5 ms·

> Einstein often improvised on violin Improvisation has little to do with music theory; most Folk and Jazz music is improvised; even what we know today as "cla

by Rochus 5y ago

> Einstein often improvised on violin Improvisation has little to do with music theory; most Folk and Jazz music is improvised; even what we know today as "classical music" was often improvised in the past; many great composers were also great improvisers.

watwut 5y ago
Wut? Jazz is heavy on theory from the start precisely to facilitate the improvisation. You need theory to improvise, basically. You do not need theory to perform existing pieces all that much. Which is why you can learn to play classical music while ignoring theory.
- sornaensis 5y ago
  Jazz theory came decades after jazz.
  - lewispollard 5y ago
    Yes, to describe and group together the specific music theory elements that jazz musicians tended to use: sevenths, avoiding triads, modulation, etc. Not because there was no theory intentionally used in jazz music. If you think those guys didn't know what they were doing...
  - danShumway 5y ago
    That's why jazz theory is valuable, sometimes people don't want to spend decades re-learning things that other people have already learned. Also, I'm just plain not as good a musician as, say, Duke Ellington was, and there's a benefit to being able to understand what he was doing so I can try to imitate that style and incorporate his techniques into my own playing -- I don't want to rediscover all of his lessons completely on my own because I'm not talented enough to do that; very few people are.
- Rochus 5y ago
  Music theory is always "after the fact"; it's a way to teach people what their idols did, even if the idols didn't know or didn't apply the theory. To improvise you first of all require musical talent on both harmonic and rhythmic dimensions, and you need practice. Theory might help, but it is not a prerequisite.
  - watwut 5y ago
    This is not even true across history. "The idols" in jazz did knew and did applied theory. > To improvise you first of all require musical talent on both harmonic and rhythmic dimensions I mean, you need ability to keep rhythm and play notes. But beyond that, you absolutely can get away with theory only with basically zero special talent. You wont become world famous, but you will be able to match what the rest of group is playing. > even what we know today as "classical music" was often improvised in the past; many great composers were also great improvisers. Also going back to original comment, you seem to put theory and improvisation into some kind of dichotomy. But, both being great composer and great improviser are heavily facilitated by understanding theory.
    - jseban 5y ago
      Yeah it's not true at all, just look at russell's lydian chromatic concept for example, and how much new ideas for jazz and improvisation that it spawned. Theory does not only come after practice. Oh how I wish people would stop venting their fantasies of the god gift whenever the subject of music comes up
    - Rochus 5y ago
      > "The idols" in jazz did knew and did applied theory When jazz music appeared, there were no conservatories or theory for it. The first jazz conservatories emerged fifty years later. Today they find many graduates, for example, from Berklee. But this is a development that has only begun in the last forty years. It didn't make the music better, it just made it different. > You wont become world famous Very very few world famous exponents of popular music have a formal musical education.
lewispollard 5y ago
Good luck improvising without any theory knowledge, especially against a backing band. Pro folk musicians are some of the most theory adept people I know, my uncle is one and he knows 1000s of songs, and can basically play any song in any key through his theory chops. Jazz musicians... I mean, cmon, Jazz is all about doing wild things with theory that surprise and amaze you. Good luck being a jazz musician without understanding seventh chords, modal/metric modulation, etc.
- Rochus 5y ago
  No problem if the band operates on known pieces, even possible when the band is from another culture and the specific pieces are not known to the improviser.
  - lewispollard 5y ago
    Yes, but how does the improviser know which notes are concordant and which dissonant against the chords of the known song without theory? How do they know how to create tension and resolution within the harmonic/melodic progression? Improvisation doesn't mean "making up random stuff", it means knowing your instrument and the ways in which chords, melodies, harmonies interact, knowing changes and progressions, inside out so well that you naturally can use that knowledge to come up with something unique. If what you mean is "some musicians can implicitly understand this stuff without knowing the academic language", well yeah, music theory isn't prescriptive, it's a language used to communicate with other musicians. You can get away without knowing the terms, but knowing what it's describing is important. Edit: I should add, knowing what it's describing is important up until the point that you want to readily communicate with other musicians and have them communicate with you with full understanding, as quickly as possible, sometimes during performance - then the language of music theory becomes very useful.
    - Rochus 5y ago
      > how does the improviser know which notes are concordant and which dissonant against the chords of the known song without theory? A skilled/talented musician just hears that. It's like cooking: a good cook knows from experience which spices go with which dishes, without having to know the basic physics. > making up random stuff It always has random components, that's how humans operate; but good improvisers can produce music in real-time which sounds like composed/arranged music; the purpose of music is to entertain and please people; this goal can be fully achieved without any theory or prior arrangement.
wcarss 5y ago
My very amateur musician take: it can have little, or it can have a lot. One way to 'improvise' is to have an understanding of the relationships between keys and while moving around at pleasing intervals and making interesting chords, regularly jump keys at points where they overlap -- that's .. pretty music-theory driven, and can be very mathematical! There's a lot of fun math in jazz. It's not the only way to improvise, certainly. But someone who knows the rules can make them run a long way.
- Rochus 5y ago
  Improvisation is like talking. Not all people can do it equally well, and you learn to speak as a child without theory, and without knowing or being aware of the physiological or physical processes, or the syntactic or semantic features of language. You can listen to discussion groups and be well entertained without the speakers following any script or theory.
  - jseban 5y ago
    Can you give an example of a master speaker who doesn't know how to read or write, and are completely ignorant of grammar and how language works? And can you really say that one such example would make speaking mostly unrelated to language theory?
    - Rochus 5y ago
      Did you learn to read or write and the grammar and how language works before you learned to talk?
      - jseban 5y ago
        Of course your first exposure is not formal education, but the things I picked up by ear, the speakers had learned in formal education. Nobody becomes an expert in a field, completely detached from the existing body of knowledge. You could learn it only by immersion if you, for some reason, really want to avoid formal education, but you're still using an existing body of knowledge, even though mentally you might not call things "adverbs". And the likely, going that route will be much longer and harder, and also put a limit on how far you can go.
danShumway 5y ago
Jazz theory is a way of condensing down and describing to each other what a collective group of musical geniuses did across multiple years. I don't think theory is strictly necessary, there are great musicians who don't know anything about theory. Theory should never be used as a way of gatekeeping or deriding people's efforts to build things. However, unless you are also a musical genius who has spent decades honing your craft, there will probably be some benefit from learning from the people who came before you. It's not necessary essential, but very little theory is essential. You can technically be a great game designer without ever looking at other games, you can technically be a great UX designer without learning UX rules. The rules just make it much, much easier to get to that point -- because the rules allow you to more quickly learn from a large body of extremely talented individuals who shaped the entire genre.
Kye 5y ago
Music theory is both the languages of music and the formal study of those languages. Improv musicians communicate with something, and it often looks like the body of music theory around that tradition because the body comes from the tradition. Trying to separate theory from its basis is folly. Like the scientific method and the body of scientific knowledge, it's important to remember one follows the other, but I'm still employing centuries of science every day even if I can't name it all. Jazz musicians who can't cite theory don't use 7ths by accident.
- Rochus 5y ago
  That's a very academic perspective which I cannot share as a musician. Music needs no formal specification to exist. It's like a language, but a language for emotional, not rational communication. Btw. science exists by itself as well and doesn't depend on a "scientific method". Like in music, philosophers tried to understand how science works after the fact, and there is a plethora of philosophic optinions how science works. And we can pretty well do science without caring much of all those opinions. The same applies to music. > Jazz musicians who can't cite theory don't use 7ths by accident. I don't understand this argument. It's unavoidable to use 7ths, regardless whether the musician can name the interval or not.
  - Kye 5y ago
    I think we're closer than you realize, and I just did a poor job laying out my position. Unfortunately, I lack the language to get closer to what I mean.

by Rochus 5y ago

watwut 5y ago

Wut? Jazz is heavy on theory from the start precisely to facilitate the improvisation. You need theory to improvise, basically. You do not need theory to perform existing pieces all that much. Which is why you can learn to play classical music while ignoring theory.

sornaensis 5y ago
Jazz theory came decades after jazz.
- lewispollard 5y ago
  Yes, to describe and group together the specific music theory elements that jazz musicians tended to use: sevenths, avoiding triads, modulation, etc. Not because there was no theory intentionally used in jazz music. If you think those guys didn't know what they were doing...
- danShumway 5y ago
  That's why jazz theory is valuable, sometimes people don't want to spend decades re-learning things that other people have already learned. Also, I'm just plain not as good a musician as, say, Duke Ellington was, and there's a benefit to being able to understand what he was doing so I can try to imitate that style and incorporate his techniques into my own playing -- I don't want to rediscover all of his lessons completely on my own because I'm not talented enough to do that; very few people are.
Rochus 5y ago
Music theory is always "after the fact"; it's a way to teach people what their idols did, even if the idols didn't know or didn't apply the theory. To improvise you first of all require musical talent on both harmonic and rhythmic dimensions, and you need practice. Theory might help, but it is not a prerequisite.
- watwut 5y ago
  This is not even true across history. "The idols" in jazz did knew and did applied theory. > To improvise you first of all require musical talent on both harmonic and rhythmic dimensions I mean, you need ability to keep rhythm and play notes. But beyond that, you absolutely can get away with theory only with basically zero special talent. You wont become world famous, but you will be able to match what the rest of group is playing. > even what we know today as "classical music" was often improvised in the past; many great composers were also great improvisers. Also going back to original comment, you seem to put theory and improvisation into some kind of dichotomy. But, both being great composer and great improviser are heavily facilitated by understanding theory.
  - jseban 5y ago
    Yeah it's not true at all, just look at russell's lydian chromatic concept for example, and how much new ideas for jazz and improvisation that it spawned. Theory does not only come after practice. Oh how I wish people would stop venting their fantasies of the god gift whenever the subject of music comes up
  - Rochus 5y ago
    > "The idols" in jazz did knew and did applied theory When jazz music appeared, there were no conservatories or theory for it. The first jazz conservatories emerged fifty years later. Today they find many graduates, for example, from Berklee. But this is a development that has only begun in the last forty years. It didn't make the music better, it just made it different. > You wont become world famous Very very few world famous exponents of popular music have a formal musical education.

lewispollard 5y ago

Good luck improvising without any theory knowledge, especially against a backing band. Pro folk musicians are some of the most theory adept people I know, my uncle is one and he knows 1000s of songs, and can basically play any song in any key through his theory chops. Jazz musicians... I mean, cmon, Jazz is all about doing wild things with theory that surprise and amaze you. Good luck being a jazz musician without understanding seventh chords, modal/metric modulation, etc.

Rochus 5y ago
No problem if the band operates on known pieces, even possible when the band is from another culture and the specific pieces are not known to the improviser.
- lewispollard 5y ago
  Yes, but how does the improviser know which notes are concordant and which dissonant against the chords of the known song without theory? How do they know how to create tension and resolution within the harmonic/melodic progression? Improvisation doesn't mean "making up random stuff", it means knowing your instrument and the ways in which chords, melodies, harmonies interact, knowing changes and progressions, inside out so well that you naturally can use that knowledge to come up with something unique. If what you mean is "some musicians can implicitly understand this stuff without knowing the academic language", well yeah, music theory isn't prescriptive, it's a language used to communicate with other musicians. You can get away without knowing the terms, but knowing what it's describing is important. Edit: I should add, knowing what it's describing is important up until the point that you want to readily communicate with other musicians and have them communicate with you with full understanding, as quickly as possible, sometimes during performance - then the language of music theory becomes very useful.
  - Rochus 5y ago
    > how does the improviser know which notes are concordant and which dissonant against the chords of the known song without theory? A skilled/talented musician just hears that. It's like cooking: a good cook knows from experience which spices go with which dishes, without having to know the basic physics. > making up random stuff It always has random components, that's how humans operate; but good improvisers can produce music in real-time which sounds like composed/arranged music; the purpose of music is to entertain and please people; this goal can be fully achieved without any theory or prior arrangement.

wcarss 5y ago

My very amateur musician take: it can have little, or it can have a lot. One way to 'improvise' is to have an understanding of the relationships between keys and while moving around at pleasing intervals and making interesting chords, regularly jump keys at points where they overlap -- that's .. pretty music-theory driven, and can be very mathematical! There's a lot of fun math in jazz. It's not the only way to improvise, certainly. But someone who knows the rules can make them run a long way.

Rochus 5y ago
Improvisation is like talking. Not all people can do it equally well, and you learn to speak as a child without theory, and without knowing or being aware of the physiological or physical processes, or the syntactic or semantic features of language. You can listen to discussion groups and be well entertained without the speakers following any script or theory.
- jseban 5y ago
  Can you give an example of a master speaker who doesn't know how to read or write, and are completely ignorant of grammar and how language works? And can you really say that one such example would make speaking mostly unrelated to language theory?
  - Rochus 5y ago
    Did you learn to read or write and the grammar and how language works before you learned to talk?
    - jseban 5y ago
      Of course your first exposure is not formal education, but the things I picked up by ear, the speakers had learned in formal education. Nobody becomes an expert in a field, completely detached from the existing body of knowledge. You could learn it only by immersion if you, for some reason, really want to avoid formal education, but you're still using an existing body of knowledge, even though mentally you might not call things "adverbs". And the likely, going that route will be much longer and harder, and also put a limit on how far you can go.

danShumway 5y ago

Jazz theory is a way of condensing down and describing to each other what a collective group of musical geniuses did across multiple years. I don't think theory is strictly necessary, there are great musicians who don't know anything about theory. Theory should never be used as a way of gatekeeping or deriding people's efforts to build things. However, unless you are also a musical genius who has spent decades honing your craft, there will probably be some benefit from learning from the people who came before you. It's not necessary essential, but very little theory is essential. You can technically be a great game designer without ever looking at other games, you can technically be a great UX designer without learning UX rules. The rules just make it much, much easier to get to that point -- because the rules allow you to more quickly learn from a large body of extremely talented individuals who shaped the entire genre.

Kye 5y ago

Music theory is both the languages of music and the formal study of those languages. Improv musicians communicate with something, and it often looks like the body of music theory around that tradition because the body comes from the tradition. Trying to separate theory from its basis is folly. Like the scientific method and the body of scientific knowledge, it's important to remember one follows the other, but I'm still employing centuries of science every day even if I can't name it all. Jazz musicians who can't cite theory don't use 7ths by accident.

Rochus 5y ago
That's a very academic perspective which I cannot share as a musician. Music needs no formal specification to exist. It's like a language, but a language for emotional, not rational communication. Btw. science exists by itself as well and doesn't depend on a "scientific method". Like in music, philosophers tried to understand how science works after the fact, and there is a plethora of philosophic optinions how science works. And we can pretty well do science without caring much of all those opinions. The same applies to music. > Jazz musicians who can't cite theory don't use 7ths by accident. I don't understand this argument. It's unavoidable to use 7ths, regardless whether the musician can name the interval or not.
- Kye 5y ago
  I think we're closer than you realize, and I just did a poor job laying out my position. Unfortunately, I lack the language to get closer to what I mean.