It's not a cheat sheet if you have to work really hard to know it (which you do).
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Formal theory training - why? This is why.
- Thread starter buldog5151bass
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It's not a cheat sheet if you have to work really hard to know it (which you do).
I don't think anyone said if a person is not trained it isn't art. Maybe I missed it. I see more times than not people boast the benefits of being untrained and saying those who are trained are uncreative or sterile sounding. I'm sure we see it based on our individual experiences though.
I do feel that some people either downplay what they know or haven't realized that they do know theory. I keep going back to guitar players but often they say they don't know theory. They just play form box patterns or what ever. Yea they may not know the exact note names or why some notes work better than others in a theory sense, but they do know what works and what doesn't.
The Anthony video is a great way to sum up the levels of growth as a musician.
cheat sheet
noun
1: a sheet containing information (as test answers) used secretly for cheating
2: a written or graphic aid (as a sheet of notes) that can be referred to for help in understanding or remembering something complex
It has nothing to do with cheating. It's called a figure of speech and I used it as a metaphor. The definitions for those are on google too.
Not knowing music theory is like speaking in broken English (or other language - like me in Quebec with my broken French)... You can work your way around to an idea, but it won't be as cohesive or effective as the same thought from a fluent speaker.
As for the creativity argument, knowing the rules doesn't preclude breaking the rules or tossing them out completely. It does, however, let you know why and where breaking the rules works and how to make it work better.
As for the creativity argument, knowing the rules doesn't preclude breaking the rules or tossing them out completely. It does, however, let you know why and where breaking the rules works and how to make it work better.
Take it easy. It's not a big deal. Knowing music theory doesn't fit either definition you wrote anyway. Theory itself is not a graphic aid, or written sheet of any kind.
Then stop arguing against point I clearly didn't make.
Google metaphor while you're at it.
Yes, if I knew nothing about music theory, I might assume that that's all there is to it. But I do know about it, and you couldn't be farther off the mark.
So some guy who cannot read well enough to understand that saying something is one thing in particular, doesn't mean that that is ALL that that thing is, has decided that I know nothing about music theory?
Wow!
How will I ever recover from such a blow?
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Another huge benefit of knowing theory is that it is a common vocabulary and makes communicating with other musicians easier.
I cannot imagine playing the bass well without having at least some level of working knowledge of music theory.
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Knowing how these discussions always end, I probably shouldn't reply, but I can't help myself.
Obviously there are some people who are so naturally gifted that they can make great art intuitively. I never said that you CAN'T make great art without formal training. Obviously the Hendrix example comes up in almost every thread about theory. I'll just say that if you are as gifted as Hendrix, you don't have to learn theory. It does come in handy for the rest of us.
As to 'formal' training, although some people can teach themselves, many more people talk about learning theory than ever bother doing it. It's a lot of hard work and most people don't have the discipline to stick with it.
If someone is happy banging out Mustang Sally at the corner bar on the weekend, then there really is no need to bother learning theory. If you want to be a great musician/bass player you should take advantage of every way you can up your game. People who say theory isn't important are almost always the ones that don't know it. All I can say is that over 45 years of playing everything from jazz (real book jazz) and classical (orchestral and opera) to blues, country, funk, rock, motown, etc., etc., etc. I can't think of many, if any, situations that weren't helped by formal musical study.
For everyone who figures out how to make music on an instrument with no knowledge of the theory behind it, there are probably a thousand people who end up quitting in frustration trying to do the same thing.
Then there's the guys who get so tangled up trying to learn theory that they quit in frustration instead of just learning how to play.
I just think that in life, it's good to have both the trained and the untrained. Like a musician said to me one day, "everybody is wired different but we all have the same love". It takes all kinds to make this musical landscape a beautiful place to enjoy.
Like I said before, I'm all for musical training and/or instruction but if a person feels that's not for them I will not belittle them nor discourage them from the path they have chosen. Being non-theoretical (IMO) does not make anyone less or more creative or artistic. And that was the premise of my question.
How do we define Art? I was under the impression that art had no rules, no guidelines and no parameters. If we put a stringent box around what art (music in our case ofcourse) is "supposed" to be, can we still call it a "free" flowing expression of creativity through sound that is associated with the Arts?
FF
Like I said before, I'm all for musical training and/or instruction but if a person feels that's not for them I will not belittle them nor discourage them from the path they have chosen. Being non-theoretical (IMO) does not make anyone less or more creative or artistic. And that was the premise of my question.
How do we define Art? I was under the impression that art had no rules, no guidelines and no parameters. If we put a stringent box around what art (music in our case ofcourse) is "supposed" to be, can we still call it a "free" flowing expression of creativity through sound that is associated with the Arts?
FF
Somebody like Hendrix who had no formal training on theory obviously gained some knowledge of it by picking it up while playing in groups with people. Remember Hendrix played rhythm guitar for others before becoming his own front man. He may not have known how to speak the language in English, but he knew how to speak it on his guitar, how to construct chords and riffs and how timing works. Some formal training would've helped him put a name to all that stuff.
I think as a bass player some working knowledge of theory is a must. Even if you play punk pounding out the roots, you at least need to know the basic concept of a root, even if you don't know what it's called. My teacher wanted me to learn to improv over jazz charts and practicing that made me advance faster than anything else.
But to be creative you need to be able to temporarily stop thinking about theory and just experiment to see what sounds cool. Once you come up with a cool riff or passage, then you can apply theory to find out why it works, and also how to get multiple instruments to work together on it.
Theory is a tool, not a constraint.
I think as a bass player some working knowledge of theory is a must. Even if you play punk pounding out the roots, you at least need to know the basic concept of a root, even if you don't know what it's called. My teacher wanted me to learn to improv over jazz charts and practicing that made me advance faster than anything else.
But to be creative you need to be able to temporarily stop thinking about theory and just experiment to see what sounds cool. Once you come up with a cool riff or passage, then you can apply theory to find out why it works, and also how to get multiple instruments to work together on it.
Theory is a tool, not a constraint.
I'll take my chances with the base of knowledge any day of the week over the base of no knowledge.
