MacDaddy Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said: To be perfectly honest I am not impressed. I shall try not to let it affect my day. I'm not promising anything mind. 1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said: Also, what exactly is this supposed to proof? I'm not trying to prove anything, but it shows that musical theory can be directly applied in composition. Also that making vacuous statements like: 7 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said: music theory should be used to analyze music, not to write music, your ears should. is rather silly. Not least because if I know (for example) tapping a triad over a particular chord sequence will work, I know what it will sound like, but mainly because 'don't tell me what to do!' 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 (edited) 44 minutes ago, MacDaddy said: I'm not trying to prove anything, but it shows that musical theory can be directly applied in composition. But that is rather obvious, and I never claimed otherwise. So clearly you were trying to prove something. The question is what exactly and why? 44 minutes ago, MacDaddy said: Not least because if I know (for example) tapping a triad over a particular chord sequence will work, I know what it will sound like, but mainly because 'don't tell me what to do!' However you don't need theory to know that. Ears and experience will tell you that. And personally I prefer the music and my ears to tell me what to do. But if you prefer your crotches and training wheels then suit yourself. Edited March 20 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodge_bass Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 2 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said: But that is rather obvious, and I never claimed otherwise. So clearly you were trying to prove something. The question is what exactly and why? However you don't need theory to know that. Ears and experience will tell you that. And personally I prefer the music and my ears to tell me what to do. But if you prefer your crotches and training wheels then suit yourself. I love crotchets and training wheels. Knowing about these has kept me in work as a professional musician who can read music, understand theory and ‘hear’ well. It’s all part of the same thing, they can’t be separated out and certainly I’d be wary of denigrating them so readily in public! 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pseudonym Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 5 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said: But if you prefer your crotches and training wheels then suit yourself. There's no need to be unkind to others merely because you are an intellectual powerhouse of immeasurable capability. 3 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiltyG565 Posted March 20 Author Share Posted March 20 5 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said: But that is rather obvious, and I never claimed otherwise. So clearly you were trying to prove something. The question is what exactly and why? However you don't need theory to know that. Ears and experience will tell you that. And personally I prefer the music and my ears to tell me what to do. But if you prefer your crotches and training wheels then suit yourself. I really do wonder what you hope to achieve in this discussion. I started this thread merely to say that I respected and admired the deep technical understanding others have of music, and that I someday wished to possess even some of that level of understanding. Your contribution appears to be that it is not necessary because the theory describes the music, not the other way around, ipso facto to use theoretical knowledge to help write a piece of music is putting the cart before the horse and, therefore, wrong, and that it's much better to use intuition when writing music. This is very "what came first, the chicken or the egg" territory. In reality, it doesn't matter. I could spend hours trial and erroring my way to something that sounds good when actually somebody already did the trial and error years ago and somebody is able to explain why the result of that works well, and had I just applied that technical knowledge sooner, I could save my self several hours. That is not cheating, it's not incorrect, and it is not less musical. You may prefer to fumble around with your ears and experience in some false sense of musical purity, that's fine; don't let me spoil your fun, but have the respect to not tell people they are wrong or less musical for applying their theoretical knowledge to a real world situation; that's precisely the point of learning theory. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmo Valdemar Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 What a genuinely bizarre diversion this discussion has taken. 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pseudonym Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 8 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said: What a genuinely bizarre diversion this discussion has taken. I have a theory about it, but perhaps I'll stick to my intuitions. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BreadBin Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 (edited) 22 hours ago, Burns-bass said: Do you think that Tom and Johnny were operating at this level of theoretical complexity or simply played a series of chords they liked? Similarly, it’s unlikely (but not impossible) that Charlie Parker was thinking processing all the complex substitutions at 300 bpm. I have asked the same question about many of these type of videos. I'm sure they don't worry about the theory and just play what sounds good. There's one I saw recently that tried to break down the time signatures of a Tool drum part, I'm pretty sure Danny Carey isn't sat there thinking about 4 different time signatures while he is playing! It's about feel and groove. Edit - took this from Danny Carey's wiki entry He has also stated that when he is playing to an odd time signature, he tries to drum to the "feel" of the song and establish general "inner pulse" for the given time signature instead of fully counting it out. Edited March 21 by BreadBin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bassfinger Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 I'm sort of in the middle. As a young sprog I had proper piano tuition, so can read music to a useable, if not supreme, degree and have a moderate grasp of theory from the lessons I endured (seemed like torture at the time, but nearly half a century on I wish id paid more attention.) But as a practioner myself I have learned never to underestimate a good musicians infante understanding of, and feel, for the subject, even if they couldn't necessarily vocalise it to answer a question. They know what sounds good for any given structure, timing, or progression. Good authors read a lot of books, and good musicians listen to a lot of music. All the theory knowledge in the world won't on its own make you a good musician or songwriter without significant time spent playing and listening as well. Radiohead likely know that for good musos the needle doesn't reside at one end of the scale or the other, but sits somewhere between the two extremes. The harmonious balance of musical ying and yang, if you will. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewblack Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 On 19/03/2024 at 20:42, MiltyG565 said: In this video, David breaks down the theoretical concepts which make the iconic Creep chord progression work. The lesser educated among us (i.e. me) would play Creep and think "That's weird that it does that, but it sounds cool" and just forget about it, but learning about the technical and theoretical concepts behind it really is very interesting to me, and I truly wish I possessed this in-depth understanding of music theory. Same goes for Jacob Collier; as unique an individual as he is, I wish I possessed his truly frightening understanding of what makes music, music. Some day I will get around to actually learning theory. I also was not aware of how many different places the chord progression was used - I thought it was almost unique to Creep. Thoroughly enjoyed this thank you for sharing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dclaassen Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Having taken waayyyy too much music theory, I tend to agree with Adam Neely that, although correct and all, this is an attempt to place a round peg (modern chord loop), in a square hole (18th century composition rules). I'd just as soon bet that the writer was sitting at a piano, noodling and found this progression. It's a good progression too....just didn't start out as figured bass...:) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDaddy Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 24 minutes ago, dclaassen said: 18th century composition rules When learning the rules for 4 part harmony, it was quite annoying to find out that Bach's 4 part harmonies break the rules all over the place 😡 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munurmunuh Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 An example of how conscious Radiohead are of what they're doing technically, an analysis of the rhythm of Pyramid Song: Like all these videos, it's a bit slow paced, but he does come up with the goodies. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 (edited) 14 hours ago, Pseudonym said: There's no need to be unkind to others merely because you are an intellectual powerhouse of immeasurable capability. How ironic... Also: Written in reply to a post by "Burns-bass": On 20/03/2024 at 10:10, Baloney Balderdash said: Agree, music theory should be used to analyze music, not to write music, your ears should. To which was replied : 20 hours ago, MacDaddy said: is rather silly. Not least because if I know (for example) tapping a triad over a particular chord sequence will work, I know what it will sound like, but mainly because 'don't tell me what to do!' Edited March 21 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asingardenof Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 14 hours ago, MiltyG565 said: I could spend hours trial and erroring my way to something that sounds good when actually somebody already did the trial and error years ago and somebody is able to explain why the result of that works well, and had I just applied that technical knowledge sooner, I could save my self several hours. That is not cheating, it's not incorrect, and it is not less musical. I really wish someone could beat this argument into Jeff Berlin so he'd finally shut up. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 3 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said: ... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 10 minutes ago, Dad3353 said: How ironic... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 1 minute ago, Baloney Balderdash said: How ironic... You are Alanis Morissette and I claim my five pounds. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Dad3353 said: You are Alanis Morissette and I claim my five pounds. Damn! And I thought that I had thought up the perfect cover, that no one would ever find out about my true identity. I guess I oughta known... Edited March 21 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiltyG565 Posted March 21 Author Share Posted March 21 1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said: Damn! And I thought that I had thought up the perfect cover, that no one would ever find out about my true identity. I guess I oughta known... You did well, Alanis! Nobody really thought it would be a Danish bloke arguing about the merits of music theory on a pokey little bassists forum in the UK. It's like rai-e-ain on a summer's day! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyd Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 What I find is that if I sit down at the bass/piano/guitar after learning (or remembering) some music theory it makes my noodling more directed and interesting. So I see that theory can often be a shortcut to creativity rather than an impediment. But this doesn't mean you can't be just as creative without knowing any theory of course. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimR Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Theory is a model. You can use a model to predict what might happen given a set of initial conditions. You can use a model to explain why something happened. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmo Valdemar Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 2 hours ago, MiltyG565 said: It's like rai-e-ain on a summer's day! Wrong lyrics. Now THERE'S irony! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiltyG565 Posted March 21 Author Share Posted March 21 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said: Wrong lyrics. Now THERE'S irony! It's not the wrong lyrics, is it? Edit: shit. Just as well, I always thought the next line was "it's a fruit de mer on a stone cold plate". Edited March 21 by MiltyG565 oh my god 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmo Valdemar Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 (edited) . Edited March 21 by Cosmo Valdemar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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