Myths

[famous beagle]

No, knowlegde is great, but theory is not going to help in the creative process as far as songwriting goes, no one will ever convince me of that. Now, it may or may not help you be a better musician, but songwriting, no.



Well, I'm not sure what you really mean by that. There is nothing wrong with being a studio musician, but as far as the record industry goes, songwriters are certianly thought of as higher up in the ranks. There are coutless musicians they can get to lay down tracks, but good or great or hit songs are much harder to come by and good great songs along with the artist is what sells albums, not the hired hands who laid the tracks down. I will certianly say that a good musician with taste and talent can sometimes add something to a recording that can help make it shine, but lets face it, without the song and songwriter there is nothing to make shine, there are no studio musicians there are no singers (who don't write), there are no producers nor record labels. It all starts with the song and the songwriter.

EDAN, I'm not really sure why you are so against the idea of learning theory. I understand if you don't feel the need to do it, but others do, and maybe it DOES help others.

I think I'm a very good example.

When I started playing (age 15 or so), my ear was HORRIBLE. I saw a video of my friend and I playing "Every Rose has Its Thorn," and it was incredible how out of tune the guitars were. And I was "singing" in another key most of the time.

Well, after a few years of practice, I went to UNT, studied jazz, classical, music theory, and listened to tons of music.

Now, I'm a MUCH, much better musician because of all that, and I think my songwriting has improved as well.

Please go listen to these two songs: "Nobody Showers" and "That's What I'd Say." Then tell me what you think.

The quality isn't astounding because they were recorded quickly, and they're scratch tracks, and they weren't meant to be "hits," so don't judge them on that basis.

(I tried to listen to your song yesterday, but I couldn't find it.)

Anyway, let me know if you honestly think I "don't have it."

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=328768


P.S. I'm not changing my opinion on the matter. I still think you don't HAVE to learn theory to become an accomplished musician. All I'm objecting to is your blanket statement that "Theory will not help someone with songwriting." This may be true for some, but not for everyone.

 

[mshilarious]

"That's Way I Say" is a cool tune. Sounds like it was mixed by a guitarist though

I think I've heard you post this before--is this a new version

 

[bigwillz24]

Myth: Rap music is easy to make and record...


It's no harder or easier than any other genre of music.

*stands in the red corner and waits for the announcer to say come out fighting*

 

[famous beagle]

"That's Way I Say" is a cool tune. Sounds like it was mixed by a guitarist though

I think I've heard you post this before--is this a new version

Thanks.

No, it's not a new version. I just posted it because I wanted EDAN to hear an example of someone who did/does use theory in songwriting.

I know the mix is bad, but unfortunately, I only have the mixed mp3 of that song now. It was recorded on one of those little zoom PS04 hand-held digital 4-tracks. The electric guitar was direct with its amp simulator, and the acoustic and vox were recorded with the built-in condenser mic. The drums and bass were programmed with its on-board drum and bass sounds.

 

[EDAN]

EDAN, I'm not really sure why you are so against the idea of learning theory. I understand if you don't feel the need to do it, but others do, and maybe it DOES help others.

I think I'm a very good example.

When I started playing (age 15 or so), my ear was HORRIBLE. I saw a video of my friend and I playing "Every Rose has Its Thorn," and it was incredible how out of tune the guitars were. And I was "singing" in another key most of the time.

Well, after a few years of practice, I went to UNT, studied jazz, classical, music theory, and listened to tons of music.

Now, I'm a MUCH, much better musician because of all that, and I think my songwriting has improved as well.

Please go listen to these two songs: "Nobody Showers" and "That's What I'd Say." Then tell me what you think.

The quality isn't astounding because they were recorded quickly, and they're scratch tracks, and they weren't meant to be "hits," so don't judge them on that basis.

(I tried to listen to your song yesterday, but I couldn't find it.)

Anyway, let me know if you honestly think I "don't have it."

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=328768


P.S. I'm not changing my opinion on the matter. I still think you don't HAVE to learn theory to become an accomplished musician. All I'm objecting to is your blanket statement that "Theory will not help someone with songwriting." This may be true for some, but not for everyone.

I wouldn't give my opinion of your songs right now, this thread is a little too hot to get personal. In other words, if I personally didn't think you had "it" (which I'm not saying you don't, I haven't listened) there is no nice way of telling you my opinion with out it coming across wrong and everyone would surely have a field day, sort of like..

"Who the hell do you think you are Edan, the God of music!"

"Hey, Edan, get off your high horse and shove "it" up your ass"

"I agree with you Edan, he doesn't have "it", how silly of us to ever question your greatness"

You get the point.

 

[EDAN]

I'm pretty sure someone said this earlier, but if I were you, and I didn't know theory, I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what it will and will not do.

I lived and in Nashville for five years and have heard and worked with all types of songwriters and musicians and the best are always the from the hip guys, born with it, it's hard to face reality, but that's the fact. Again, theory has nothing to do with songwriting whatsoever, neither does musicianship as some of the best and most successful songwriters can hardly play an instrument and some don't play at all.

 

[eraos]

I lived and in Nashville for five years and have heard and worked with all types of songwriters and musicians and the best are always the from the hip guys, born with it, it's hard to face reality, but that's the fact. Again, theory has nothing to do with songwriting whatsoever, neither does musicianship as some of the best and most successful songwriters can hardly play an instrument and some don't play at all.

I hate to keep pushing this...

but, Edan, you have still not yet proven that learning theory will not help songwriting.

The Nashville songwriters that you mention may not know formal theory, but I can almost guarantee that the majority of each song complies with convention. A lot of what theory is about is understanding why conventions exist.

I bet if these songwriters learned theory they could develop the natural talent which they already have.

Here's my attempt at an analogy: If I never went to school, I bet I could still add two and two to get four. And figure out that objects fall towards the earth... but unless I was a genius, without instruction, I really wouldn't understand why these truths are... well, truths. And I really wouldn't be able to take advantage of their usefulness.

Okay, bad analogy, but the point is, understanding what you're doing can only help.
And yes, you're right, knowing theory does not mean you can write good songs.
But if the talent's there, why not expand it?

And I'm goign to need an example of these songwriters who "don't play at all."

 

[ez_willis]

I like this thread.

This is a good thread.

 

[dgatwood]

I hate to keep pushing this...

but, Edan, you have still not yet proven that learning theory will not help songwriting.

That's because even if it were true (it isn't), it is impossible to prove that something will never occur. Therefore it cannot be proven that learning theory will never help songwriting, only that it has not done so yet. This is basic logic here.

The Nashville songwriters that you mention may not know formal theory, but I can almost guarantee that the majority of each song complies with convention. A lot of what theory is about is understanding why conventions exist.

And knowing when to break those conventions. Sure, you can break them willy-nilly and you might get gems once in a while, but you're spending a lot of effort doing things that someone with a better grounding in theory would have immediately known were going to be crap to begin with....

Any songwriter who writes music beyond the simplistic, mindless 6415 pop (that's a chord progression, for those of you who don't get the joke) can become better at songwriting by learning at least some theory.

Don't get me wrong here, voice leading probably isn't a useful subject if you have somebody else doing the arranging or if you are only writing for a single voice. Learning the difference between Dorian and Mixolydian modes probably won't help you unless you're trying to imitate renaissance-era music or something. Learning what subdominant means (I had to look it up myself, as I can't keep them straight) probably isn't useful.

Learning chords by number, however, is useful. Learning a bit about counterpoint is useful. Understanding what chords naturally lead to other chords in the Western musical system is useful. Learning about richer chords with 9ths and 11ths and 13ths is useful.

Learning about how to use open chords to convey a particular mood is useful. Learning how to use at least basic modality to convey a mood is useful (and you probably do it without even knowing it). Learning about forms beyond ABABA (pop) is useful. Learning about how to get different feel by voicing chords in different ways is very, very useful. And so on.

All of these things are things that you can pick up by doing it long enough, admittedly, and a lot of it really is doing what "sounds right", but a little bit of basic music theory goes a long way towards skipping an awful lot of "sounds wrong" along the way.

But whatever you do, don't make the freshman music major mistake of learning a lot about something like counterpoint (for example) and then using it constantly throughout every song. There's nothing more annoying than overuse of such constructs. In moderation, they create a very powerful effect on the listener. In excess, they create a very powerful feeling of nausea in the listener. A little bit goes a long way.

 

[Dr Biscuits]

Again, theory has nothing to do with songwriting whatsoever, neither does musicianship as some of the best and most successful songwriters can hardly play an instrument and some don't play at all.

Edan, I think you’re being extremely narrow minded in your perceptions of a) what constitutes a great song/music and b) what methods work for different people.
I do agree that knowing a lot of ‘book theory’ is not going to necessarily translate into brilliant song writing, but how can you believe that no one on earth in any genre of music uses theory to aid in composition? I understand your stance that the melody or main idea or ‘soul’ or however you want to put it can be something that comes into your head first and therefore bypass any formal learned composition techniques, and this method is used by many successful writers - this is how you do it, and your friend whose song you posted, and how I've written tonnes of stuff. But that’s really taking a western pop/rock (or country or folk or blues) centric view that has been made legend by the music heroes of our time. Johnny Cash couldn’t read music. I love Johnny Cash, I love his music, his style, his way of interpreting music, the character he puts into it. And the fact that he didn’t know how to read music - he often jokingly bragged about, as do many popular artists, like Van Halen – can easily be used to raise him to some kind of divinely-inspired “appointee of musical truth”. But what about Willie Nelson? He did have musical education, at least a basic one (mail order lessons as a child) and I think his song writing is fantastic, he’s written countless hits for himself and others and is a musical icon on par with Cash… Cash’s family discouraged music and Willies encouraged and taught it. Is either one of them any less in possession of “it”? No, different methods for different writers.
Now to take it a step further, what about Mozart or Miles Davis? They not only employed theory in their writing, their writing was dependant on that knowledge. Would we know of Mozart today if he had no idea what a triad was? Would Miles Davis be considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century if he never bothered to figure out how to play trumpet in different keys?
Anyway, that took way more words than I thought it would, sorry!
I’m not trying to come off as some kind of expert or anything, and I’m not trying to yell at anyone – I just think the scope needs to be broadened if you’re going to make such absolute assertions

 

[ez_willis]

I like it even more now.

 

[Tim Brown]

I don't know if this qualifies as a myth, but it will qualify as a rant.

Nobody really wants John Bonhams drum sound. They want the feel. That is 98% the drummer.

The drums sounded different on every Zepplin album, sometimes they sounded different from song to song.

It doesn't matter how many room mics you set up in which castle/stairwell/whatever, if you don't play like Bonham, it won't have that 'sound'.

If the engineer had nothing but $99 condensers and SM57s plugged into a Roland VS-2480, it still would have had that 'Bonham sound'.

The thing is - The sound that is described as being recorded in the stairwell - SUCKS! That's how they got the sound on "When the Levee Breaks", and that drumsound sucks ass so bad it isn't funny.


The Sound I like from Bonzo, is the general sound of Led Zeppelin II (think "Living Lovin' Maid")

As for Bonzo's feel - I have that. Every time I play out I get at least 2 or 3 people going,"Dude - You play just like John Bonham." At first I thought it was my kit, but I've sat in on other people's kits and still get the same reaction from the audience.

In a way it's cool, but after playing now for roughly 30 years, that shit gets old. I know it's meant as a compliment, but it's kind of run in the ground for me. I mean, I don't use any of Bonahm's drumfills, but I guess it's just the way that I play that cuts through as being "Bonham-ish".



Tim

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Edan,

In one thread you say you have no need to know what the chords are and such as long as you can play them, and then say you are a songwriter.

How the hell can you write a song - and I mean WRITE, not make up and perform - if you can't notate the chord changes or somehow describe the melody? How the hell can you collect a single penny if you don't publish the songs first? Such publishing requires written annotation and definition of the form and structure of the the song musically. Answer: You can't.

OK, maybe now in 2006 one can cheat by writing everything on a MIDI instrument and getting notation software to do the (actually easy) work for you, I'll grant you that much. But that's really just a convenient side-step of the question and doesn't answer it directly. That's not your point.

As far as your actual point that the true artist exists in the heart and in the gut, and not in the head, with that I absolutely agree with you. Note the last three wrods in my sig, which are there for a really big reason. But that falls short of the whole story in two ways;

a) what good is having the feelings and ideas for melodies and harmonies and so forth if you can't communicate them to the rest of the world in language other than in live performance? It's like having the idea for a story or song plot in your heart and not bothering to learn how to speak or write any language thorogh which you can actually tell the story without actually physically acting out the part as an actor.
Keep in mind the scene near the end of "Amadeus" where Mozart is dictating "Requiem" to Salieri. The fact that that scene is fiction is not relevant here. What is relevant is that "Requiem" would not even exist today if Mozart was not a master of music theory or did not know how to transcribe the composition in his head to paper.

b) a writer may have the next Great American Novel in his heart, but with a limited vocabulary and limited knowledge of sentence structure and so forth, he is going to have much more trouble getting his true feeling out. "It was a nice day" has a totally different feeling from and a much different description than, "The inviting sun was smiling down from the azure summer sky," They also have defferent capacities in keeping the reader interested and un-bored. They are making the same point, buy they make that point in entirely different ways with different shades of emotion.
It's the same thing with music; there are many many ways of fingering or emoting a G chord on a guitar or playing it or implying it on a piano. Even though it remains fundamentally a G, each different way of executing it evokes different shades of feeling in the listener, in much the same way different synonyms in written or spoken language do. The difference between a passable musician and a great one is that the grat one can emote more because he has the greater musical vocabulary.
Music theory is the structure and vocabulary, the dictionary and thesaurus, the grammer of music. Of COURSE learning some theory will expand your songwriting skills and horizons. There is absolutely no question otherwise.

And no, I am not a keyboard player. Nor am I a guitar player. I am an engineer who blows a little bit of blues harp (even that requires knowing some basic theory). I know far less music theory than most of the musicians I work with and hang with, but I continue to learn becaue every bit that I learn improves my ability to do my job well. That is even more applicable on the musician's side of the cables than it is on mine.

G.

 

[LeeRosario]

Take your silly hat off and use your head. Learning music theory in a formal way is not going to help you be a better songwriter, not even a little bit. That's not at all how great songs are written, you just don't get it. Many songwriters don't even use an instrument to write. The ideas, where it comes from, the melody, the feel, etc., comes from a place deep down, a place that can't be explained and theory has never visited.

So basic things like song form and flow don't matter. Forget about tension and release and whatever reason that's important.

There's no need to know how to transpose parts, cause I'm sure the singer can sing it as high as I hear it in my head. Plus forget what key you're in, that's probably not important.

Ignore things like how key changes in certain parts of a song actually enhance and progress the mood of the song.

Plus if you want your intro to last 13 minutes before one word is sung, then thats ok, too. Cause we're ignoring bars and tempos and what was that other thing? Oh right, song form.

And if a professional song writer tells me as an engineer, "the second verse should have half as many bars as the first", I should tell him, "you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and ignore what you just said because I don't beleive in structure and music theory."




That's what you're saying.



Sounds like Phish meets Garth Brooks. And even Phish has knowledge of music theory. Probably more so than Garth Brooks. In fact, I'm willing to beleive that Phish's guitar tech has more knowledge than Garth Brooks. (Ok, that last statement was a little bias, I know).


Sure the world is full of "theory-less" songwriters, but how do you pay a songwriter that gets it right 1 out every 20 songs?

 

[ez_willis]

a) what good is having the feelings and ideas for melodies and harmonies and so forth if you can't communicate them to the rest of the world in language other than in live performance? .
G.

Ummm, you can record those particular melodies and harmonies and distribute them for others to enjoy at their leisure??

Honestly, I don't know a single person that likes to sit back with friends and a read through sheet music while enjoying alcohol.

Plus, it's nearly impossible give a girl some Barry White or Marvin Gaye sheet music and still get laid.

 

[LeeRosario]

Plus, it's nearly impossible give a girl some Barry White or Marvin Gaye sheet music and still get laid.

That being said, does anyone have an official tally on how many times Marvin Gaye *did* get laid?

Cause I bet Marvin kept on telling himself, "just wait until I'm done writing these chords, the girls don't give a shit now....but they will....oh they will."


Someone has to be the mortar. Someone had to take the hit and bust thier ass musically to create the single most over popluating song known to man.


And while someone looks up the tally, I want a report on the total world population before, and after "Let's Get it On" was published.

 

[dgatwood]

Speaking of dictionaries, folks will have a hard time looking up words that ain't spelt write.

libations - beverages, particularly of an alcoholic nature, and particularly the sharing of said beverages in a religious context.

 

[ez_willis]

Speaking of dictionaries, folks will have a hard time looking up words that ain't spelt write.

libations - beverages, particularly of an alcoholic nature, and particularly the sharing of said beverages in a religious context.

Typo. V and B are next to each other on your typical qwerty keyboard.

Will you follow me around for the rest of my life so I can I quit using spell check?

 

[famous beagle]

I think Dr. Biscuits summed it up beautifully.


There are great songwriters that are musically educated, and there are great songwriters that aren't musically educated.

There's Sting (educated musically) and there's Kurt Cobain (uneducated musically)

There's Paul McCartney (uneducated musically) and Paul Simon (educated musically)


So it can obviously be done both ways.

EDAN, who are you to say that theory hasn't helped Sting or Paul Simon become better writers? How in the world would you know that?

There's NO WAY you can know that. And therein lies the problem with you making a blanket statement like "theory will in no way make you a better songwriter."

 

[Dogman]

Aint music just supposed to be fun and entertaining????