Musical experience? (Page 2 of 3)

Started playing guitar at 15. Bass soon followed. Played in punk and rock bands throughout the years. Learned how to read tab and music during these days. Learned to play mandolin, banjo, and ukulele as well. Good times.

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.

Last edited by Delta Centauri (Jan 3, 2015 8:54 pm)

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 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.

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

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