Producer types, other than sheet music, do you ever "draw" a map of a song?

[dkelley]

it IS funny when someone says something incorrect but thinks that they actually know music theory (which isn't just a theory you can make up, it's years and years of university level studying of the history of written music, how it evolved, etc, and includes documentation on all of the modes, scales, tunings (and no I don't mean "open G" as a tuning, I mean equal tempered scales as opposed to the native american scale of the midwest and so forth)... it's all a huge amount of information.

The more you learn, the more you can apply to your music work.

It isn't of course required, you can use your ears. But it certainly does help a lot.

I thought I knew a lot after having studying Royal Conservatory music and theory my whole life until I was 20 and received my first diploma in violin. And yes I learned a ton that way.

Then I thought I knew a lot by comparison when I studied for one very intensive year at an exceptional music program at one local very good college.

Then I thought I knew a lot by comparison again when I completed a 4 year music degree at a large university.

But there is still an incredible amount of useful information that is part of music theory.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you haven't done any of that studying then don't assume that you know enough about it to talk to people using established factual musical terms like scale, mode, and chord when those other people have some of that level of real knowledge and will be completely confused by your misinformation.

It doesn't mean you're any lesser of a gifted musician or producer, but it does make you sound sort of silly when you present what you feel are facts that don't actually match up with what are true facts in music as understood through typical music education and history.

Think of it like this - mathematics is a science, but the terms used and the way it works at a high level is a long studied and proven history of information that humankind has figured out over thousands of years. you might be able to work out some of the most important stuff yourself and might make up your own terms for some of those things and it might be just fine for what you need to know... but when you talk to someone who has made an effort to learn the standard language of mathematics and knows the history behind how these calculation methods were discovered, you will come off sounding a little confusing and confused.

Same with music - the advantage of learning music theory as a series of facts through history and knowing the terms and some of the really incredible amount of knowledge that is well documented in books gives us the ability to talk easily with each other about it and understand each other - musicians can come together who have never played together, never heard a piece of music, and read a new score together and make great music the first time (more or less LoL). It's a great thing to know.

It's not a requirement - but it DOES help.

So thinking that it's evil or that you're way of expressing things is better is a strange point of view - one can't say that a minor scale is one particular thing when it's very well established that it's another particular thing.

And if someone who obviously knows more about theory than you corrects you, it seems like a good idea to make a note of the new information you just learned about music so you don't make that mistake again when talking to other musicians who will very likely also be confused by you if you describe things in your own unique way again.

If we are going to communicate using terms like scale, chord, mode, major, minor, we had all better know what that actually means rather than just assuming we know. And if someone shows you what is correct, be smart enough to learn from it so you can communicate more easily with other musicians in the future.

Anyhoo - good thread here, a good read!