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I didn't talk about virtuosity and talent, I talked about learning. What you learn is completely independent of musical genres, technical difficulty or even tal
by jeremiep 10y ago
I didn't talk about virtuosity and talent, I talked about learning. What you learn is completely independent of musical genres, technical difficulty or even talent. Its the foundation which allows you to reason about these things and build all your knowledge and experiences upon.
Even the guy wanting a half decent melody on a midi controller needs to understand to some degree the relations between those notes, both in melodic and harmonic terms. Otherwise the best he can do is hit random notes and hope it sounds good then wondering why it does sound good and being unable to apply that to different situations.
If I never learn how to write, how am I going to produce an essay?
- derefr 10y ago> Otherwise the best he can do is hit random notes and hope it sounds good then wondering why it does sound good ...and then experimenting with short snatches of melody in the attempt to replicate the effect under different conditions, gradually reinventing music theory themselves; and then coming later in life to the study that gives names to the library of intuitions they've built, finally being able to talk about them with people—but happy that they did in fact build the intuition first rather than just carrying around the bulky handles to the concepts without first seeing the use. Or maybe that's just me.
- jeremiep 10y agoI find that theory helps you reach intuition much, much faster for whats already out there, and then you're equipped to reach out into truly new areas. Its the same for engineering - if you don't read the existing work in the space of the problem you're trying to solve, chances are you'll spend years doing what could've taken weeks.