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The problem with creating a new music theory is the question what do you want the music theory to do? The main value of classical music theory is exactly the hi
by zokier 4y ago
The problem with creating a new music theory is the question what do you want the music theory to do? The main value of classical music theory is exactly the historical underpinnings that you want to drop
- randomopining 4y agoMusic theory is just a labeling of the grouping of sounds that sound a certain way, right? And the reasons why they do. Like you could combine a bunch of random notes together and it would sound terrible. THe reason why a certain scale is a scale is that it all jives together in a way that makes sense to the human brain.
- dekhn 4y agoMusic theory is an approximation of what the aggregate human preference function for music is, where the aggregate is over a region and time. It's not really a theory per se, but you could definite "learn" many aspects of theory from enough labelled examples. Given many western music examples, you would easily learn circle of fifths and other common details; given indian music, you would learn microtones and other subtle touches that make indian music have depth.
- analog31 4y agoAnd I would take it one step further... What do you want to do with music? The people I know who studied theory were interested in becoming better musicians. I'm a jazz musician. The people I know who can create their own compositions and arrangements in that genre all studied theory in college.
- dumpsterlid 4y agoYah, music theory is an instrument of conservatism. Most people just make what sounds good to them and that creates a massive power potential to extract by labelling some of that "good" and some of that "bad" in the eyes of an arbitrary system.