Is having a thorough formal music training a barrier to being inventive?

[adamg67]

I nearly didn't post this because I'm strictly amateur so it doesn't prove much, but...

I started out in the "formal musical knowledge and rules will stunt my creativity" camp. Getting back into music in the last 5-10 years, I started there again and it half worked - I can come up with ideas all day - but I found I kept getting stuck trying to develop ideas. I started learning piano, and that got me started with some theory, and I've kept going with that and am getting into it now. It makes no difference to your creativity unless you are a complete sheep, nobody says "you must write music like this" these days. You get a whole load of tools and options you can use and the option to use none of them.

[MacDaddy]

Look at it this way.

if you know 3 chords, you can only use 3 chords.

If you know 4 chords, you can use 4 chords, but nothing is stopping you using only 3 of them...

[Dad3353]

There are four chords..? 

[MacDaddy]

1 minute ago, Dad3353 said:

There are four chords..? 

Edited July 28, 2020 by MacDaddy

[Bilbo]

I think there are many motivations for doing this thing we do and some of them require an intelligent approach and others not. If you want to 'entertain' and are happy to pulse root notes all night then actually, you don't really need the theory. As long as you know where to put your fingers to make the right noise, you are be fine. If you are more a 'performance artist' than a craftsman, then, again, you can probablty just get away with a superficial knowledge of the details. If you want to blow over Coltrane changes in all the keys or to re-write Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring for a quartet of basses, I guess 'winging it' is probably not going to get you there. We are all on a continuum between ignorant bliss and profound and intimate knowledge of the mechanics of music - where we are on the continuum is likely to be the consequence of any number of variables. 

[Bilbo]

4 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

Look at it this way.

if you know 3 chords, you can only use 3 chords.

If you know 4 chords, you can use 4 chords, but nothing is stopping you using only 3 of them...

Like an 88 note Steinway - you don't HAVE to use them all every time.

[cheddatom]

If I'm working with someone in the studio, a bit of music theory knowledge comes in very useful. If I'm sat at home with my guitar I tend to try and avoid using those same "rules" that make working with others easy, in the hope that I come up with something a bit different. It seems to work OK to me

[Bilbo]

I don't think I have ever made a composition decision based on 'theory'. Knowing this stuff doesn't necessarily give you answers to creative problems. Sometimes it makes you think 'I can't do that because it is too obvious' thereby preventing the creation of things that are beautiful in their simplicity.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Bilbo

[MacDaddy]

8 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

I don't think I have ever made a composition decision based on 'theory'. Knowing this stuff doesn't necessarily give you answers to creative problems. Sometimes it makes you think 'I can't do that because it is too obvious' thereby preventing the creation of things that are beautiful in their simplicity.

Disagree entirely, because I have!

A few years ago, I'd brought a song to the metal band I was playing in. We were going through it, and they said what happens next. Jokingly I said 'bass solo'.

No-one said 'No!', so I thought stinky poo, I've got to do a bass solo! Around 90% of it was made up on the spot based on theory.

I knew the chord sequence so bend up to root note - lazy rock player trick  

Come down the natural minor

tap some triads, adding some diatonic passing notes

end on the root note.

Had I been playing just by ear, I would have had to take a minute to work some things out, as opposed to just been able to do it on the spot.

 

[Bilbo]

Arguably, you made a improvisation decision based on theory although some have called improvisation 'instant composing' so it's a pointless distinction. I have often put in licks using theory (e.g,.hearing a repeating saxophone link and then harmonising it is thirds). It's all good though. I guess it is sometimes difficult to work out what is knowledge and what is experience. I always think of learning theory as preparation for application as opposed to academic knowledge for the sake of knowledge..

Edited July 28, 2020 by Bilbo

[peteb]

4 hours ago, Bilbo said:

I think there are many motivations for doing this thing we do and some of them require an intelligent approach and others not. If you want to 'entertain' and are happy to pulse root notes all night then actually, you don't really need the theory. As long as you know where to put your fingers to make the right noise, you are be fine. If you are more a 'performance artist' than a craftsman, then, again, you can probablty just get away with a superficial knowledge of the details. If you want to blow over Coltrane changes in all the keys or to re-write Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring for a quartet of basses, I guess 'winging it' is probably not going to get you there. We are all on a continuum between ignorant bliss and profound and intimate knowledge of the mechanics of music - where we are on the continuum is likely to be the consequence of any number of variables. 

I think that it’s a lot to do with how you learn the instrument in your formative years. A good player who has learnt from listening to their favourite records and then going on to playing loads of gigs with lots of different musicians, will develop a pretty good ear. They will also pick up quite a lot of music theory along the way without being taught formally, but they will mainly rely on feel and listening skills. A good player who has been taught will hopefully listen to a wide variety of artists, play lots of gigs and develop a level of ‘feel’ that can’t be taught in a book. However, there are plenty of guys who have been through music school who could easily play in a pit and read a theatre gig, but could hardly get through a blues gig playing 12 bars. Then again, there are loads of decent self-taught players who could play a blistering blues set but wouldn’t have a clue if you put a score in front of them.

Probably the best (and certainly the most successful) bass player that I know, taught himself to play from listening to records and playing loads of gigs. He has developed an amazingly good ear – absolutely awesome. After he had been a pro for a bit, he learnt to read so that he could pick up more work. To me, that’s the ideal way of doing it, but he was developing in what might perhaps be seen as more of a ‘golden age’ (in terms of gigs being available) and I’m not so sure that people starting out these days can do that so easily.

Edited July 28, 2020 by peteb

[Bobthedog]

It does not seem to have done Jacob Collier any harm. 

[Dad3353]

18 minutes ago, peteb said:

I think that it’s a lot to do with how you learn the instrument in your formative years...

Much of this rings true, but I don't see why it should be portrayed as such an 'either/or' process. There's no obstacle to, little by little, adding to hands-on experience with progressive theory either directly related or simply interestingly parallel. From my family, I had no musical input, but we had music lessons at school, much of which was academic (no instruments, just listening to stuff or explanations of historical movements...). I spent some lunch breaks at the piano in the school hall, working out for myself (and thus, understanding, sometimes...) intervals and scales. They made sense on a keyboard in a more direct manner than a fretboard or even a stave. When, having left and started work, I bought a guitar, I also bought a method book. Unfortunately (or not...), it was the Mickey Baker Jazz Method, so the first notes/chords I struggled with were six-string Major and minor 7ths, and the infamous D13b5b9th, which nearly broke my hands on the rubbish Russian-built steel-strung flat-necked classical guitar I'd bought (yes, I was poor...). I played, I listened, I read stuff, I even understood some of it, and it has all served over time, and has been built on. As a drummer, my 'need' for deep comprehension of harmony or chord sequences has been limited, but has always served, when winging it with an unknown French polka, for instance, picking up when the accents need placing.
To summarise, I'd say that it's all good. In this instance, to me, less is not more. I cannot, naturally, place myself in the head of others, but I have difficulty imagining how 'creativity' could be hampered by absorption of knowledge, in any artistic field. 

Edited July 28, 2020 by Dad3353

[peteb]

22 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

Much of this rings true, but I don't see why it should be portrayed as such an 'either/or' process. There's no obstacle to, little by little, adding to hands-on experience with progressive theory either directly related or simply interestingly parallel. From my family, I had no musical input, but we had music lessons at school, much of which was academic (no instruments, just listening to stuff or explanations of historical movements...). I spent some lunch breaks at the piano in the school hall, working out for myself (and thus, understanding, sometimes...) intervals and scales. They made sense on a keyboard in a more direct manner than a fretboard or even a stave. When, having left and started work, I bought a guitar, I also bought a method book. Unfortunately (or not...), it was the Mickey Baker Jazz Method, so the first notes/chords I struggled with were six-string Major and minor 7ths, and the infamous D13b5b9th, which nearly broke my hands on the rubbish Russian-built steel-strung flat-necked classical guitar I'd bought (yes, I was poor...). I played, I listened, I read stuff, I even understood some of it, and it has all served over time, and has been built on. As a drummer, my 'need' for deep comprehension of harmony or chord sequences has been limited, but has always served, when winging it with an unknown French polka, for instance, picking up when the accents need placing.
To summarise, I'd say that it's all good. In this instance, to me, less is not more. I cannot, naturally, place myself in the head of others, but I have difficulty imagining how 'creativity' could be hampered by absorption of knowledge, in any artistic field. 

I'm not trying to say that it is an 'either/or' process, just that people will get different levels of formal (or informal) training and then use what talent they have to make of it what they will.

For lots of people I know, someone showed them a scale and a few chords then they just listened to their favourite records over and over again (continually lifting and replacing the needle) until they managed to play something like the original. As they got better then they were able to copy the record exactly, but they still probably learnt more in their earlier attempts to get it nearly right! If they are any good then they will soon pick up what simple harmony is, the intervals that make up a chord, the relationships of chords, etc. For example, I had worked out what modes were long before I found out that they were actually called ‘modes’, yet alone the names of them (some of which I still forget)!

The only way that 'creativity' can actually be hampered by absorption of knowledge is if a musician does not learn how to apply what they been taught and if they have not developed their ear alongside their training. I’m sure that you have seen guys on a bandstand that have sailed through music college, but are routed to the spot on a gig staring at a non-existent score – no feel, no groove, no performance skills. But of course, that is not to say that applies to everybody who has had formal musical training – far from it…!

[tinyd]

On 22/07/2020 at 16:22, Barking Spiders said:

 I will say  the most inventive stuff I've heard is by people who break the rules and possibly don't know a lot of theory. 

Maybe the more you understand the rules in the first place the greater the scope there is to break them? What we call "music theory" is just a reverse-engineered attempt to explain what sounds good to human ears, it's not supposed to be prescriptive, but it can provide lots of shortcuts to making other good sounds, so it's worth investigating IMHO.

There are some fantastic musicians out there who may not be able to explain anything about music theory, but they still *know* it internally, which is what makes them good.

[Bilbo]

I think the thing to be wary of is the potential for people to use the 'theory hampers creativity' argument to justify their ignornace and laziness. As a Probation Officer, I learned that people will develop all sorts of justifications and minimisations for why what they do is ok (yes, that applies to pretty much everything, however abhorrent the rest of us may think they are). This is extreme in the cases of serious offenders but it is also something we all do.

Why I don't give up fags, why I don't lose weight, why I don't mow the lawn etc). With musicians, it is 'why I don't learn theory'.....'because it will stifle my creativity'. It doesn't actually make any sense whatsoever and is just a means of making it OK not to study properly and just keep the fun bits like gigs and 'stagecraft' (whatever the chuff THAT is).

Edited July 28, 2020 by Bilbo

[adamg67]

I found the fourth chord the other day, turned out it had been down the back of the sofa all the time!

[peteb]

16 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

just a means of making it OK not to study properly and just keep the fun bits like gigs and 'stagecraft' (whatever the chuff THAT is)

I'm not disagreeing with your first point at all. 

BUT, if you can't do it on a gig (or session or whatever) then you can't do it at all and stagecraft is the ability to hold an audience. Once you get on a stage you are in showbusiness (like it or not) and if you can't engage with an audience then it doesn't matter how much musical knowledge you have, you shouldn't be on that stage... 

Edited July 28, 2020 by peteb

[Dad3353]

3 minutes ago, peteb said:

... if you can't engage with an audience then it doesn't matter how much musical knowledge you have, you shouldn't be on that stage... 

Sorry; I'll stop now, then. 

...

 

[peteb]

4 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

Sorry; I'll stop now, then. 

...

 

I should point out that we're not talking vaudeville here and you don't have to be a Steven Tyler or Bruce Forsyth or whatever.

You just have to be able to communicate with your audience to the point that makes them want to listen to your music... 

Edited July 28, 2020 by peteb

[T-Bay]

7 minutes ago, peteb said:

I'm not disagreeing with your first point at all. 

BUT, if you can't do it on a gig (or session or whatever) then you can't do it at all and stagecraft is the ability to hold an audience. Once you get on a stage you are in showbusiness (like it or not) and if you can't engage with an audience then it doesn't matter how much musical knowledge you have, you shouldn't be on that stage... 

  A very good friend of mine is the most amazing talented musician I have ever met. Sadly he suffers from horrendous pre gig nerves so virtually never plays live. His recorded stuff is truly stunning but he just hates performing so doesn’t do it. I am sure we have all been to gigs expecting a great time and been met with a charisma vacuum that deflates the whole experience, and on the opposite side, those gigs where the energy is amazing and the music is almost secondary.

[Dad3353]

4 minutes ago, peteb said:

... to the point that makes them want to listen to your music... 

You do realise that I'm a drummer, don't you..? 

...

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by Dad3353

[tinyd]

9 minutes ago, peteb said:

BUT, if you can't do it on a gig (or session or whatever) then you can't do it at all and stagecraft is the ability to hold an audience. Once you get on a stage you are in showbusiness (like it or not) and if you can't engage with an audience then it doesn't matter how much musical knowledge you have, you shouldn't be on that stage... 

I read @Bilbo's point as being that "stagecraft" is very hard to define, and it depends on the musician/audience/genre. Some musicians engage with the audience entirely through the music itself, whereas others do it in other ways as well. If you went to a Miles Davis gig in the 60s expecting banter, dance moves and a light show you'd have been pretty disappointed

[fretmeister]

I think it's unlikely that Beethoven / Mozart / Bach etc etc could have composed what they did without excellent musical knowledge.

I think it equally unlikely that a Beethoven level of knowledge would have actively prevented Francis Rossi writing Quo songs.

 

 

[peteb]

1 minute ago, Dad3353 said:

You do realise that I'm a drummer, don't you..? 

...

 

A strange but noble body of men...!