Music theory doesn't put yourself into a box. You put yourself into a box. Learning music theory helps you put yourself OUTSIDE of the box. If you can recognize which chord progressions are cliche and overused then it's easier to avoid them within your own music.

Learn your scales, chords, and arpeggios then forget all that shit and just play.

Many (if not most) lack fluency in music theory. Thats advantageous to you because most producers dont have that avenue of tools.

Its easier to make melodies, rhythmic patterns, and chord progressions with theory. It took me roughly 30 mins(not including sound design and mixing) to make this piece of song:

https://soundcloud.com/user28006564/toids-pt6


(disclaimer: im a better musician than I am a producer.)

 That song is not possible without music theory.

Quote from: greek_steve on February 05, 2016, 09:20:45 pm

Many (if not most) lack fluency in music theory. Thats advantageous to you because most producers dont have that avenue of tools.

Its easier to make melodies, rhythmic patterns, and chord progressions with theory. It took me roughly 30 mins(not including sound design and mixing) to make this piece of song:

https://soundcloud.com/user28006564/toids-pt6


(disclaimer: im a better musician than I am a producer.)

 That song is not possible without music theory.

Why is this not possible without music theory? I would be inclined to disagree with you

Its uses power chords, chord extensions, and counterpoint. The chances of you hitting those same exact notes without knowing music theory is little. You might get the rhythm part right. Thats easy.  However, you wont get the tone or mood right. Tension and release also becomes difficult without music theory.

Agreed. I spent 20 years making music without knowing any music theory, and then I took guitar lessons (including theory) for a few years. I came up with some good melodies before, and some good ones after. The cool thing about knowing some theory, though, is that I can tell why something sounds good or bad. Before I would struggle with chords for weeks, knowing (because I listen to lots of music) that something was wrong with one of them. Now I take one look and say "That third chord has a minor 7th in it when the scale should have a major 7th."

I can also do way more complicated things now. I used to stick to 2 chords per song, now I can make a good 8-chord sequence and change it up sometimes.

I can still break the rules when I want to.  I can promise you learning theory didn't make me less creative...

I don't think having a musical background that important. I mean if you're classically trained or schooled, it does help but if you really have a thing for music you'll get there by yourself more or less the same as any other professionally trained artist. It might take more time but you'll be having a solid and honest way of making your own music if you learn everything on your own rather than getting trained by someone who'll only tell you to do things in their way and not your own!!!

rather than getting trained by someone who'll only tell you to do things in their way and not your own!!!

Okay, this is the biggest misconception that I have heard from people who refuse to learn music theory. This is an incorrect and potentially dangerous assumption, as it can only hurt you as a musician.

Music theory is not a rigid rule structure. Music theory is a codified set of descriptive labels - explanations of things that were already occurring without our interventions. The history of music theory (at least the western theory we're referring to right now) comes from old church choirs, where the reverberation time meant dissonance was very obvious. A tritone feels disconcerting, and that gets amplified when you have six or eight dudes all shooting out sound waves into a cathedral with 3 or 4 seconds of decay time. The tritone was considered a "devil's sound", because of how unpleasant that clashing became. At the same time, dissonance became a creative tool with things like a diminished chord.

Music theory doesn't tell you how to do things in one specific way. It just takes a couple centuries of trial and error and goes "you know all those sounds in your head? here's why they sound the way they do, and a few potential routes you could take to get there."

But, you have to want to learn to be taught.

Exactly. If you go into it thinking "they're just oppressing me and stifling my creativity" or just not interested in learning new things at all, you'll just be wasting your time and the instructor's time.

If you really don't want to learn any music theory, do yourself a favor and master the scale and chord MIDI effects that your daw has.

You can make any sort of music that focuses on groove and/or evolving textures instead of melody and harmony. Depending on your tastes, you can make techno, sample based dub or glitch, tech house, or other stuff.

If you're eager to get started making melodic stuff that sounds good while still working on your understanding of music theory, you can take the MIDI from an existing track you like, and cut it up, flip it, reverse it. You'll have fun and get some good results. Just google for MIDI files. Then you can get hands-on experience with what does or doesn't work and why.