CelestialGuitar

I think you got the wrong end of the stick there, I did very clearly state that what they knew was not conventional classical theory, but rather a bastardised version of their own creation.

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AeolianWolf

i don't consider people of this type musicians. they're musicologists, and from a standpoint of what i do, i consider them useless.

a good ear and theoretical knowledge are absolutely mutually exclusive -- this is why it is up to the musician to be able to combine them. they're as mutually exclusive as being able to play the accordion and being able to construct diatonic seventh chords from a scale.



i think it's not your place to tell me what i know and what i don't know.

what you're describing is a good ear. just because you can hear things does not mean you can categorize them -- not at all. that's why we have 7 million drummers who can only convey what they know by "boom-ba-da-CHA-ba-da-boom-ba-da-CHA".

you work with a myriad of musicians like that and tell me that having a good ear equates to knowing theory.

i suggest thinking about it before you argue your point further -- i really don't want to make a wall of text post about it. hopefully you'll get it first.

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Hail

uhm

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HotspurJr

Just last night I was working with a singer I sometimes collaborate with, and we were trying to piece together a medley. It was trivially easy for me to find the good spots to make the connections between the songs from looking at the chord charts and with some knowledge of theory.

She's a great intuitive singer, but has no real theory knowledge. So she had a bunch of ideas, most of which didn't work once we actually played them.

It was a great example of how theory can help you. Certainly we could have gotten to the same place through trial-and-error, or somebody with a great ear might have been able to really hear the transitions without playing them.

But knowing theory really made the whole process go a lot faster and smoother.

Sleepy__Head

ftfy

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AeolianWolf

you maybe want to prove to me that theory and a good ear occur simultaneously, and are not two separate pieces that are synthesized by the musician? i really don't think you can -- you've got a better shot at proving that no force is directed back into you when you exert pressure into an object.

or you can let your bottom bitch sleepy do it for you, but i think you've got a better shot at it.

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Hail

i'm more playing devil's advocate than anything, but it should be made clear that a good ear is absolutely a requirement in being a solid musician, and is an integral part of making use of theoretical knowledge.

again, they're not mutually exclusive, but even AW noted he doesn't take "musicologists" seriously as musicians. don't discredit musical street knowledge simply because it isn't the whole picture - it's encapsulated in theory, but AW again agreed in that they're not implied as a singular unit.

you can say "having a good ear isn't theory" then say "you can't have theory without a good ear"

'sall i'm sayin yall


lol'd hard


dude you have the definition of mutually exclusive wrong....

it means that you can have both theory AND a good ear at the same time. it doesn't mean they occur simultaneously. now read back your last post and realize that it makes no sense.

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HotspurJr

I agree with that.

And, heck, between hearing music made by someone with a great ear, and music made by someone who was great at theory, I'll pick the former every time.

I was merely giving an example of how theory can be useful to a musician in practical terms.



Exactly. Mutually exclusive means that one excludes the other. This is obviously not the case here, as there are lots of people who have both (even in this very conversation).

Knowing theory and having a good ear are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to develop one without the other, although most people tend to learn them in a somewhat connected way. There's a lot of variation in how people end up learning, though.

jazz_rock_feel

This thread is so fucking bad and you should all feel bad about it.

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Arby911

Beethoven's Late Period comes to mind and there are other examples that tend to disagree?

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HotspurJr

Eh.

When people talk about the quality of your ear, what they're really talking about is the ability of their mind to think precisely and accurately in pitches, to hold and manipulate complex sounds inside your head and know what they would sound like if played.

Beethoven had that in spades.

We talk about it as having a good ear, but it's really about having a musical mind. It's a quirk of language.

skilly1

yeah, I know what you mean, but it's the best thread that's been posted here for a while

D..W..

Beethoven didn't need to hear what he was writing because he knew exactly what it would sound like already. I guarantee he didn't just scribble shit and ask, 'hm, does this sound good?'. He knew what his notes and intervals would sound like when he wrote them down (like people who can write down a riff that they just thought of without even touching their instrument. They just know what notes they need. Perfect pitch )

For the whole mutually exclusive thing- I think you mean that one doesn't come with the other. As in you could have theory with no ear and ear with no theory. Mutually exclusive means it's physically impossible to have an ear AND theory, which isn't true, even if you do have to put them together yourself.

jazz_rock_feel

No it's really not.
I can't believe that.
Because if that's true,
then this is all for nothing.
There is not a single post in this thread,
that I found myself thinking, "Hmm, that's not an
incredibly stupid thing to say, maybe there is something to this thread."

Poem.

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cdgraves

Missing the theory part is limiting, even if your ear is highly developed. Composition on a genuinely complex, artistic level is almost a non-starter if you can't notate your ideas. Short of having the Mozart-esque ability to hear and play every instrument's 20 minute-long melodic part independently prior to playing/writing/recording, you're pretty much stuck doing things phrase by phrase.

Hail

bro do you even haiku?



to be fair, it's become quite common to use a DAW as a sort of omniscient notation software - skipping the notation step. this is limiting for obvious reasons, but at the same time it opens up the possibilities of timbres and sample usage that would be impossible to experiment with when using typical notation methods unless you're some sort of ecclectic prodigy

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cdgraves

You'd be surprised what kinds of timbral/non-instrumental experimentation goes on in the world of Institutional composition. On that end, abstraction and innovation are the focus because traditional theory is extremely passe.

Nobody with an MA in composition is still interested by a prissy little violin trio. Unless, of course, it's set ironically against an aleatoric tape piece to display the absurdity of rigid formality in a creative setting.

Either way, I find these "To Theory or Not to Theory" debates a little absurd. It's like, if you want to be an author or poet, should you be able to read? No shit you should be able to read. Sure, there's a small chance you'll dictate the great American novel into a pocket tape recorder during your spare time, but don't count it on it. Anyone who hopes to become a professional musician without knowing to how play in a given key or even spell chords/scales has a damn steep hill to climb.

Do you need to be able to transcribe a symphony on a single hearing? Of course not. But I am consistently surprised by how easily people are discouraged at even the most basic level of music literacy.

Really, I'm disappointed in all of you.

jazz_rock_feel

It's not the 50s. Modernism is dead.

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cdgraves

nah they're still doing that shit. Goofy tape loops are like the 808 "kick drum" or breakbeat sample of modern classical music.