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Re: Opinions on music theory



Daniel Thomas was like:
>Its bad teachers who bite. Now there is a good OT thread.  Best/Worst 
>Teach You Ever Had

My first guitar teacher (at age 15) told me that I would never ever do
anything original because music has been around for over 1000 years.


Regarding music theory, Joy_top Top went:
>Then I think it isn't so much a theory, but a structure to hold musical 
>thoughts.

That's a good way of putting it - it's a naming and reference system
for many of the positive pitch/volume/time musical phenomena that have
been encountered to date. Learning that stuff gives a musician a
toolbox so that (s)he understands what each thing is called, and can
find it/call upon it again without too much trouble. Perhaps it's
similar to the difference between keeping all your names and addresses
in Excel or having them all written on different slips of paper.

On the other hand, while the toolbox may look like it's all a person
needs, it's not necessarily all there is. People who live in San
Francisco don't casually leave city limits, because they think SF has
all they'll ever need. Sure, there are plenty of people who still want
to explore outside their toolbox, and there are plenty who don't.

I admit - it would be nice to have some of the things in that toolbox.
On the other hand, I'm mostly happy with the little niche I have. I do
ok here. A couple times a year I'll be in a situation where I feel
clueless, intimidated or useless, but frankly I think it's good to
feel that way sometimes. It reminds you that you're human. I have a
much smaller toolbox, with a few unusual, homemade tools, and I'm
pretty happy with that.

Regarding "songs", Kay'lon was all:
>On dictionary.com it is defined as something to be sung or made for 
>singing.
>But dont we call everything a song in todaay society? Even instrumentals?
>This question popped up because my mom was saying a song is made to
>have lyrics and I was arguing that a song is any musical piece only to 
>find out
>her definition matched what the dictionary said which i never knew 
>before.Whats your take on it?

I used to call my sound-droppings "pieces" until a friend started
teasing me about it. I call them songs now and people generally don't
complain. "Compositions" sounded to me like it's written down
somewhere, and someone else could perform it with similar results.
"Works" just felt snooty to me.



-- 
Matt Davignon
mattdavignon@gmail.com
www.ribosomemusic.com
Podcast! http://ribosomematt.podomatic.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/ribosomematt