quote:Original post by MadKeithV
Usually, the anti-shredders will argue that you don''t need to shred to play a good, emotional song (which is true), and that shred is something people hide behind when they cannot compose emotional music (which is BS).

No amount of technique or knowledge will automatically make you a good composer, but not having the technique or knowledge robs you of the tools available to compose good music.

Very much agreed.

quote:You need theory to find out what you don''t know about music yet.

Bach is one of the prime examples of a "mathematician composer", and yet to me it is some of the most emotional music I''ve heard.

Yes, yes... this is exactly where I am coming from.

I don''t want to just pick out a new scale and use it as an excuse to ''do something technical'', I want to explore new scales as they are a precise way of quantifying different feelings and even emotions that I can put into music.

I was listening to the Final Fantasy music the other day and I heard a bit that I really liked, so I downloaded the midi file to see what it was... it was just a simple Gm - Dsus4 - D progression. But since I usually use G natural minor rather than G harmonic minor, I wouldn''t normally come across that progression (due to not having the F# in G natural minor). This is an example of where study, involving knowledge of theory, helped show me how to get a different feel... a different emotion, if you will.

quote:Original post by PoppinFresh
Saying that Back didn''t pour himself into his music is just wrong. It''s not the Backstreet Boys we''re talking about. Sure, he could be structured, but what he wrote was revolutionary (not evolutionary of other stuff) at the time.

I''m not saying it was all technical or all emotional... it was more an example of how much of the best work is done from a technical basis rather than done purely on ''feel''.

Beethoven composed some of his greatest works when he was almost totally deaf. Now again, I''m not saying his compositions were emotionless mathematical works, but you can bet that he had a good appreciation of theory and ''what works'' rather than going on how it made him feel.

In fact, I think it''s the same principle, just the other way around: some people play around until they find the note or whatever that "feels right". I work the other way around: I know how I want it to feel, and need to know the musical theory to get me that feeling. The more different examples of progressions and scales that I learn about, the wider the vocabulary I have available to be able to express my feelings.

An analogy could be that of trying to write a love story in another language. Until you are really familiar with the grammar and vocabulary of that language, your story, no matter how great and deep and moving, is not going to be very easy to write, and won''t work as well for the reader as it would if you''d had more and better words at your disposal.

I hope this points out that we''re not totally opposite in how we view music, just taking a different angle on the same thing.

quote:Hey, I''m a guitarist... I won''t even get into the whole shredder thing. I don''t have time to argue and all:
Hendrix/ Neil Young..is to..Yngwie Mee whatever his name is.
Is there any comparison?
Doh.

Yngwie Malmsteen

To be honest: I don''t like Yngwie or Hendrix. I prefer something in between There''s a balance to be struck. Too technical, and you''re just doing it for your own benefit, because it''s soulless and largely pointless. Not technical enough, and you''ve limited your ability to express yourself, meaning you are less able to communicate the emotions in the music. Just my opinion

I think the reality of music composition "truths" can be found somewhere in between the two opposing arguments here, but I wanted to jump in and debate one particular point. I''ve been playing and writing for going on 20 years now. I''ve taken some theory classes and studied the scientific side of music for a while but discovered that it''s just not the way music works in my mind so I stopped pursuing it in that manner. Everything I write is by accident or inspiration - sometimes a whole song forms in my head and I translate it to instruments, sometimes a guitar riff just flows out of me from nowhere or I''m noodling and I accidentally find a progression that evokes a cool feeling so I write some more around it. If I sat down and analyzed what I''ve written I could recognize the theory behind it, but the theory is just not something I pay any attention to, ever.

That little personal background is my basis for this statement: you don''t *have* to know or utilize the scientific/mathematical side of music to write "good" music (whatever that is); and it''s not necessarily true that if you write your music using a more natural, artistic method that you''re automatically boxing yourself into a rut. I look at the scientific or mathematical side of music as a tool that can be used if it works for you, and certainly learning to utilize any new tool is going to add to your "bag of tricks" from which you pull your ideas. But whether you''re using that particular tool or not, if you continue to practice your own particular method of writing you can progress and create new and interesting music without having any knowledge of the technical side of things.

Also, music theory is not the only way to learn new things about music. This isn''t black magic (as pointed out earlier), all the notes are available to anyone who plays an instrument. Through experimentation you can always teach yourself new ways to create a certain sound or feeling. If you have a good ear you can learn new chords and progressions by listening to music and figuring out what they''re playing. I don''t think there is such a thing as being too technical or not technical enough. Some people will appreciate either extreme, it''s all very subjective. Everybody has their own reasons and methods for creating music, and to me the end justifies the means. This is artistic creation whether you''re doing it with numbers, translating feelings from your mind or accidentally discovering chords on an instrument.

Yeah... this was never supposed to be another ''art vs. science'' thread I prefer to use theory rather than experimentation: theory is quicker and more precise. That is just my personal choice.

The moral of the story is: everyone's got their own opinion on everything, and though it's fun to argue on message boards for a short period, it gets pointless and boring after awhile .

quote:Too technical, and you're just doing it for your own benefit, because it's soulless and largely pointless.

Ah, from your first posts I couldn't tell that you recognized this. It's a misunderstanding on my part, but if I knew this earlier I wouldn't have been so compelled to rant. We're still on opposite ends of the spectrum, but I don't think of you as an inhuman drone now .

Edited by - PoppinFresh on August 31, 2001 9:41:26 PM