if you can make a melody you can make a melody

if you can make a track, you can make a track

^ Right?


Speaking from personal experience of having zero musical background, I have done countless hours of trial and error with pluck chords and which notes sound good together and which dont.  Which black keys work with the white ones and which dont, or which chord progression will sound good next.  I imagine I would have saved myself a LOT of time if I had even a little bit of knowledge about music theory.

Applied knowledge is predictive.

Music theory doesn't help you play better notes or do better compression. It gives you the ability to predict in advance what effect playing a note or turning a knob will have. That saves time and cuts down on frustration, making it less likely you'll say "Eff this" and go log into Tweetbook.

Basically: Theory is useful, it helps some people more than others, it applies to different people's workflow at different levels of importance, and it all comes down to whatever music you personally want to make! I argue in favor of learning theory because it does not hurt to have the knowledge, and when you're on a forum full of novice musicians it is probably not a good idea to discourage them from learning that can explain how most of the music we've heard for most of our lives (unless of course you grew up in a country using non-western theory) works.

If you're making minimal techno or the bro-eist of dubstep, I doubt you'll be needing much music theory. If you're making some big anthemic trance song with a huge epic chord progression that brings tears to the saucer-pupil'd eyes of a bunch of festival goers? I think having a more comprehensive understanding of harmony would come into play - but at the same time, it's not actually necessary. It just saves you a ton of time that would otherwise be spent moving MIDI notes around until it works.

Think about what you want to get out of your music. Analyze a bunch of songs that sound like the music you wanna make. How much theory do they use in their songs? Like Mat said, everyone's a professional music listener.

I have no background in music and while I can make decent compositions I often feel like I have no clue what fuck I'm doing. For example sometimes writing chords feels frustrating because I don't know how to continue and I just fuck around with notes and stuff until something coherent comes out. I have no idea how to write harmonies or anything cool like that.

I think knowing theory wouldn't hurt, but it's not something you'll absolutely need to be a DJ Bassmeister 808. In electronic music it's a easier to get away without having a musical background but you can definitely hear if someone has a background in music.

Of course everyone should know that you should (usually) stick to some scale etc. You can go a long way with basic theory. I just wish I had played piano or somehting when I was younger, I'm sure it would've had a great influence on my music.