Theory Necessary for LSDJ? (Page 1 of 2)

"Is music theory and / or music composition necessary for learning LSDJ?"

LSDJ is a program for composing music. "music theory" is not necessary to "learn" certain aspects of "LSDJ", such as how to make a drum, how to navigate menus, what the commands do, no. And, depending on what type of music you are aiming to create and your innate and assimilated musical intuition, you don't necessarily need music theory to compose music in LSDJ.(and it also depends on the individual. Some people DO desperately need music theory to create the music they want to create in a timely fashion).

But... yeah, you can't compose music on LSDJ without music composition.

It really comes down to the individual. Whether or not you know it, in a way you'll be putting music theory into practice even if you aren't doing it deliberately. If you feel dissatisfied with your music composing skills and feel that studying music theory will help you, then go ahead.

Thanks for replying guys.

If I just pick up some lessons from musictheory.net on the IPad, and have a basic knowledge of chord progressions, will that suffice? Looking foward to your responses! Peace.

go to the pawn shop right now. buy a crappy yet sturdy electric guitar. learn some chords. learn which progressions are sort of the standard.
a little roland micro cube (maybe $30) will have an aux in to plug your gameboy in to (poor man's drum machine).
if you go 1 day without atleast 20 minutes of working on music take all of your music stuff back to the pawn shop...
learn which modes to use for melodic lines sitting on top of chords. fitting melodies with harmonies is really a lost art. example: over a minorflat9flat6 chord you use phrygian (just pick random notes out of the scale and dont look back). over a half diminished chord use locrian. mixolydian mode is good for turnarounds and over dominant7 chords. minor chords require the use of dorian mode.
I don't play loud music after lunch.<--- remember that and your ready to compose.
modes are not the only scales. try a phrygian bassline with a melody from the gypsy scale (bulletproof) (pantie dropper) again choose random notes.
dont let anyone convince you that you need structure or nothing new will ever happen. experiment with the hop command... make a cool melody and put a hop command in d of the phrase. better yet if you have nanoloop 2 fill all 4 channels with different notes and sounds and filters (of scales that fit together) and set them to play randomly and fall asleep with headphones in your ears. your subconcious will be impregnated with melodies then.

Last edited by bitjacker (Dec 18, 2013 6:57 pm)

LSDJ is a musical tool. You need to understand music to get anything listenable out of it. If you don't have much musical background you'll have to face the same learning curve as learning an instrument on top of LSDJ's workflow.

Theory wont hurt but time and effort are the key factors.

Another thing people may not realize is how much music theory you know already intuitively from years of listening to music. Even if you are unaware of what you are doing, the minute you are copying a song or motif you've heard in your daily life, you are applying music theory to your works.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc … sp=sharing
a few rhythms... add to it if you come up with something cool, just dont edit what is already there.

Last edited by bitjacker (Dec 18, 2013 9:07 pm)