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How Much Music Theory Do We Really Need?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ส.ค. 2024
- A lot of people ask whether music theory is even necessary to learn - and if so, then what theory should they learn, and how much of it? I get many questions ranging from learning to read and write music, to learning ear training, to questions about orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, and of course, parallel fifths.
In this video I hope to answer those questions, and recommend exactly how much music theory I really think you should learn!
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0:00 - Introduction
0:44 - What Actually IS Music Theory?
1:17 - Music Theory is Often Late to the Party
2:56 - The Limitations of Music Theory
5:11 - Sight Reading - Should You Learn It?
8:14 - Relative Pitch - Should You Learn It?
10:54 - The Western 'Rules' of Music - Should You Learn Them?
12:37 - Transcending Music Theory
14:50 - Don't Be Lazy
Captain Barbosa said it best: "They're more like guidelines."
+*BANG*+ _“The Code is the law.”_ Captain Teague. 😁
I think there are a lot of people hoping someone with credentials will excuse them from the hard work of learning essential skills and knowledge. I'm glad you mentioned laziness as a culprit here. Pointing to people like Paul McCartney as an example is naïve. He has great music theory knowledge, but he learned it unsystematically and so may lack the vocabulary associated with the systematic learning we see at conservatories. In the end though, he put in more hours than most Berklee students can dream of and the result is historical. I would echo your comments and encourage anyone wanting to learn or improve their musicianship to practice sight reading and ear training. And, anyone on the Internet promising music success without learning these things is selling snake oil. Great video. Cheers.
THIS
And McCartney’s concert music is clueless and totally out of synch with the zeitgeist. As a songwriter? Obviously, he’s a genius.
It's like saying: "Do we really need to know how to read or write since we can talk?"
So how could you write a book then?
@@russisaac813 I do not understand the question.
Exactly. Also the 12 pitch tones as an example is not an arbitrary thing, but derived from mathematical proportions (harmonic series) discovered by ancient Greeks , this is the basis why the " distance" between tone / semitone is what it is. Pythagoras is credited for this which relates intrinsically to the natural ordered world. Modal scales then developed, then the diatonic scale.
What do you think?
@@michaelcalder9089 Yea, got perfect pitch and I can’t hear any tone beyond 12 as well.
Kind of like how there’s just 24 hours & lots of space in between.
The relationship between music & music theory is like that between language & grammar. Around seven billion people on the globe speak & write, many without any formal introduction to the grammar used to describe language that often begins in secondary school. And, only the 100k or so linguists across the global have the full arsenal to describe how any language works. BUT, knowing the descriptive primitives from grammar class give you a huge leg up in learning another language.
Thinking about things this way the notion of "breaking rules" seems sort of ridiculous - yeah, Japanese has a very different set of rules than English, but no one would ever accuse the Japanese of *breaking* the rules of English. It's just a different system like Oscar emphasizes, and there's a famous saying in linguistics even if no one can agree who first said it (though Saussure in the classroom seems most likely). It speaks of language as 'un systeme au tout se tient', or roughly "a system where everything sticks together."
I think of languages & musics like a puzzle. The theoretical elements stick together whether you know it or not, and it can be a jigsaw puzzle or a crossword or a conversation or a symphony. It's kinda silly to say the rules of a jigsaw break the rules of a toddler's first sentence. But for both the key is getting the picture across.
I've been composing instrumental and orchestral music for a long time, and during my first years I was a staunch, self-taught, "music theory is pointless" believer.
Then I actually started seriously studying theory and I can draw a directly increasing line through the quality of music I wrote and the amount of theory I knew.
Yes, music theory is absolutely necessary and any composer of any serious quality needs a deep understanding of it.
"ah, yes, this thing that tells what to do says I'm better when I do what it tells to me"
hello Guidi, at 66, I've been a 'natural' ear musician in my past. However, over the years I have been learning from books and later, CDS and of course specialised music analysis books and you tube and I agree, that even the most naturally talented musicians can and will benefit from studying formal music theory and analysis.
I myself missed the opportunity at the time to go to the RSAMD in Scotland because I had chosen to do a theology degree. Now of course with hindsight, I would have studied music!
However, you can't turn the clock back as they say.
I too, love to compose and am enjoying the 'traditional' method of paper, pencil and piano, although to realise my ideas fully I use a Roland fantom X DAW then engineer with a Tascam Dp32 recorder for final mixdown. 😎
@@dang5874
You clearly have no idea how music theory works or how it could assist you in the composition progress if that's your honest thoughts on it.
@@dang5874 Music theory doesn't tell you what to do, it gives you some guidelines which you can then do whatever you want with. If you stick exactly to these rules then your music will probably sound boring and unimaginative but if you use them as a basis and do your own thing then the results will be a lot better than if you just do your own thing. The guy in this video mentions Jacob Collier saying 'fuck the rules' but you need to know the rules in the 1st place if you want to break them and Jacob Collier does have a very thorough understanding of music theory.
How did you learn to compose orchestral music before learning music theory?
BTW. Hans Zimmer likes to talk about the fact that he didn't have any formal musical training. What he doesn't mention so often is the fact that his mother was a pianist.
Wow, that's new!
Yeah, and his father was an engineer, so what?
Hans Zimmer absolutely knows a lot of music theory. He generally doesn't describe it in the formal language we usually mean when referring the 'music theory', though.
@@archi124 Nothing. I guess growing up with musical parents has absolutely no effect on children. Not to mention having an engineer father and a certain fondness for technical gadgets.
Zimmer also said on one panel that his father played a little clarinet and thought him that music should be fun, so again: probably no connection between musicality of the child and the parents. Just like in Collier's, Beethoven's or Mozart's families.
@@wojtekwieczorek6397 Ever heard from the selection bias?
Well, music theory in my opinion describe the function of music, but isn’t the rules of it. It’s like more a model of music, not the math of music.
It's the grammar of music. It exists in music even when the person who wrote the music in question has no idea about music theory.
@@Richard_Nickerson Descriptivism rise up!
@@segmentsAndCurves
🤨
@@Richard_Nickerson Yes. I think of music theory, etc. as just another language. Like math, computer languages and natural languages are languages. Each with a grammar and set of vocabulary.
But to the OP's point; sure, it's always wise to remember that "the map is not the terrain". But one should probably use a map anyway, if one doesn't want to get lost in the desert.....
We learn musical "rules" to break them properly.
"learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist" (Pablo Picasso)
Beep boop... It's Scriabin time!
Alexander Scriabin - Symphony No.1
th-cam.com/video/IUA_A-KwXU8/w-d-xo.html
@@bart-v cool quote!
Yup, pretty much what my theory teacher told us in uni.
Or use your ears!
I did have to smile a bit when, during your remarks about classical musicians needing to be excellent readers of music, a picture of Pavarotti popped up. The rumor (in any case) was that he was almost incapable of reading music. It was one of the major reasons he was unable to follow Domingo in pursuing a career as a conductor (so the rumors). His one-time manager (who may have had an axe to grind for some reason) tells of Luciano showing up for the first recording session of an opera with the score that had been sent to him still wrapped in plastic and asking who was going to teach him the role.
Which does not lessen his greatness in interpreting the music and the roles. He didn‘t have to read the printed notes to do that and he didn‘t need anyone to teach him that part of the art.
Another great example of sight reading not being necessary to perform classical music. I will say this - while it might be a practical skill, sure, I don't actually enjoy it at all (I suck at it.) The reason being the connection that can be found with a piece or song builds over time with me, as I can imagine it does for many other people, and well...reading it instantly and playing it with hardly any connection to it on an emotional level leaves it feeling like an empty performance for me. I find I can ironically enough remember sight-reading exercises that I've attempted to do and find myself enjoying playing it so much more as a piece rather than an exercise. The feeling of having to play something on the spot with other people *as a performance* is garbage to me. The whole system should change, I reckon. The fact that people can be substituted so quickly and demand that you learn something INSTANTLY is almost anti-music.
You have lighten up a candle that will never be extinguished in many people and I am one of them. Thnx.
Such a thorough, nuanced and balanced analysis. Something that we do not see much nowadays. Keep up the good work!
Jacob Collier can say "fuck the rules" all he wants, but Music Theory is simply describing what exists. Just like linguistics only describes languages as they exist, and does not prescribe the rules for language, nor create them, so does music theory. So there are no real rules to fuck.
And I know you basically say this in the video anyway.
JC says fuck the rules, having spent every waking minute his ENTIRE YOUNG LIFE studying all the rules.
A wise man that never existed once said: It is only after you know the rules when you can say fuck the rules.
You're right, western music theory does simply describe what exists (at least, in places where the theory can be applied like in western Europe in the 18th-20th century). That's why in conservatories a lot of classical music is used to demonstrate what the ideas are within the theory itself. The problem arises when some examples that are used literally contradict what the theory is supposed to be built upon (I had to analyze a Bach chorale for an assessment, where the piece had "bad" or "wrong" four-part vocal style writing, and yet it was still something we were to analyze because that didn't actually matter I guess, which totally contradicts what music theory education has been saying this whole time), and it also becomes a problem when there is a deliberate misuse of terminology referring to "rules" and "guidelines" and "trends". It becomes really, really messy, and sooner or later you end up going around in a circle like this video does.
It's also worth noting that saying "fuck the rules" without knowing what the rules are can be just as meaningful as if you studied at a conservatory. There are plenty of musicians who are very successful and make awesome music who never studied anywhere, and simply was taught their instruments firsthand. I think of Meshuggah (except the bassist), Judas Priest, a lot of metal bands - who might not even consider an element of going against the rules when they make their music, but end up doing so anyway and make awesome stuff. At the end of the day, it's about whatever the hell it is you want to make - not about whether you're following fake rules, or not.
In my opinion.
Thanks for your insightful videos. I am a retired Primary School Music Teacher. I was trained in the Kodaly principles of teaching music and one of the foundational principles was “sound before symbol”. My classes consisted of lots of singing, music games, movement etc so that the children internalised the sounds they were hearing before I presented actual rhythmic patterns and notes to them. This process continued through Primary School, constantly building on previous experiences. I never thought of myself as teaching theory, rather, I was helping the children to become musically literate. It was a very fulfilling career.
Wow this video actually came out at the perfect time.
I'm currently working on a workshop on Applied Music Theory for a group of students. It's about how they can use music theory as an advantage on their own instruments.
This video definitely helps a lot!!
Music theory is VERY useful… for playing songs, understanding keys and chords will save you a lot of time, and knowledge about chords, keys, progressions, etc will help you a lot in composing. You don’t have to follow all of the “chord progression rules”, and you don’t always have to stay in the same key, but it’s much easier to intentionally break the rules as an artistic choice when you KNOW the rules 😆
regarding your question at the end, I would like to focus on relative pitch as I believe that's the most efficient tool to learn music. Somehow if one cannot hear music off the page, they are forced to understand it through analysis with the rules of harmony, structure that you've mentioned, instead of experiencing the sound and feeling the music. it's also much more fun to be able to hear, than just analyze!
100% agree with you, hearing is ultimately the best tool you can develop to strengthen your relationship with music! Consider this: when you read music, you have to have an idea of what it sounds like in the first place to process it in a way that makes sense. Hearing is fundamental even when you're not listening!
For my goals, I’d place relative pitch at the highest importance, reading and theory comprehension then provide a very useful framework that facilitates the further elevation of relative pitch.
I’ve not yet found a better relative pitch course than David L Burge’s. (No affiliation) it’s quite old now, I would hope there would be something by now. There’s something about his approach that I found very effective.
For those interested TL;DW
"music theory" is just some people's opinion of how a specific subset of the music of the world works, an abstraction of it, because it loses a lot of information that maybe later gets interpreted as "exceptions" (the use of fifths or augmented seconds). The practical implications of this can be implied by noting the differences between what is being said here and the prescriptive/dogmatic approach that has dominated the teaching of music.
Until I was 65 I laughed and said I was born with two left ears. But I liked music, and watching musicians talk about music. So I buys me a piano, see, and I starts to really watch these videos, and now I've got something to keep me occupied.
BTW I'm plowing through your Ear Training course. Merci beaucoup.
"But that's just a theory, a music theory."
"AAAAND Cut.."
It is good to learn the theory, yes, but it might be more important to develop the ability to move around in the world of music expressively. To find and develop the melodies, etc. When you do this, one would probably find that what you are doing also makes sense from the point of view of music theory, whether you know music theory or not.
Most of those musicians did have trained musicians around them, or in the family.
EVH won classical piano competitions as a kid.
They also like to embellish their lives to sound more Rock n Roll.
Collier is basically an AI of Music Theory brought up in a musical household.
The Beatles had George Martin.
Fantastic video, i've seen taken many music theory courses and see many music theory videos weekly. Well explained!
I LOVE TH-cam for the reason creators like you can post awesome stuff like this! Never thought developing relative pitch was so important
Relative pitch, perfect pitch, and absolute pitch were all acquired skills for me as an orchestra/chorus teacher. But it really became ingrained when I started composing. So on top of playing viola/violin, bass, and piano, music theory made me extremely better at aural skills, which made me a better composer, which ultimately made me an insane sight-reader. So music theory in today's world is usual beneficial, especially when it is coupled with an instrument. Nothing against vocal major, but having taught chorus, singers were always at a disadvantage in my experience. So I made more of an effort to teach theory to singers.
Hi Oscar, thanks for highlighting this topic. Music theory without purpose is definitely useless. However, a main benefit of understanding music theory is that it explains melodic and harmonic function. It is therefore a valuable tool for analysing a score before laying hands on your instrument. Also, as a memory aid, you can map melodic phrases and mark up harmonic progressions with Roman notation. And you can aid efficient practice by noting the ‘hard stuff’ and not waste time on the easy bits. Thanks again.
My own experience is that I always thought the modes were a dry theoretical concept. Then I learned how each has a distinct emotional character and "use case". Realizing that has allowed me to choose modes that work well with the emotional I'm trying to convey and has led to some of my favorite compositions.
I started playing piano with a free online keyboard course that focussed more on playing by feel (it was a really good course!). It always had some notes and the bare minimum of music theory but not more. When I switched from the beginners course to self teaching I started learning covers that other people made.
But I wanted to learn how to make them myself and this is where I used music theory to open that door for me. I self studied it for a bit and now I can do what I always wanted to do: I can sit down and play a song simply by using the music video (and most of the time the chord progression but I have done it without). It's never perfect. I make lots of mistakes. I would probably play better with traditional music training. But I can pick up a song, play it within 5-10 minutes and create a simple but nice sounding cover. There is nothing that I enjoy more than playing a song that I've never played and hearing how both hands come together almost automatically and music theory helped me greatly to achieve that.
Everyone can figure out themselves if they want to learn music theory and how much of it they consider worth learning but it can be a great tool.
I think the only place where the "rules" are generally mostly followed is when trying to write a traditional fugue, but even then, some composers of the past break them.
Beethoven Great Fugue, Op. 133
@@ignacioclerici5341 Thank you for saying what I have known.
Which means that it's okay to break them, which means they're not really rules (I hate how this dude in the video is like "they're not musical LAWS" like there's a damn difference between rules and laws. Both inherently can't be broken, they're the same thing. A rule in a sport can't be broken. It's not groundbreaking to play a sport in a new way that literally breaks the rules in place. That's what differentiates musical "RuLeS" to real ones I'd say.
@@andreasvandieaarde hence, the ""
@@segmentsAndCurves yeah, but it's not at all necessary to say it to begin with. Name it what it is - no need to use the wrong terminology for it. They're not rules. It adds unnecessary confusion
I want to become a conductor, so it seems that i must learn the hardcore theory, isn't it?
yes and listen to lots of music. get a good mental repertoire.
I feel like you can get away with trusting your ears, too. There's no harm in using aural skills over theory. In my case, I find memorizing music relatively easy compared to actually reading it. If I were to become a conductor...I'd probably end up leaning on my hearing more so than anything else. I'm sure you'll be fine!
The older I get, the more I appreciate music theory... and just rules in general. By and large, they don't come out of the blue. Particularly, as an organist, I work with the harmonic series and various historical periods... chant, Palestrina, Bach, Franck, Messiaen. Yeah, music theory defines something after the fact, but apples existed before our definition of an apple. I do get frustrated with people who mindlessly follow the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. In life, it's easier to teach "what" rather than "why," and I know lots of musicians that can perform a piece of music that have no clue of the history, philosophy, or music theory of the piece with which they are engaging. Art speaks to the ineffablity of Truth and the great "why." Most people tend to bask in the high that the aesthetic experience engenders, and this can be very compelling and seem like a lovely place to stop. But art really is about engaging in Truth questions, and understanding the language of art is a means perceiving the questions asked. Counterpoint, harmony, and the harmonic series really aren't arbitrary, but they are a tapestry whose threads go in many different directions... Eh, I could go on. The long and the short of it is that, as one gets older, one looks to meaning and the "great why," and the rules of tradition speak to ultimate wisdom that the myopia of personal freedom has trouble understanding.
I think the biggest mistake people make here is thinking of music theory as rules. It doesn’t dictate how things must be done, it describes how things have been done.
The twelve-tone system we have in the west comes from Pythagoras - he took a string and plucked it, then he noticed the tone was one octave higher when the string was divided in half, and then he noticed that the tone was a fifth higher when he cut the original string to two-thirds its original length. He then went all the way around the circle of fifths several times until he had the twelve distinct tones we have now. The G-sharp he arrived back to, however, was NOT perfectly in tune with the A-flat he got the first time, and Pythagoras decided to ignore the difference rather than correct it, which is why there exists what’s called the “Pythagorean comma” and why keys with lots of sharps and flats are not as well in tune as simpler keys like C major/A minor or F major/D minor.
Also, I’m a singer, and although I do not have perfect pitch, I can often guess what note a pitch is by singing/humming it and seeing how it feels in my voice.
This is really comforting to hear. Thank you.
-Ex Piano performance major that struggles with connecting to general public music "lovers"
I have a decent amount of skill with relative pitch, but it's on my list of things to work on, especially as I'm about to start studying voice as well as my instruments and being able to feel what interval that leap on the page is, is critical for sight-singing well. I also need more knowledge of harmony and other things specifically related to composing, since I've gotten back into writing music again.
I like sightreading on instruments. It's fun, and exciting, hearing something new come into being as you play that you've maybe never even heard before. Also very very useful. I have gotten the music only an hour or so before I had to play it with others twice in the last week.
My music theory is so all over the place! I can’t read treble clef (only bass and percussion), I have perfect pitch for pretty much just the Bb major scale in my low brass range. My “parallel fifths” have the fifth moved down an octave.
As Walter Piston points out, theory is distilled from the practice of composers. This rebellion against theory is based on the idea that it is constricting or limits creativity, whereas it is just a collection of tools. Take the rule against parallel fifths for example. They create a strong effect, characteristic of the organum style, which sticks out disruptively in later music. Also parallel motion, especially octaves and fifths (1st and 2nd harmonics) tends to destroy the independence of voices and sound thin. You are free to break those rules, but you have to know what you are doing. If you want to sound jazzy, you can figure it out from listening or trial and error, but it does have rules, even if you don't know them. You just know if something sounds "off". The same goes for any style. In my own forays into modernism, I have found this. The essence of modernism is to break the traditional rules, but you have to break them systematically and consistently, or your innovations sound like mistakes. In other words, you have to find your own idiom. My own pieces that I like best are basically tonal/functional, but marked by irregular phrases, strong rhythmic motifs, abrupt unmodulated key transitions and coloristic and percussive dissonance. I've only just come to understand that by analysing my own work. Knowing the grammar I'm working with helps me get past the blocks that get in the way of completing anything longer than 60 bars or so.
I was taught that the musical "rules" were actually more of "principles" rather than rules. Because everything is valid (yes, even parallel 5ths) depending on the context. Parallel 5ths aren't wrong per se. They are just a part of something else.
Why then, do educational institutions continue to refer to them as rules? It makes no sense to me, and everytime someone like Debussy "breaks the rules" it's okay because they're geniuses. Including Bach. It's honestly so shit, I think it should be reformed.
What about writing something I can't play? Because I do it quite often, I can play the left hand part and the right hand part, but I often have a hard time playing them together. Also, do you have a perfect pitch? Because dividing that third for 7 parts was pretty impressive. Not to mention the other episode where you talked about making music in your head as a child.
I have always called it music grammar. I equate it to reading and writing language. I think of theory as understand psychologically why and how music impacts us.
I took two years of music theory in college and am grateful that I did. It gave me an understanding and a framework to write my own music but also to appreciate other's music.
I read a biography of Chopin 4 or 5 years ago (Chopin: A New Biography by Adam Zamoyski) and I believe the author was not a musician but he was Polish. When the author was describing Chopin's musical education in Poland, his teacher (I don't recall his name) explained the "rules" of composition to Chopin but didn't demand that he follow them. Instead he allowed Chopin to follow his imagination and the music he heard in his mind. This was contrary to the majority of music teachers of that day where they presented the rules of composition and demanded that their students follow them.
When I read that I thought that might be one of or even perhaps the primary reason that Chopin's music is so beautiful both lyrically and harmonically. Few composers since Chopin have written music for the piano that captured the soul of the piano as beautifully as he did.
So I agree with your assessment of music theory and this video was wonderful.
So Chopin was supposedly taught rules that didn't have to be followed? That means they weren't rules at all. So even when these classical composers were alive, they were taught this contradictory bullshit just like now. Some things just never change, I guess. Seems Rimsky Korsakov had a thing or two to say about the music education of his day, saying that roman numeral analysis was outdated and probably some other stuff.
Thank you, it’s very informative
But I would add just one thing : at 4:04 you said that the 12 semitones that form a chromatic scale are choosen in an arbitrary way
But actually no. 12 semitones were choosen because every interval ratio (within something like 1% error margin) is less dissonant than with every other possible choice (11, 9, 8, 13, 14, … semitones)
It was actually the best compromise
Sorry for my bad english
Excellent video. Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.
I am not a musician. I don't read music. I don't write music. I am a listener and enjoy tons of music. For me, music theory has opened my eyes to see how composers worked, how the various classical pieces were created and why, as well as the recognition of what is going on - what the composer wants to convey during all these works. I will likely not master music theory, but what you have brought to me is the opening of a wonderful world of classical music AND a sound understanding of how more modern music is created. This effectively expands my appreciation of the music universe. Is music theory worthwhile? That is up to the individual, but I have benefitted from just the lightest touch of it :)
Is everybody gonna ignore the fact that he explains about music better than anyone on the internet 😂?
Word of advice: write freely and without concern. But when stuck let theory guide you back to inspiration.
Absolutely great video as always! It's very rare to find as good teacher as you are.
Music theory applied successfully in a way that an audience responds to (whether the artist was conscious of the theory or not) is called STYLE. Hendrix had style. Bob Dylan had style. The Beatles had style. Joni Mitchell had style. Yet none of them could read or write music notation or tell you what scales they used.
From the time i've listened Stockhausen's electronic works, the only theory I need its the counter point or note against note, then groups of pitches against groups of notes, finally masses of noise against above all and it self.
My guy you are a genius
If you're going to write and arrange music for brass and other instruments for orchestras, bands, combos, sextets, quintets, quartets, trios, etc. you need a foundation in theory and harmony. After you have some kind of understanding you can pretty much do whatever you want once you know how to work with consonance and dissonance.
Beautifully explained !
The point at 8:00 could have been expanded. One of the overlooked reasons to study music theory is simply that it's fascinating to study.
I would also add that if your goal is to compose or improvise it's more important to practice using music theory concepts in musical ways than it is to "learn" dozens of complex theoretical concepts.
"You can watch the extend version of this video over Nebula..."
Great video. I've really grown to hate it when people say "x musician didn't know theory". It's usually either to justify not learning it themselves, or to trivialize the knowledge of other musicians.
Like, no, Eric Clapton couldn't read sheet music, but he could walk on to a stage with a blues band and sit in, and all he'd have to say is something like; "this is a blues in E", or something like that.
That is also a kind of theory, and usually the people who are brought up in this context, actually know something like this, to communicate with fellow musicians in the same genre or circle.
I saw someone say once that music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive, and after a certain point of writing, that's a truth everyone needs to learn. When people say that rap is not real music, for instance, it's because they haven't made this revelation yet. Theory is great, and I think that anyone trying to do anything productive musically speaking in a western-influenced society ought to have some minimal understanding about western music theory and tonality, but music theory is not the final authority for what sounds good: we are.
A perfect preamble to music theory.
Simply put, yes music theory is essential up to a certain level. Imagine an author giving you a book with random words jumbled up,wrong spelling, different languages, different texts fonts,a fee numbers here and there,half an illustration, pages sort of in order... look it doesn't have to be Shakespeare (Bach Mozatt) but at least up to a written level that it can be read and makes sense... so learn enough to write it pretty decently
And for those playing ear, writing down basic chords or even what they doing,should be the same, in simple easy to understand language :) room for everyone 😀
I definitely have to work on my reading skills I am blessed with a good Ear and somewhat good at a relative pitch. We are talking all at the Beginner skills. Most of all thank you for sharing about the Boulinger sisters.
As a self taught composer, I am always and 'still' learning! I was an 'ear' musician for years and music creation (ideas, melodies,etc) come easily to me. However, the actual mechanics of what makes the music work is to me, absolutely paramount. Driving a car is one thing, but knowing what powers it is another thing entirely and that's why music/compositional theory and analysis is important to me. Your videos are excellent, very instructive and thought provoking. For instance as you said, we are learning 'old' systems, some of which, may be open to challenge!
For instance, the eight octave scale...why is the third note the mediant (middle) and not the three and one half note if we're dealing with 7 notes and a root note doubled, to make an octave?
I'd love to hear any respectful and insightful answers please. One last thought, to those who think they are experts in anything (or music) in doing so, they are shutting themselves off from new learning experiences by doing so.
I would encourage ALL natural 'ear' musos to get studying music....it's both fascinating and educational and also paramount for your growth of knowledge. 😎
All of it!
And not of it at the same time!
That's a lot of theory!
@@kazvanrooij
None?
@@Richard_Nickerson yes, and all of it!
@@kazvanrooij
I was asking if that's what you meant rather than "not"
Music theory is only as valuable and necessary as it is to make the music you truly want to make, as well as understanding music at the level you want to understand it.
all the famous musicians who claim the didnt learn any formal music theory confuse people because they learned so much music theory one way or another...
otherwise they wouldnt be able to do what they do...
theory is the "logic" of aesthetics.
since nowadays, everyone has their own idea about aesthetics, as well as ganres and different styles in those ganres, theory may be the logic behind what makes something work just for you or me.
in that sense, theory is how you map things out for yourself. the difference is, that if you want to discover a new "island", you might want to look at a map first, to see what somebody else allready found.
You have great ideas and great videos. Thanks for posting! I do agree that sheet music is limited, but there are somewhat standardized systems that account for some microtones like: quarter, eighth, and sometimes sixteenth tones. I've even seen some that use sixth tones as well. There are tons of systems that, much like the "normal" music reading system, would take time to read and learn but could be done. Thanks for all the cool ideas and content!!
I also like to add that Turkish and Arabic music uses semitones (24point) or komas (52 notes in total) in Turkish music. Both (turkish notation being tuned up a 3rd) adapted to the 12 point notation relatively. There's a music theory out there for anyone to explain any piece of music. It isn't racist like what some suggest. To what you have said, I agree that many ppl today, and in the past, just saw music theory as a convenience like English grammar. It's ever evolving and adapting.
Man‼️ I’m not a musician & it’s been years that I have sat beside a drum set & kept a beat. Nevertheless, I have always love classical music but never know what to buy are where to begin to sort out. I feel the body of that music is so limited to what is offered or presented to the public in general. I am truly enjoying your presentations; although, a some of what you cover goes over my head.
Nevertheless, you are hitting a nerve that is inspiring & creating a yearning to want to know & listening to more. One thing I’ve started doing is writing down any composer you mention & see if I have a recording in my small classical collection of that person. If I don’t have that person like Lili Boulanger, she on my list to find any & everything recorded by her.
Well,
Keep it coming. ✌🏾
Great video, thank you ! 🙏
As a pianist I cannot count the times I have had to accompany singers who cannot read a note of music. It irritates me when I have to play the vocal line for them until they can learn it by heart. If you want to collaborate with other musicians and cannot read music notation, then you are a burden to the other musicians with whom you are working. As a pianist, I have enough to do to learn my part without having to teach you YOUR part.
As a listener ( & ex-player of non-polyphonic instrument) it would have been useful to know about form, types of ensembles, the 8 elements of music, modals, history (musical era/periods) to help buy recorded music or attend concerts.
There are probably other things that would have been useful to enhance enjoyment or discussion or music but I wouldn't know about them as I wasn't taught them.
What else useful weren't we taught?
Thanks for making this video, very useful! Now my ultimate goals are sight reading and relative ear
Thank you for your help.
I wouldn’t say Eddie Van Halen didn’t know theory he was classically trained on the piano
I have a background of both Classical Western Music and Byzantine Greek Orthodox Music. Although Byzantine Music implements microtones, relative pitch is crucial to chanting. Byzantine Music Theory is vastly different from Western Music Theory, but learning one helped me in the end with the other. Moreover, theory really means 'speculation, consideration' (θεωρία < θεωρῶ = I spectate, speculate), not an unbreakable law system.
I think we know what Music is as much as what Consciousness is. I mean, we can have a zillion of theories, beliefs and intuitions, but ultimely, what do we really know for sure?
That said, one of those "theories" wich seems to have universal consensus is that music is a LANGUAGE. You dont need to know ALL the words, grammar, set phrases, accents, etc. to understand and speak an idiom. But the more you know, the better you're going to do it.
You can listen audiobooks and record yourself speaking, but if you can read and write in a paper (or a screen), still better.
(Of course you can have a perfectly happy and enjoyable life with only "toddler level language")
Really cool video that explains why we even have music theory, Wish this video was there when I started playing music so I knew it wasn't "rules you have to follow, or else!" but more like a tool to help you understand music
And yet, if you go to study music professionally, it'll still be addressed as a "rule" that isn't really a "rule". It's total bullshit.
Did they develop music theory in India, Indonesia, Africa, the Roman Empire, China etc? What were they?
It’s stupid to say “some dude decided to limit it to twelve notes”. Why did everyone else follow that person?
Yes. Music Theory isn't actually a set of rules. It can be a way of explaining how music works. From my point of view it is way better explained as a set of creative boundaries for composers.
I think I need to work on actually being able to play the things I write and sight reading. Practice practice practice.
Great vid, thanks!
Music theory is like grammar for language. Do we need to know everything about it to understand each other? We don’t but it is just very helpful.
Whenever I try to write from the standpoint of theory it just sucks the joy and magic right out of it. When I just let it flow from my hands it works perfectly.
It's interesting how your experience almost directly contradicts the comment directly above you. There's clearly no correct answer here. And y'know, I think that's because music doesn't make actual sense! It's not logical! We try to rationalize shit when at the end of the day, it's not rational at all!
@@andreasvandieaarde @Mr Musiek Good point. I am of the view that music is otherworldly, that it is divine. We can only "master" it by reducing it to the mortal, to the mundane. I have no illusions of mastering it; I would rather play with divine fire imperfectly than reduce it.
If you are a composer and it sounds right then it is right. If we only learn the theory of the ancient Bach style, we will only be able to write and perform the music of the ancient Bach style.
Music theory is like grammar for a language, it's fundamentally necessary.
I have Perfect Pitch, BUT I have bad relative pitch. 😂 When it comes to transposing, I really struggle because I hear notes and IMMEDIATELY think of their names first (C, E, G, etc), and NOT their relations (C, E, and G are all a 3rd apart from each other.) So if I’m asked to transpose, suddenly I’m thinking… E, G#, B, and get confused because what I’m reading on the score isn’t always what I’m PRODUCING out loud. It’s such a barrier. 😂
Great video. I find it useful to think of theory as useful sets of guidelines for achieving various effects, rather than as anything objective or concrete. For example, if I want two voices to sound independent, then I’ll avoid parallel fifths. Conversely, if I want two voices to sound similar, then I’ll use parallel fifths. Parallel fifths aren’t bad by any objective measure, instead they’re useful for achieving certain effects and not so useful for achieving others. I think people would be less intimidated by theory if the conditional nature of its guidelines were stressed.
You're right, theory IS a set of guidelines - when applied to 18th-20th western European century classical music. There are hundreds of styles of music that these "guidelines" don't apply to because of the nature of whose music it's built upon such as Bach (which ironically has literally been shown to contradict the theory that supposedly is built off his music - having to analyze a chorale that had "wrong" voice-leading). I think at the end of the day, trust your gut.
Awesome as usual. I was an intuitive composer for decades and progressed a tiny bit. Then I hopped on vitamin T - Theory - in the common practice and I finally got the feeling I was in control of my music.
Well that's good that you started feeling in control of what you were writing, at the end of the day I think one of the most important elements of being a musician comes from having *intention* no matter what it is
A big reason why we’re usually only use the 12 semitones is also bc most people and audience memebers can’t differentiate between intervals smaller than a half step. Even trained musicians can find it difficult
First get an interest for music,
Second learn a lot of music / music theory,
Third break the rules.
I wish I had learned more. It would be tremendously helpful to understand how it works in detail.
Answer: yes. As much as possible
You're conflating two separate issues here. I think it would be better to separate them
1) Musical notation (being able to read/write musical notation). Of course this is a super convenient skill. To have a way to translate what you hear to the written form. I can't see any reason for any musician to avoid learning this. So I include hear being able to write out melodies your hearing, and hear in your head melodies on the written page.
2) Rules of musical composition (like Fux's rules of counterpoint) which are based on a subjective aesthetic sense... other things like "good" vs "bad" voice leading. No parallel octaves or fifths etc.
1 is an invaluable skill for all musicians. 2 is far less important. I'd say learn some of the history of 2, but don't get too caught up in it. Because all these rules get broken at some point. But musical notation is analagous to the english alphabet. It's permanent. I don't see any reason to avoid learning it.
Thank you!
Some of the rules of the past may have been due to various effects in different systems of tuning. There are likely subtleties that we do not readily perceive due to what we hear around us.
Anyway that say that about theory has never been on a band. Because if you have mix musicians, people that know theory and people that don't, you know how sometimes is really hard explain or ask for something that with theory is really simple. Also the same when people want "steal" ideas from another songs, they know what they want, but don't know what that is, and is pain for them, and for you is "oh, is just 2, 5, 1, like in x song or x song, or x song" and they know exactly what it is.
Some artists like to say they compose songs despite lacking of music theory.
But they forget that there's always an "arranger/orchestrator" behind them who have all the classical knowledge and actually write all the musical parts, developing all the musical ideas.
Awesome video.
Well balanced and practical.
Johann Fux codified the counterpoint of Palestrina, and since then Palestrina has been considered the model of Renaissance polyphony, but Professor Heinrich Van der Werf, of the Eastman School of Music, considers Palestrina to be a minor composer in comparison to Josquin des Prez.
Yes! So true
OMG I was certain that you were @CharlesBerthoud
You guys have an amazing voice!
Love your content, keep it up!!
A great video putting music theory into its right perspective!
Love this and completely agree!! Great video
I'm glad that you agree!
I'm sure someone's pointed it out before, but the Lick in the thumbnail is actually incorrect! The final B should be a B natural, but without a natural sign it's a B double flat A.K.A. C sharp, the second degree of the scale (or double augmented unison I guess).
The monks found that as their music increased in length and complexity the elderly members found it more difficult to remember! So an aide de memoir was required.