Theory gives you OPTIONS. creativity or ear dictates which option you think "goes" best...
Rant on... (I cant help it... call it my passion to create a post, LMAO)
QUOTE:" Bare in mind, with was a punk band, we weren't some crazy prog group that gave you a headache to follow along. "
I'm not "picking" on the person that I quoted, its just a typical irritation to me, concerning this (frequent) argument... i could have picked any of 10 different statements, this one just was the one I grabbed.
I dont see where the headache comes from. Back in the 80s, I dont remember "Asia" mailing me study guides and requiring me to pass a theory test at the music counter to buy their debut cassette. Even though they were all members of highly progressive influential groups before making the supergroup Asia...I just rememeber a thrilling "soundtrack" background to some of the songs that fit the mood...we all hear heavy classical all the time... in big budget movies. The movies dont give us a headache. The usher does not demand the key of the second movement of the chase scene to allow you to buy popcorn.
Movie soundtracks inject: humor, drama, surprise, foreshadowing, suspense, anger, excitement, romantic love... into other wise rather lifeless images and dialog, and much of it is symphonic.
Potheads have been listening (really listening, mannnnnn) to Pink Floyd The Wall for what? Decades now? No test nor theory required. Just fire up a bong and enjoy.
No, the only "headache" comes when a musician attempts to re-create these types of music by just writing what "they feel" paying no heed to music theory whatsoever... these types of music are difficult to even COVER perfectly without training, let alone try to create original examples that are in the same league...
The great unwashed masses have enjoyed Beethovens 5th and Toccata and Fugue in D min for a VERY long time... they are stirring and mysterious! They have a certain majesty to them... no one expected them to learn anything about it. Its ART, you just go to the museum and look paintings and sculptures. This art, you just hear it in movies and in some types of music to a greater or lesser degree.
This argument people present, the "headache to follow along" argument... its ridiculous. What, i ask you, is required of you to to enjoy Michaelangelo's David or the Mona Lisa?
Nothing! You just go and LOOK, for chrissakes.
Dont get me wrong, I'm no pretentious highbrow asshole, either. I might not be into the Ramones, but, I DID like the Misfits... which was the heavy metal equivament of the same thing.
On this theory of simply "feeling it" and that actively learning theory not only does nothign "for" creating music, but also detracts FROM it... ayone that really wanted to, could simply pick up a hammer and a chisel, and make something similar to Michaelangelo's David.
After all... Michaelangelo himself said... "I did not create David... He was in the piece of marble. I selected the piece of marble that had him inside. I simply took away the pieces of marble that were encasing him."
Which is awfully similar to a musician claiming you just "play from the heart" and "let it come out" and "tell the truth".
When someone has mastered something, you are expected to be humble about it, you are not expected to BRAG how good you are. It is incumbent upon the master to display "self deprecation" and not lord his skill over the peopel enjoyign his creation(s).
You can shave a chimpanzee, and teach them sign language... then even the CHIMP could explain that there is a difference between listening to a punk song "NAH NAH...nah nah... NAH nah NAHHHHHH" and listening to Pink FLoyd The Wall, or the soundtrack to 2001 space odyssey, or even Star Wars.
No, the only HEADACHE comes with the frustration of realizing it is simply not possible without studying the techniques... so that you can stand on the shoulders of the GIANTS that came before us...
No one requires the aspiring musician who has mastered the 3 chord format and power chords to attend graduate conservancy in Europe. Yet... listen to a bunch of classical music, and find a part you like. That stirs some emotions, and makes the hairs on the nape of your neck stand up... go and rip off the chord progression(s) there... and use that as a "template" to some power chord jamming...
... and someone will say "Huh... I dont normally like that type of music... but, that was kind of neat. It was interesting. Huh. Something neat about it."
What have you done then? TECH-nically... you "studied classical music". briefly.
Look... you can wait till you "feel emotions" and use those "emotions" to shoot various color paintballs at a canvas. SOMEone will buy it, and a group of rich nincompoops may even write puff pieces about it, and have a wine and cheese party at the gallery to display your "genius"...
...but, your not getting that snail snot into the LOUVRE to be enjoyed centuries later.
your creations need not even be terribly complex. WItness the chiseled naked decadence of "Fur Elise". My god, its in the "red book" six year olds learn to play beginning piano from! And its RIGHT up there with Beethoven's 5th.
If my stuff I make is slightly (or a lot) sterile or boring... I figure its because I have been doing this for several years, not a couple decades. GOD, I do wish i had played piano and guitar during my formative young period. So I could hear intervals clearly and play by ear after I hear something. I started from ground zero, having never played a pitched instrumment in my life.
theory was all there WAS that could get me started.
Those intervals you learned to hear on the radio, and the vocal melodies you learned to play on your acoustic... I fail to see how the interval is different when you hear the pitch distance by ear, or if you SEE the pitch distance on a computer screen... either way, you HEAR it when you play it, or the computer plays it.
Rant on... (I cant help it... call it my passion to create a post, LMAO)
QUOTE:" Bare in mind, with was a punk band, we weren't some crazy prog group that gave you a headache to follow along. "
I'm not "picking" on the person that I quoted, its just a typical irritation to me, concerning this (frequent) argument... i could have picked any of 10 different statements, this one just was the one I grabbed.
I dont see where the headache comes from. Back in the 80s, I dont remember "Asia" mailing me study guides and requiring me to pass a theory test at the music counter to buy their debut cassette. Even though they were all members of highly progressive influential groups before making the supergroup Asia...I just rememeber a thrilling "soundtrack" background to some of the songs that fit the mood...we all hear heavy classical all the time... in big budget movies. The movies dont give us a headache. The usher does not demand the key of the second movement of the chase scene to allow you to buy popcorn.
Movie soundtracks inject: humor, drama, surprise, foreshadowing, suspense, anger, excitement, romantic love... into other wise rather lifeless images and dialog, and much of it is symphonic.
Potheads have been listening (really listening, mannnnnn) to Pink Floyd The Wall for what? Decades now? No test nor theory required. Just fire up a bong and enjoy.
No, the only "headache" comes when a musician attempts to re-create these types of music by just writing what "they feel" paying no heed to music theory whatsoever... these types of music are difficult to even COVER perfectly without training, let alone try to create original examples that are in the same league...
The great unwashed masses have enjoyed Beethovens 5th and Toccata and Fugue in D min for a VERY long time... they are stirring and mysterious! They have a certain majesty to them... no one expected them to learn anything about it. Its ART, you just go to the museum and look paintings and sculptures. This art, you just hear it in movies and in some types of music to a greater or lesser degree.
This argument people present, the "headache to follow along" argument... its ridiculous. What, i ask you, is required of you to to enjoy Michaelangelo's David or the Mona Lisa?
Nothing! You just go and LOOK, for chrissakes.
Dont get me wrong, I'm no pretentious highbrow asshole, either. I might not be into the Ramones, but, I DID like the Misfits... which was the heavy metal equivament of the same thing.
On this theory of simply "feeling it" and that actively learning theory not only does nothign "for" creating music, but also detracts FROM it... ayone that really wanted to, could simply pick up a hammer and a chisel, and make something similar to Michaelangelo's David.
After all... Michaelangelo himself said... "I did not create David... He was in the piece of marble. I selected the piece of marble that had him inside. I simply took away the pieces of marble that were encasing him."
Which is awfully similar to a musician claiming you just "play from the heart" and "let it come out" and "tell the truth".
When someone has mastered something, you are expected to be humble about it, you are not expected to BRAG how good you are. It is incumbent upon the master to display "self deprecation" and not lord his skill over the peopel enjoyign his creation(s).
You can shave a chimpanzee, and teach them sign language... then even the CHIMP could explain that there is a difference between listening to a punk song "NAH NAH...nah nah... NAH nah NAHHHHHH" and listening to Pink FLoyd The Wall, or the soundtrack to 2001 space odyssey, or even Star Wars.
No, the only HEADACHE comes with the frustration of realizing it is simply not possible without studying the techniques... so that you can stand on the shoulders of the GIANTS that came before us...
No one requires the aspiring musician who has mastered the 3 chord format and power chords to attend graduate conservancy in Europe. Yet... listen to a bunch of classical music, and find a part you like. That stirs some emotions, and makes the hairs on the nape of your neck stand up... go and rip off the chord progression(s) there... and use that as a "template" to some power chord jamming...
... and someone will say "Huh... I dont normally like that type of music... but, that was kind of neat. It was interesting. Huh. Something neat about it."
What have you done then? TECH-nically... you "studied classical music". briefly.
Look... you can wait till you "feel emotions" and use those "emotions" to shoot various color paintballs at a canvas. SOMEone will buy it, and a group of rich nincompoops may even write puff pieces about it, and have a wine and cheese party at the gallery to display your "genius"...
...but, your not getting that snail snot into the LOUVRE to be enjoyed centuries later.
your creations need not even be terribly complex. WItness the chiseled naked decadence of "Fur Elise". My god, its in the "red book" six year olds learn to play beginning piano from! And its RIGHT up there with Beethoven's 5th.
If my stuff I make is slightly (or a lot) sterile or boring... I figure its because I have been doing this for several years, not a couple decades. GOD, I do wish i had played piano and guitar during my formative young period. So I could hear intervals clearly and play by ear after I hear something. I started from ground zero, having never played a pitched instrumment in my life.
theory was all there WAS that could get me started.
Those intervals you learned to hear on the radio, and the vocal melodies you learned to play on your acoustic... I fail to see how the interval is different when you hear the pitch distance by ear, or if you SEE the pitch distance on a computer screen... either way, you HEAR it when you play it, or the computer plays it.
