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Knowing how to spell doesn't make you a writer. I think the parent is trying to explain that there's a cultural bias and inscrutability with respect to how musi

by subdane 12y ago

Knowing how to spell doesn't make you a writer. I think the parent is trying to explain that there's a cultural bias and inscrutability with respect to how music theory is taught. Does learning a notation system make one a theorist? One can be a western musician in, say, a jazz tradition, understand theory, have theories and play music and have never used the system of notation explained in the otherwise awesome comic.

zeroxfe 12y ago
> Knowing how to spell doesn't make you a writer. Of course. But knowing how to spell is the first step towards learning to write -- my four-year-old will tell you all about it. :-) Music theory is more than just spelling. It's also grammar -- it puts together rules for harmony and rhythm, and allows you to analyze music and communicate ideas by giving names to patterns (such as scales, chords, cadences, functions, meters, etc.) It allows you to learn for yourself how to break these rules and deviate from these patterns. You can learn the theory without learning the notation, which is quite common among guitarists. You can also make music without knowing any theory at all, but it is always more helpful to know some theory. > I think the parent is trying to explain that there's a cultural bias and inscrutability with respect to how music theory is taught. Maybe, but the parent is also trivializing what is commonly referred to as "music theory" by calling it just "jargon" and "non-theory junk."
anigbrowl 12y ago
The poster above is trying to one-up the OP. Of course a notational cheat sheet is not the same thing as a rigorous intellectual foundation, but the phrase 'music theory' is the most common term to describe the traditional notation and grammar for the western music corpus by a mile. That's what most people want when they search for 'music theory'. It's not a good use of the word 'theory' but the context within which it is embedded is widely familiar. One can be a western musician in, say, a jazz tradition, understand theory, have theories and play music and have never used the system of notation explained in the otherwise awesome comic. True, but it's pretty unlikely. Most people who play music pick some up theory (in the sense of this submission) along the way if only so they can have meaningful conversations with other musicians.
- quadrangle 12y ago
  > That's what most people want when they search for 'music theory'. I think most people are actually thinking, "I want to understand music more." when they search for "music theory", and instead of learning deeper understanding about the nature of music, they are taught about notation traditions. Then, most people decide they do not especially care about "music theory" anymore. The folks who continue are those who like studying notation patterns.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    We're going to disagreee about this. I do get where you're coming from and I actually don't care for musical notation; I can read it but I can't sight-read to play so studying notes on a staff involves a lot of painfully keyboard pecking (or occasional cheat transpositions into a DAW) followed by a bunch of more fluid experimentation with the musical elements I played so badly, and it's during this experimental phase that I may or may not learn something. Like you I'd much rather read text about the psychology of musical perception and the why of music. I disliked the notation drills etc. when I had piano lessons as a kid, but as I never had a natural ear for chords or harmony (and thus frequently found myself wanting to improvise things but without a good understanding of how to go about it) I came back to the theoretical stuff as an adult, and ended up getting interested in other musical traditions like Arabic and Indian styles as well as the western one (though I don't want to oversell my knowledge or skills here). Different traditions use different schemes but they all have some way to codify things, because unless you stay within a single tradition or are blessed with an eidetic memory chances are you'll need to note things down at some point. Where I'm disagreeing with you is on the terminologyl I hold that when people search for 'music theory' it's because they want to be conversant with other people on the basics, even if they just want the bare minimum of how to distinguish between major and minor, construct a few basic chords, or read/write a melody outside of a piano roll. It's unfortunate that the label 'music theory' has become associated with this basic stuff; it's as if we used 'literature' to refer to basic spelling, grammar, and vocabulary and used some other term to describe the actual study of artistic writing - but that's how it is.
    - 12y ago
leephillips 12y ago
"a jazz tradition" What system of notation do you think jazz musicians use? I don't think you'd have any luck trying to find employment as a jazz musician since at least the 1930s unless you could at least read music, and be fairly good at sight-reading as well. And as far a composing and arranging? Those guys not only knew tons of theory, but very consciously developed their own extensions to it. They were very familiar with Western classical music, as well as Blues.

by subdane 12y ago

zeroxfe 12y ago

> Knowing how to spell doesn't make you a writer. Of course. But knowing how to spell is the first step towards learning to write -- my four-year-old will tell you all about it. :-) Music theory is more than just spelling. It's also grammar -- it puts together rules for harmony and rhythm, and allows you to analyze music and communicate ideas by giving names to patterns (such as scales, chords, cadences, functions, meters, etc.) It allows you to learn for yourself how to break these rules and deviate from these patterns. You can learn the theory without learning the notation, which is quite common among guitarists. You can also make music without knowing any theory at all, but it is always more helpful to know some theory. > I think the parent is trying to explain that there's a cultural bias and inscrutability with respect to how music theory is taught. Maybe, but the parent is also trivializing what is commonly referred to as "music theory" by calling it just "jargon" and "non-theory junk."

anigbrowl 12y ago

The poster above is trying to one-up the OP. Of course a notational cheat sheet is not the same thing as a rigorous intellectual foundation, but the phrase 'music theory' is the most common term to describe the traditional notation and grammar for the western music corpus by a mile. That's what most people want when they search for 'music theory'. It's not a good use of the word 'theory' but the context within which it is embedded is widely familiar. One can be a western musician in, say, a jazz tradition, understand theory, have theories and play music and have never used the system of notation explained in the otherwise awesome comic. True, but it's pretty unlikely. Most people who play music pick some up theory (in the sense of this submission) along the way if only so they can have meaningful conversations with other musicians.

quadrangle 12y ago
> That's what most people want when they search for 'music theory'. I think most people are actually thinking, "I want to understand music more." when they search for "music theory", and instead of learning deeper understanding about the nature of music, they are taught about notation traditions. Then, most people decide they do not especially care about "music theory" anymore. The folks who continue are those who like studying notation patterns.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  We're going to disagreee about this. I do get where you're coming from and I actually don't care for musical notation; I can read it but I can't sight-read to play so studying notes on a staff involves a lot of painfully keyboard pecking (or occasional cheat transpositions into a DAW) followed by a bunch of more fluid experimentation with the musical elements I played so badly, and it's during this experimental phase that I may or may not learn something. Like you I'd much rather read text about the psychology of musical perception and the why of music. I disliked the notation drills etc. when I had piano lessons as a kid, but as I never had a natural ear for chords or harmony (and thus frequently found myself wanting to improvise things but without a good understanding of how to go about it) I came back to the theoretical stuff as an adult, and ended up getting interested in other musical traditions like Arabic and Indian styles as well as the western one (though I don't want to oversell my knowledge or skills here). Different traditions use different schemes but they all have some way to codify things, because unless you stay within a single tradition or are blessed with an eidetic memory chances are you'll need to note things down at some point. Where I'm disagreeing with you is on the terminologyl I hold that when people search for 'music theory' it's because they want to be conversant with other people on the basics, even if they just want the bare minimum of how to distinguish between major and minor, construct a few basic chords, or read/write a melody outside of a piano roll. It's unfortunate that the label 'music theory' has become associated with this basic stuff; it's as if we used 'literature' to refer to basic spelling, grammar, and vocabulary and used some other term to describe the actual study of artistic writing - but that's how it is.
  - 12y ago

leephillips 12y ago

"a jazz tradition" What system of notation do you think jazz musicians use? I don't think you'd have any luck trying to find employment as a jazz musician since at least the 1930s unless you could at least read music, and be fairly good at sight-reading as well. And as far a composing and arranging? Those guys not only knew tons of theory, but very consciously developed their own extensions to it. They were very familiar with Western classical music, as well as Blues.