so .

If you come natural to making melodies, it wont hurt not to study music theory, but if you don't, learn laws of minor and major aspects.

whew I better watch out then. I'll look at the gameboy before I pick it up.

No, plan B involves lubrication and a gameboy with very sharp edges.

Haha did you guys use plan B first?

You're not. We tried to overwhelm you with information so you'd leave.

Obviously it didn't work. We'll have to revise the plan.

Wow thanks for all the info guys! I feel so welcomed! :]

10/10 would get trolled again

hello OP! chip music is great

This is basically the point. Most people's ears know music theory just because they've been exposed to so much music based on that theory their entire lives. So those people can happily make music and get really, really good at making music just with that 'ear theory'.

As I said before though, I think it gives most people a better chance of making great music if they understand at least the basics of music theory. If your brain understands the theory your ears figured out long ago, you open up some more possibilities, and lots of troubleshooting tools (the latter being the main benefit, in my eyes).

Technically you are putting theory into practice, you just don't know how or why except that it sounds good. Even if you just "learn chords', if you even know the names of those chords you can infer the relationships of the intervals by their lettering, or by where they are on the guitar/piano, etc. But I know the holes and flaws in this statement that I just made so no need to point them out.

I did it for years. I just learned chords and jammed.

It's good to learn the rules so you can break them.

Now, speaking of music theory as a broad umbrella, I really don't see how you can compose recognizable music without any knowledge of theory.

It seems like a really ridiculous thing to dismiss if you're planning to make music even casually.

Theory, just like learning anything new, can take a while to process before it becomes part of your working flow. In my opinion without it you can waste a lot more time wondering "why isn't this working". At the very least, knowing scales and chords is extremely useful. It's a tool just like any other piece of knowledge.

To say it kills creativity isn't really true, I think the problem people have is that music theory suddenly makes you take the music you're making a lot more seriously. No longer can you mess around and see what sounds good, suddenly you realise that you now have the same tools that the great song writers and composers use to make music. Now you begin holding yourself to higher and higher standards, which in general can make it harder to be creative - but music theory is just a small part of that - listening to music by other people can also have the same effect. A new blank score/project can become very intimidating.

Playing devils advocate here: it did for me.

Playing the other advocate: it also helped me thru arrangement stuff, live singing, faster composing and basslines.

Yeah. You got me. Didn't know what else to call it though. Guidelines, as you said, I guess works better. "Something you have to consider when you do something." Also speaking is mimicking sounds mostly, people can say things they don't even know how to spell or even what they mean.

Also, I think I left out that part I was going to write earlier that I find that this applies mostly to art and stuff. Music closely related in concept. Creating something. For example: I noticed this when I started drawing and painting seriously. There are a *lot* of things to consider. I didn't to begin with, and I can safely say I was happier to draw before I learned all that. I'm past that though, I'm a better artist thanks to that too.

This is only something I read into that idea "Music theory kills creativity".