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OT -- Does anybody leverage music theory training when composing for iPad?
I just read the Hooktheory II book on songwriting, which I highly recommend if you have any interest in music theory.
It gives a thorough but readable overview of a number of interesting theory topics related to songwriting.
I am wondering, though, if anybody who actually writes songs thinks in this formal way. If you write a progression with the chords Am - D - G - C, do you think "the V-of-V is resolving to the V in C Major", or C - Bb - Ab - Bb is "borrowing the parallel chords of C minor"? These patterns are used a ton in popular music, I just have no idea if they are written with the music theory in mind.
I had a similar question about more classically oriented musical techniques, like Neopolitan 6th chords, cadential 6/4 chords, etc. They sound beautiful in classical pieces. Does anybody consciously apply them to EDM tracks, for example?
I hope somebody out there finds this interesting too!
Comments
All the time. You can program a lot of crazy stuff.
Example: create random chords on ChordPolyPad in the same key as your song. Pound on them to discover chord progressions.
Just one example of how barely knowing any music theory at all can help expand your creativity.
I think a lot of electronic musicians think that way. I find that EDM often deemphasizes harmony and focuses on the rhythms. But, I also think that classical theory is used all the time.
Using the Neapolitan 6th as an example, you will find edm using the bII all the time. One difference is that in classical music, the neapolitan almost always goes up to the V before resolving down to I. In edm, the bII almost always resolves chromatically to the I (although that might be because the composer/producer is thinking in terms of jazz theory and chord substitution). Either way, they are both effective in making a major chord sound darker.
As long as the music sounds good, then it's good music
I'm usually seeking new situations and novel positions for art, to push originality forward. I've quite intentionally interpreted what music theory I've been exposed to as something to steer from to discover what lies outside it. For example, sounding good isn't necessarily a result I might usually want. Any given configuration or arrangement of events and signals and units is theoretically possible, some of those might be discoverable by me.
That, plus I consider that music theory uses badly constructed terminology. All these decades my assumption, when people say '5th note', was that there were four previous notes played prior to it and the note after will be called the sixth note. It turns out it means something else. The labels for things are inconveniently replicated for differing purposes. I'd strongly suggest redesigning it all so that it makes sense without ambiguity.
I stopped after learning notes and chord names. I could tell it was a path that would box me in. I'm a pretty big stickler in most areas of my life, but music is the one thing I have a good feel for, so I just ride it out.
Piano lessons in college were torturous. I was shocked at how terrible I sounded cause I was thinking too hard about what was happening theory-wise and too carefully reading the notes on the page. I'd have never guessed I'd played an instrument for 10 years after hearing me play in the practice rooms.
All that said, I'm about to go look up what a Neopolitan 6th chord is. But I suspect I've used them plenty throughout the years.
This is still one of my favorite things to do when I don't have a midi keyboard around.
I spent a long time learning music theory, and the more I learnt the more I realised that there are rules that allow you to do anything you want to.
When you look at a piece of written music, all the extra little dots and squiggles are merely markers to say 'ignore the rule for this scale or timing and play this instead'
Take the modes for example, Each one represents a scale type....Aeolean = Minor.
So if you play chords in A Minor, does that mean you cant play a melody using a mixolydian scale ? No it does not, you can play any scale type over the top, it just has a different mode name depending on what type of scale you play.
See....Rules that are there to allow you to break the other rules
Where music theory can guide in what should sound good together and what resolves, if used in its strictest form it will severely limit what you can achieve.
A complete ignorance of music theory will hinder you in writing stuff if you want it to sound musical. A lot of apps these days have scale functionality to assist and make up some of that knowledge gap.
If you're using an iOS app, you're already using a subset of music theory, because these apps want you to have fun and make music quickly. Gadget is a great example. If you're not careful, it's going to box you in. Knowing music theory will actually help you realize the constraints being put on you so you can get beyond them. I have to make a concerted effort to keep many of these apps from guiding my work.
@aaronpc I totally agree with you. Each app has a different kind of bias toward a different subset of music theory. That can box you in, but a knowledge of how they are trying to box you in can help to free you from those constraints.
But I also think that our ears, experimentation, and imagination can also overcome these constraints.
One of the most beautiful things about iOS apps is that there are so many different types of apps that utilize different kinds of music theory. When using these apps in conjunction, often times you are creating a fusion of new 'subsets' of music theory. In that way, we aren't boxed in at all, but instead are more free than most composers and musicians.
I think that way, yes.
When you cook with ingedients do you consider how much of one thing balanced against how much of another, and how one flavouring might influence the final outcome if you add it before x ingredient or just before serving?
Yes.
When you employ a catchy turn of phrase, do you consciously choose one word or combination over another, or choose to include colloquial borrowings like "je ne sais quoi" or "capisce"? Do you consciously choose words that rhyme, or throw a bunch of words in at random and hope a good poem happens by chance?
I've often felt that knowledge has only ever offered me more tools for self expression, never fewer. The only boxing in I've felt was when attempting to complete a task for which I was under-informed, or else attempting to collaborate on a task with others who were under-uninformed.
I sigh, remembering.
I find that the tools for musical composition apply equally usefully regardless of genre.
Its all just harmony. Some notes sound better together than others, there's your scales and chord names reason for existing. The rest is just good rhythm/a good ear. So no I never consciously think of music theory when making tunes. It helps that my ear finds key changes to be jarring.
I don't claim to be anything close to a composer, but I do find that knowledge of music theory helps speed the process. I don't mean in a formulaic way. I mean that when I get to a decision point (what chord, scale, riff, notes to play next), having some knowledge of the effect of the available directions makes the process of going where I want to more reflexive. It reduces the time fumbling around looking for chords, etc, and helps keep the flow. Knowing the "rules" even helps to know when breaking them is the thing to do.
It can cut both ways. If I over-think theory then I'm going to get myself into a rut. But, appropriately relegated to the background, is way more help than harm. It contributes to my flow and creativity without hindering it.
I like @decibelle's cooking analogy. Having some idea of the taste of the various ingredients and how they work together is helpful, and an easier path than just throwing things into the pot. On the other hand, some of the best creations come from happy accidents or by purposely doing random things to see what happens.
Well said!! The more I learn, the more creative I get and the quicker I can create the music I hear in my head.
Some of the more abstract or soundscape-type apps can free you from thinking about things like key, mode, or meter -- or at least they might not necessarily be important to think about starting off. But it will almost always help to know about such things when you want to bring in other apps or instruments.
Music is a language and there are varying degrees to which people can learn languages by simply being immersed in them, wanting to communicate. Some can be fluent without ever taking a class, while others not.
But you usually find that the people who didn't learn theory (AND still sound good to most people) tend to be following theory even if they don't know that they are. That was my experience. I was finding things would sound right or wrong and when I started learning theory, I found that I was already following rules.
Chicken / Egg really. What came first, the language or the text book on the language?
Yeah, but it still falls under established ideas. People can grunt at each other all they want, but until there are some rules to what the grunts mean, there will be limited communication. The more you express yourself in a language the better and also the more you understand why expressing you self works, the better you become.
You can be an amazing race car driver, but if you understand how the engine, etc. works on the car you can even become better at racing.
If you read some of the history of music, you can see critical improvements and creativity when someone established some rule or other. In western music the advent of the well-tempered scale, for instance.
Totally. If someone learns a language without formal education of any sort, they are actually following people and personal experience as opposed to theory, which is really running more in parallel to them. I am geeking out more on the semantics of what we mean when we say 'music theory'.
But the people they are following are probably following the established conversion theory for the language.
What people are we talking about again!??? 
What are we talking about again!??? lol
Cool stuff that gets us passionate about music!
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments on the topic.
I agree with the comments about knowledge of music theory being optional, especially if one has a good ear or abundant creativity. I also agree music theory to some extent formalizes what sounds good, even though it will sound good without the theory. But having the knowledge might open up other options than the familiar. If you know the V7 resolves well to the I chord in part because of the leading tone, then maybe you can find other chords which are less predictable to serve the same function.
A good example of both approaches is found in one of my favorite songs, Radiohead's Paranoid Android. Clearly a lot of the song is unconventional, dissonant, rhythmic but awesome. But the slow section starting with "Rain Down" must have been written with music theory in mind -- its a beautiful, non-diatonic progression (I think), beautiful voice leading, etc. I love this song for the combination of the varied parts. The same is true with good EDM songs which have beautiful chord progressions underneath crazy rhythms and wild synth sounds.
The more interesting aspect of this thread to me is the use of the start up culture term 'leverage' in a musical context. I exhibited for a music app at the Web Summit in 2014 and it felt more like a music festival than a business conference. Bono was even a headline speaker!
Regarding music theory: the vast majority of people who talk it down are people who didn't put the effort into learning it. That should tell you something. It's not 100% essential but it's an amazing resource. I spent many years mastering it and I couldn't even dream of doing 95% of the professional music work I do without it.
Purely on an entertainment level, it's enriched my musical passion a hundred times.
It's worth the graft.
But it is so ambiguous.
Absolutely for commercial work.
Of every music theory down-talker I've ever encountered, regardless of the size of their effort/time learning investment, the amount of their (not theoretical) in-practice working understanding of music theory ultimately turned out to be near or just at the zero mark.
I've met people who had invested some impressive amounts of effort over some considerably lengthy time frames, and these individuals were able to discuss the music theory terms and concepts they'd learnt for hours and hours, and expressed passionately held opinions about them. Yet when those terms happened audibly in a musical context, when I pointed out the intimate link between the audio and their discussion/opinions, this was always a complete surprise to them. They were unable to understand how, or even that the connection existed, and every attempt I made to clarify it for them was alas a fruitless failure.
I accept that my explainer abilities could possibly suck like a hoover.
Still.
Regardless that opinions without a context are in general confusingly meaningless (at least they are to me), those individuals still held tight to those opinions, asserting them aggressively, to fisticuffs even. I regularly heard these assertions bundled in a package deal like a special offer,
"Buy 3 meaningless opinions with no context, and get 3 music theory disparagements absolutely free!"
Commonplace disparagements I've heard include:
"Music theory is ...
... trivial"
... only for purists"
... creativity-blocking"
... etc
They validated these conclusions with claims of extensive experience and in-depth music theory knowledge, based on their time and effort investment.
They were unfortunately unable to believe that despite their time and effort investment, their knowledge levels were still dishearteningly minimal.
Or, that could just be my hoover-sucking explaining abilities failing again.
Anyway, those are my experiences with those who disparage music theory.
Still not convinced about that one. Sure, it's worth SOME graft. But there are limits, y'know?
Issues, I haz dem.
Oh well.
I think there is just a physical acoustical vibration thing that the human auditory system (individual preferences aside) reproducibly responds to as more-or-less pleasant, or more-or-less jarring, and I think the tenets of common practice harmony may just be a description of the human auditory response to audio which is primarily comprised of pitched sounds within an ongoing-repetitive-rhythm context . (for the most part)
(can we pretend we agreed on a definition for what "music" is? kthx)
To me, that explains why humans like tempered tuning, and why human-preferred intervals tend to be numerically-speaking much messier than nice and tidy exact divisions of frequency values. Or something. Cos they're not. Which is sometimes inconvenient.
So anyway I think common practice harmony is less on the PREscriptive side, and much more on the DEscriptive side, human-auditory-response-wise.
I mean as far as I understand, people (mostly Mozart) were doing 'common practice' harmony all over the place (commonly, y'know?) before any teachers were beating it into people like us. Hence the "common practice" name. As in:
"Hey, this sounds pretty nifty, how come? Ok, let's figure this shizz out."
... and thus, the rules of "common practice harmony" (also known popularly as "music theory") are born. Ta dah!
Me too!
Something with 'practice' in the name is also otherwise known as something with 'theory' in the name? Who signed that off?
Isn't "colour theory" also "colour practice"?
Does anyone know any favourite resources aimed at a person who has been trying to comprehend music theory for several decades if not more but each time never progresses because it simply makes no sense from a logical or technical point of view. There's no doubt a lot of people in that classification. I might even know a few of them.
I recommend the Hook Theory II book, available in several electronic formats. It covers the basics of major and minor scales, the other modes, chord function, which chords sound good and why. It gives various examples mostly from popular music describing a technique (e.g. Lady Gaga borrowing chords from a related minor key). The iPad version I read has inline quizzes to confirm understanding.
There is also Hook Theory I, which I didn't read. It seemed more basic than I wanted but might be just the thing for a beginner.
The Hook Theory courses are aimed squarely at songwriters.
They have a website as well which analyzes thousands of songs. It made a lot more sense to me after reading the book, since you have to a certain system of naming chords in related to the bass note (e.g. I 6/4).
https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab
Here is a resource I just found. It has an iPad app version.
http://www.musictheory.net/lessons
I also just found this, written in kind of a cartoon format.
http://tobyrush.com/theorypages/pdf/complete.pdf
I hope this helps your friends.