You can't conceive of someone's joy radiating out from them in song form? That someone who's uneducated might want to bare their soul through music? You are a dumb idiot, and I don't respect you
Most people learn by jamming with other musicians. Honestly if you can’t distinguish what a major scale sounds like without understanding the concept of scales or knowing what intervals to play you’re NGMI.
You need to do a lot more than "distinguish what a major scale sounds like" to write music, and especially to jam with other musicians. That part especially confuses me-- how the hell do you jam with someone if you don't know what notes to play if they say "we're in A minor" or whatever?
I don’t have the answers for you but I played keys for a year in a band before I ever even learned what scales I was playing in. Some people just have a sense for “guitar playing chord, this note sound good with chord”
>Do you just... play random things until it sounds good to you??
You learn songs and play bits and pieces of them randomly until something sounds good to you. This is how all classical composers wrote their music, by the way. They wrote music by improvising, they didn't think about "chord progressions" and other nonsense that wasn't thought about like it is today. Bach could improvise a whole fugue if you gave him a random theme he had never heard of before. Mozart could remember what he heard in a Church somewhere earlier in the day and he wrote the whole thing down. Their memory and technique were impeccable. And similarly, bands like Metallica also just learned hundreds of songs when they each learned their instrument and then jammed for hours until they made something. It's called knowledge and creativity. 20th century academic classical and jazz with its autistic focus on music theory and less focus on improvising ruined music. Institutions ruined music.
Like at the very least understand chords, cadences, and time signatures, if not voice leading and other slightly more advanced harmonic concepts. I don't think you even need to know how to read sheet music, but how do you write a chord progression without knowing what a V -> I is? How do you stay in time without knowing what time signature you're playing in?
>how do you write a chord progression without knowing what a V -> I is?
Most people learn by covering well known songs on guitar or keyboard and then applying the concepts to their own music, whether it be overtly or subconsciously. If you listen to a lot of music as well you can absorb what sounds good into your subconscious and then when you pick up an instrument you’ll have an understanding of what progressions are good vs. bad.
>How do you stay in time without knowing what time signature you're playing in?
Like 95% of music is in 4/4 or some variation of 3/3 it’s really not that hard to figure out how to count 1-2-3-4 without being taught what a time signature is
How do you suppose humans have made music for literally thousands upon thousands of years without knowing so much as what a chord is?
Theory isn’t a set of rules, it’s simply an explanation for why music works the way that it does
the people you're talking about who dont know that stuff are in the extreme minority. also there are multiple kinds of intelligences. people can know all that stuff accurately on an intuitive level but not know the proper names or communicate it
>how do you write a chord progression without knowing what a V -> I is?
Most people learn by covering well known songs on guitar or keyboard and then applying the concepts to their own music, whether it be overtly or subconsciously. If you listen to a lot of music as well you can absorb what sounds good into your subconscious and then when you pick up an instrument you’ll have an understanding of what progressions are good vs. bad.
>How do you stay in time without knowing what time signature you're playing in?
Like 95% of music is in 4/4 or some variation of 3/3 it’s really not that hard to figure out how to count 1-2-3-4 without being taught what a time signature is
How do you suppose humans have made music for literally thousands upon thousands of years without knowing so much as what a chord is?
Theory isn’t a set of rules, it’s simply an explanation for why music works the way that it does
You don’t need to know theory if you can learn to play by ear
Yes, any serious musician should learn some degree of theory eventually, but it’s not as if you need to know it to begin playing or writing. If you can keep rhythm and distinguish which notes sound good you’re pretty much 90% of the way there.
Because music theory is gay
if by "gay" you mean "useful and interesting", then sure
no, I'm not successful because I don't even share my music with people
You can't conceive of someone's joy radiating out from them in song form? That someone who's uneducated might want to bare their soul through music? You are a dumb idiot, and I don't respect you
that's why you're not successful
There comes to a point when music theory is a cope, you've come to that point.
Congrats.
I'm not denying that people have written great music without knowing theory, I just don't understand how
Do you just... play random things until it sounds good to you??
Most people learn by jamming with other musicians. Honestly if you can’t distinguish what a major scale sounds like without understanding the concept of scales or knowing what intervals to play you’re NGMI.
You need to do a lot more than "distinguish what a major scale sounds like" to write music, and especially to jam with other musicians. That part especially confuses me-- how the hell do you jam with someone if you don't know what notes to play if they say "we're in A minor" or whatever?
I don’t have the answers for you but I played keys for a year in a band before I ever even learned what scales I was playing in. Some people just have a sense for “guitar playing chord, this note sound good with chord”
>Do you just... play random things until it sounds good to you??
You learn songs and play bits and pieces of them randomly until something sounds good to you. This is how all classical composers wrote their music, by the way. They wrote music by improvising, they didn't think about "chord progressions" and other nonsense that wasn't thought about like it is today. Bach could improvise a whole fugue if you gave him a random theme he had never heard of before. Mozart could remember what he heard in a Church somewhere earlier in the day and he wrote the whole thing down. Their memory and technique were impeccable. And similarly, bands like Metallica also just learned hundreds of songs when they each learned their instrument and then jammed for hours until they made something. It's called knowledge and creativity. 20th century academic classical and jazz with its autistic focus on music theory and less focus on improvising ruined music. Institutions ruined music.
so what should someone practice whose just starting?
polly wolly doodle
>another theory thread where the OP is hopelessly vague on what they mean by "learn theory"
Like at the very least understand chords, cadences, and time signatures, if not voice leading and other slightly more advanced harmonic concepts. I don't think you even need to know how to read sheet music, but how do you write a chord progression without knowing what a V -> I is? How do you stay in time without knowing what time signature you're playing in?
>how do you write a chord progression without knowing what a V -> I is?
Most people learn by covering well known songs on guitar or keyboard and then applying the concepts to their own music, whether it be overtly or subconsciously. If you listen to a lot of music as well you can absorb what sounds good into your subconscious and then when you pick up an instrument you’ll have an understanding of what progressions are good vs. bad.
>How do you stay in time without knowing what time signature you're playing in?
Like 95% of music is in 4/4 or some variation of 3/3 it’s really not that hard to figure out how to count 1-2-3-4 without being taught what a time signature is
How do you suppose humans have made music for literally thousands upon thousands of years without knowing so much as what a chord is?
Theory isn’t a set of rules, it’s simply an explanation for why music works the way that it does
the people you're talking about who dont know that stuff are in the extreme minority. also there are multiple kinds of intelligences. people can know all that stuff accurately on an intuitive level but not know the proper names or communicate it
You think? I feel like I hear every other day about some prolific artist who "doesn't know theory", and that's always been wild to me.
See
You don’t need to know theory if you can learn to play by ear
Yes, any serious musician should learn some degree of theory eventually, but it’s not as if you need to know it to begin playing or writing. If you can keep rhythm and distinguish which notes sound good you’re pretty much 90% of the way there.
Because you're a soulless hack who substitutes muh theory for actual talent and creativity
people do stupid shit
now youre good to move on
Music existed long before music theory