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I'd be even less reserved than that. Many very popular and acclaimed musicians (be it people producing stuff with software in a DAW, or playing electric/acousti

I'd be even less reserved than that. Many very popular and acclaimed musicians (be it people producing stuff with software in a DAW, or playing electric/acoustic instruments, or both) get to where they are just by messing around for a while and developing an intuitive musicality and composing ability despite never learning any music theory. So one may very well be up to more people's standards than they might think, once they put some time in. It's probably worth it to spend a little bit of time learning the fundamentals, but like with programming, you can self-teach pretty well by just learning the absolute basics and then developing expertise through experimentation, trial-and-error, and pursuing what interests you. Just as you don't need a 4 year degree to become a competent programmer, you don't need to deliberately study and practice music theory or classical technique for months/years to become a competent musician. In both cases, you can learn and practice by doing, if that's what you prefer. You can take a "hacker" approach for both domains.

grugagag 6y ago
Yes but one can be a modern musician without playing any instrument at all, the software can guide you on the right tracks and the need to actually “play” as in connecting oneself to any instrument can be bypassed alltogether. And that is a double edged sword as the effort to sit down and learn an instrument becomes an extremely hard task as compared to the handholding the computer can do for you. It’s almost like the diference between deep reading and reading small bits of information on the internet.
- meowface 6y ago
  I'm skeptical there are very many good ones (by my subjective taste) who use that approach. I suspect many of those people still use their computer keyboards as a way of entering notes in real-time, in which case you are still basically playing an instrument, with your computer keyboard acting as a MIDI keyboard. I also don't really think there's any software that "handholds" or "guides" you in the way you're describing. Can you give an example? If it's a drum machine, you still have to program the patterns yourself, for example. Your DAW won't structure your tracks for you.

grugagag 6y ago

Yes but one can be a modern musician without playing any instrument at all, the software can guide you on the right tracks and the need to actually “play” as in connecting oneself to any instrument can be bypassed alltogether. And that is a double edged sword as the effort to sit down and learn an instrument becomes an extremely hard task as compared to the handholding the computer can do for you. It’s almost like the diference between deep reading and reading small bits of information on the internet.

meowface 6y ago
I'm skeptical there are very many good ones (by my subjective taste) who use that approach. I suspect many of those people still use their computer keyboards as a way of entering notes in real-time, in which case you are still basically playing an instrument, with your computer keyboard acting as a MIDI keyboard. I also don't really think there's any software that "handholds" or "guides" you in the way you're describing. Can you give an example? If it's a drum machine, you still have to program the patterns yourself, for example. Your DAW won't structure your tracks for you.