say about their own journeys).

[Brankis]

I think another of the reasons that I stayed away from a lot of theory, was that a lot of theorists and musicians that i respected gave me reasons to do so.

For example, Wendy Carlos, one of the most talented composers (and theorists) of our time totally rejected traditional theory on one of her most innnovative and expressively brilliant pieces, the album 'the beauty in the beast'.

She was so against theory that she wrote the forward to a THEORY book about microtonality a few years after Beauty And The Beast.

http://www.amazon.com/Tuning-Microtonal ... 132&sr=8-2

This is after she had spent decades working in equal temperament.

I remember not knowing any theory and thinking that it was a waste of time. 18 years later, my only regret is that I didn't buckle down and learn the stuff sooner.

Basically what happens as a young musician is that you don't know anything and occasionally stumble into things that sound good. Then you learn a little theory and it starts to rule your music for a few years, and then you mature as a musician and you get to the point where you can take or leave the theory as you see fit.

Once you get past the awkward stages of learning the stuff, it is great to know. It doesn't limit you, if anything, it gives you a broader musical palette to work with. You can have more and bigger ideas because you have more tools in your bag of tricks.

If you ever want to make a career out of music, you are going to learn it. If for no other reason than the fact that you will start facing project deadlines and waiting around for happy accidents will not cut it anymore.

If I want to make noise, I can do that, If I want jazz progressions I can do that too. If something needs to be simple, I can leave it alone, if it needs to be more complex, I can go there too. Theory doesn't take away options. Being closed minded and forcing yourself into the straight jacket of "proper music" is what takes those options away. Steve Vai and Joe Satriani were always gonna suck because they have crappy taste, the theory only allowed them to suck more elaborately.

exactly...

for me i was producing for a few years before learning music and as a result i was having happy accidents but also kind of forming my own ear for tonality in the process. towards the end of my non-music based music i was getting decent results but there was no consistency and it was hard to get alot of layers to work together and usually the tracks always had this one thing that "wasnt quite right" about it

i think in a way its good to spend a few years producing before learning music because you can kind of skip over having the theory dominate your life if you've already been playing around for years. i work in the music department for a college in chicago and i see alot of students who have been studying music their whole lives but when i show them ableton they're almost dumbfounded about it and its hard for them to break out of their linear way of thinking...

knowing music really helps open your mind to creativity if you ask me, not limiting it. for instance i usually write using pentatonic scales and it allows me freedom to kind take bits and pieces of other scales and even borrow elements of modal and tonal music all at once. the best part is that i never have to force something and try and make it work cause i know it will

im bailing on the thread now but i have to say i like this thread . there should be more threads about music on this site and less about what vst makes the fattest subbass

[steevio]

If you ever want to make a career out of music, you are going to learn it. If for no other reason than the fact that you will start facing project deadlines and waiting around for happy accidents will not cut it anymore.

i agree with pretty much everything you said in your post, but i dont necessarily understand the happy accidents thing,
i had a 20 year career in music without knowing a thing about theory, when i picked up an instrument and spent a short amount of time getting a sound out of it, i could play a tune without any bother. we all know what sounds right or wrong to us, its not a special ability, its natural.

there have been countless musicians over the history of humankind making beautiful music without any knowledge of theory, using nothing more than their ears. (and hands of course:D)

ive never waited around for happy accidents to occur, i've just picked up instruments and played them.

now that i've been studying theory for the last 15 years, i find that if anything it actually slows down my writing process to some extent, because i've become more obsessively perfectionist, so like some of you other guys on here, ive put it to one side and reverted to writing by ear.

but i'm happy that i know all that sh!t now, i find it compelling.

[Wizz15]

Steve Vai and Joe Satriani were always gonna suck because they have crappy taste, the theory only allowed them to suck more elaborately.

I need to comment on this (though it will probably be offtopic), but if you listen to songs of both guitarists, the songs themselves are not that great. However, most people who listen to those two guys are guitarists themselves. Both guitarists have excellent technique and feeling for their instrument (listen to a young Steve Vai on some of Frank Zappa's old songs, it's completely different from what he does nowadays, but he already had a good technique at a young age) and that is what attracts other guitarists to listen to their music, not the great arrangements. For example: I know a few guitarists who still watch their G3 dvd's. Not for the songs, but to look at the technique and see if they can learn something from what they see.

(You stumbled on a ex-guitar player, who also has some cd's of both men )

Generally people listen to music because they like the song itself. However, if people know a little bit more about music then you have music you like and music you listen to because you like the way it is produced or you are impressed by the way an artist knows the instrument he plays (skill/technique). This is certainly the case for me, as I have music that I like because of the song, but I also have some music that I listen to so I can hopefully learn something from what I hear (in those songs I like the 'technical' aspect, not so much the song itself).

In conclusion: I think you won't lose anything if you learn a bit about music theory, it's up to you to use or not use what you learn. In my opinion music theory is just a set of guidelines to what works well generally speaking, but you might also find some interesting results if you abandon those guidelines, mix it up a bit or have no clue about music theory at all.