Been playing guitar since 12 and bass guitar since 14. I can drum just basic rhythms and piano just chords and all, that's about it.

Been singing since I was in kindergarten. Took piano at various points since I was five, but never got into it. Picked up bass when I was thirteen and have loved it since. I didn't start composing until I started making chiptunes and have learned very much by messing up, researching, practicing, and listening to LOTS of music and compositions.

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Started learning basic theory and stuff around 14. Trial and error mostly with chip stuff, synthesis, etc. Picked up guitar around 18 or 19.

What I mean is.... They know going from a Cm to a Fm chord sounds good. They don't have to test it again every time they compose a song. So in a way, they assimilated a lesson about music. Cm -> Fm = Good! Next time they'll be on a Cm chord they might want to throw in the Fm in there. But oh what's this shit now.. why doesn't it sound good anymore? Then they notice these two chords are good together when they're in key and otherwise sounds like a baby goat dying in a car crash. Another lesson learned.

No matter what you do. If you compose music, you are picking bits of theory. You understand them in your own way, and maybe sometimes you understand only the usage of something before you get to understand the underlying mechanics of it, but you're still progressing along the same path.

music theory is a way of explaining music. if you make good music "that can be explained by theory" you don't necessarily know theory and you aren't necessarily using theory

fish can move very efficiently through water but no one would argue that fish know anything about fluid dynamics. fluid dynamics is a theory that explains efficient movement through water but simply moving efficiently through water does not make you a fluid dynamics expert by any means

not to say that learning theory is a bad idea, but it is silly to say that everyone who knows how to make music knows music theory. the map is not the territory

Just make music oftenest as you can. Play gigs oftenest as you can. Experiences comes with experiences.

Looks like I didn't answer on it... It's mostly better that way.

music theory raised as a musical desire at a certain step of my musical life

spent +/- 15 years of playing many styles of musics on a few different instruments (Guitar, Bass, percussions, Reason3) and suddenly realised that I was ''not soooo bad at improvisation, groove, licks and so on) but acted as if I was ''blind''

doing everything by ear, relying on feeling only

felt the urge of ''understanding things'' with the secret hope of getting higher than this rather flat ''pentatonic'' chorus or riffs I was always jerking again and again

picked up the flute, where you do have to have a minimum theory background to survive (and pentatonic by hear do not help much)
got to understand the various basic concepts of intervals, scales, chords building, harmonizing

then picked up the bluesharp, where you DO have to be confident with circle of fifth and modes... and then applied this back to all other instruments I play (well, kind of)

last week a friend of mine asked for a quick featuring on blues harp on a tune
instead of jumping right into it with trial and error, I got a look at the chords ''well main thing is in C, but it should sound nice playing mixolydian on it, so i'll try to play some short phrases arround Bb, A and resolve on C''

theory does not tell you what notes to play and turns your music into a robot feelingless thing, but gives you a kind of a frame, which makes that you can focus on other things than ''ho god, hope that next note will be in tune''

helps to develop a more elaborate (not necessarily meaning complicated), organized language

and it is actually very pleasant

oops, was a bit long, sorry...

I think this is an important distinction. There is a big difference between saying that music theory isn't necessary and that music theory training isn't necessary. I've fumbled my way through a lot of music theory by means of trial and error. At its core music theory is a set of reasons that things sound good and if you try to make things sound good for long enough you'll start to get a feel for the more or less universal guidelines.

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/6059/ … xperience/

On theory: I find that people who say you don't need theory to compose music are terribly, terribly wrong. They might not think they're using it, but the very very vast majority of people who "don't know shit about theory" are still composing music that follows most "rules" of theory and make very few of those musical faux-pas associated with lacking knowledge in that area. Theory has a bit of a bad rap with the amateur musician because there seems to be a weird generalized opinion that it "tells you how to write music" when nothing could be further from the truth. Theory doesn't tell you how to play or what to play, but it will tell you why what you just played sounded so good. And knowing why this or that sounds good when it follows this or that helps you in moments when you're shooting for a specific idea that pops into your head and that no amount of hitting random keys on the piano will make happen.

Furthermore, even if you actively try to never ever learn theory, if you're composing music, or playing an instrument, you'll eventually pick up tricks. Licks. Riffs. Patterns. Whatever you want to call them. You'll notice C and G sound damn good together. You'll notice C and C# is kinda meh and not useful most of the time. All these little observations you make, those little bits you learn slowly as you throw shit on the walls hoping for a song to stick, well that's still all theory in a way. You know that C and G are nice together. Soon you'll notice D and A have the same cool quality to it. Soon you'll realize it's because the interval is the same. And bit by bit you build your bag of theory.

So even people who don't learn theory, still learn it.

Now if you want to kickstart your music making into second gear instead of spending the next five years facerolling the piano wondering why your music is mostly used by DJs when they want to empty the dancefloor, then by all means get a quick theory primer off the web and get cracking. The basics are really dead simple. Something like this: http://chordmaps.com/

I played saxophone for at least five years to seven. I been composing music for six mouths.

5-6 years of classical guitar training from my grandfather gave me a boost. However, that only gave me a sort of rudimentary base for composing, as I did not understand why what I was playing sounded good, I just played it. It's really all trial and error like everyone said, but going on google and searching for music theory will give you tons of resources. Literally reading the wikipedia page on chords and harmony helped me understand and get better at composing.

But really, you can learn music without ever having to even glance at a book about music theory. It may take longer but it's totally viable. Just practice.

Edit - wrong thread, dunno how that happened