Fun Stuff > BAND
Is My Music Pretentious?
Johnny C:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 07 Aug 2009, 04:15 ---Exactly! Lots of that stuff is really good. However, it's also an argument for countless other bands and artists who created and are creating defiant, original, untutored music.
--- End quote ---
I legitimately want all art to be as democratized as possible but I'd really appreciate it if people didn't take "everyone make art all the time" to mean "don't put any damn effort into it."
MadassAlex:
The "don't put any effort into it" mindset is what separates shitty, but empassioned and therefore somewhat appreciable music from flat-out borefests.
Ultimately, Khar's ears seem closed, but I'll repeat this once more:
Music theory is a system of description more than anything else. It's simply a standardisation of language, in a literal sense. It's a system that allows everyone to use the same language terms to describe their musical ideas. It doesn't actually alter the melodies or harmonies at all. Anyone who knows theory understands how it can only be limiting to those with only the most basic knowledge of it.
I think it's worth noting that plenty of artists that claim not to know theory adhere ridiculously well to its conventions regardless.
Therein pretty much lies another point - not knowing theory doesn't seem to make that much of a difference in terms of inventiveness, and it's generally the learned musicians that are more likely to push boundaries.
KharBevNor:
--- Quote from: a pack of wolves on 07 Aug 2009, 13:35 ---Can we presume English is the correct language then, since it's the one you're using, and all the others are worthless?
--- End quote ---
English is a language created democratically by everyone who uses it to speak and read, constantly changing and metamorphosing. Music theory is an elitist and arbitrary system. It is as much barrier as enabler, and all it enables is imitation. And who said "don't put any effort" into it? I've been working on my current album for two years. I'm simply not composing it according to dull and tedious rules. I just do what sounds good, which is all you should ever do.
People are taking my comments about classical music far too seriously. I'm playing devils advocate a lot here, but I do think there's a real core of truth to what I'm saying.
a pack of wolves:
Still rather puts paid to your claim that if there are two different but equally worthy ways expressing something both are wrong and/or worthless though. Where you're seeing a confining system others see a means of communicating information, nothing more nor less. English has its rules of grammar and although you can use the language very adeptly without articulating them it can become incredibly hard to help someone else understand the language without being able to tell them the way it works. My ability to articulate grammatical rules is appalling despite being able to use English to a pretty high standard, so when I tried to help out at a conversational English class I found myself unable to help people learn how to do what I can. Grammatical rules are the way to communicate that information just like music theory can be the way to communicate that information about music.
MadassAlex:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 08 Aug 2009, 03:27 ---English is a language created democratically by everyone who uses it to speak and read, constantly changing and metamorphosing. Music theory is an elitist and arbitrary system. It is as much barrier as enabler, and all it enables is imitation.
--- End quote ---
False.
In addition, only music notation is in any way elitist, as it was a system commissioned by the Church to set a standard for representing music on paper.
Music theory itself, while having a consistent method of communication throughout genres, follows different conventions depending upon who you talk to, what kind of music education (if any) they've had, what genre of music you're playing, what the role of the notes in the harmony are and much more. Much of this is unofficial. Jazz musicians, for instance, tend to treat things differently than classical musicians when discussing and expressing theory. But both are drawing from the same concepts, much like how some say "to-may-toe" and some say "to-mah-toe". Neither is wrong.
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 08 Aug 2009, 03:27 ---I'm simply not composing it according to dull and tedious rules. I just do what sounds good, which is all you should ever do.
--- End quote ---
Music theory does not prevent you from doing that and is not, as we have pointed out numerous times, a set of rules. It is a set of language conventions.
If you care to claim otherwise, could you explain, in detail, why I am wrong? I'm not looking for the usual soapboxing here - give me the hard facts on how theory can damage creativity.
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