Re: Next step in Music Theory?
Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:07 am
It's almost as important IMO with music to know what you don't like as the things you do like.
What I'm getting at is it seems to me that most people who don't seem to be able to finish a song, who know more theory than I do aren't being hindered by the theory, that's silly, but by the lack of critical judgements they're making when composing. I know that the breakdowns in electronic music where the beat dies away and a pad of a chord or two hangs in the the air for ten to twenty seconds before it comes in strong again, well personally I'm not a fan. If I was to use that in my music because it 'fit' the song I was writing, I would eventually be really dissatisfied with that song. Same with too much of a reliance on the Blues in the scales, or happy tonal scales. That is absolutely not the case when I listen to other peoples music. I can appreciate a song that uses all those elements, I just know that for what I want to write that won't work.
Developing a limited palette, not of a certain genre necessarily or of a certain set of scales even, but being aware of what elements in other peoples music you like from a broad spectrum of sources for that limited palette, and the technical skill and knowledge to incorporate those elements, and you get an individual style out of that. There aren't very many truly unique artists who don't have an instantly recognizable style, from Chopin to AC/DC to Pink Floyd to Mozart to Prodigy to Skinny Puppy, to Leftfield to King Crimson you can recognize a song by them no matter if they're classically trained or banging out three chords, they have a personal style.
Otherwise you'll end up like this one guy I remember who posted on a forum I went to that he had set up Logic Pro and a Motif station with a solid set of monitors and a few guitars lying around, his quote was, "I look over at my set up and all it's power these days and realize that for literally any composer it's enough, that every form of music under the sun, all of that amazing talent, has mostly had much more limited sources, and that's overwhelming." It's not an external battle, you're not competing against these other great artists, but more like trying to find your own voice. Doing what he was doing is a sure fire way to feel really self conscious about your own writing which almost never helps, unless it ushers in a new understanding of what you want out of your music.
Hopefully that makes sense to someone, I really believe bearing all that in mind has kept me from writers block, which I almost never get.
What I'm getting at is it seems to me that most people who don't seem to be able to finish a song, who know more theory than I do aren't being hindered by the theory, that's silly, but by the lack of critical judgements they're making when composing. I know that the breakdowns in electronic music where the beat dies away and a pad of a chord or two hangs in the the air for ten to twenty seconds before it comes in strong again, well personally I'm not a fan. If I was to use that in my music because it 'fit' the song I was writing, I would eventually be really dissatisfied with that song. Same with too much of a reliance on the Blues in the scales, or happy tonal scales. That is absolutely not the case when I listen to other peoples music. I can appreciate a song that uses all those elements, I just know that for what I want to write that won't work.
Developing a limited palette, not of a certain genre necessarily or of a certain set of scales even, but being aware of what elements in other peoples music you like from a broad spectrum of sources for that limited palette, and the technical skill and knowledge to incorporate those elements, and you get an individual style out of that. There aren't very many truly unique artists who don't have an instantly recognizable style, from Chopin to AC/DC to Pink Floyd to Mozart to Prodigy to Skinny Puppy, to Leftfield to King Crimson you can recognize a song by them no matter if they're classically trained or banging out three chords, they have a personal style.
Otherwise you'll end up like this one guy I remember who posted on a forum I went to that he had set up Logic Pro and a Motif station with a solid set of monitors and a few guitars lying around, his quote was, "I look over at my set up and all it's power these days and realize that for literally any composer it's enough, that every form of music under the sun, all of that amazing talent, has mostly had much more limited sources, and that's overwhelming." It's not an external battle, you're not competing against these other great artists, but more like trying to find your own voice. Doing what he was doing is a sure fire way to feel really self conscious about your own writing which almost never helps, unless it ushers in a new understanding of what you want out of your music.
Hopefully that makes sense to someone, I really believe bearing all that in mind has kept me from writers block, which I almost never get.
Or did you learned it only because of practice? Like Week one Scale C with Chords and Week two Scale G etc. I know, alot of questions but i can´t suppress to know everything