Does Music Theory REALLY Kill Creativity?

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People often argue that learning music theory can kill your creativity - but is this really true?

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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:46 Music Theory Prejudice
01:48 Scars from Childhood
02:58 Knowing vs Formally Training
04:44 A Predictor of Success?
05:27 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
06:48 Music Theory Pros
07:49 Music Theory Cons
09:09 Conclusion

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[tonyrapa-tonyrapa]

I've played the guitar, on and off, for about 45 years. It's only in the last 10 years that I have made the effort to learn theory. I wouldn't call myself a music theory master but I've now got a decent handle of most of the basics and some of the more advanced stuff. I can say, without doubt, that knowing theory helps my creativity. I can still jam/noodle away away without thinking too much about theory and then, later, go back over some of those noodlings and enhance/improve them with theory. The end result is pretty cool, in my experience. One other thing - I haven't bothered learning to read music. Like Mike says, knowing theory and reading music should not be confused.

[firewater]

theory helped me to understand harmony which led to an amazing output of original songwriting that's ongoing.

[easyvelvet]

Thanks for this one, it has been a strong dilemma for I've been playing from ears all along, 25 years of great fun "finding" amazing chords and progressions.
But when came the time to explain other musicians what was happening there: chords names, scales, modes, or to understand them on stage when they would throw in the air a progression,
I tend to get lost. I would find my marks with a lot of mistakes before being on the good wave. So, for a person playing alone, or for sure at early stage on music, one does not really need theory.
But putting my head in it the last 4-5 years, understanding diatonic chords, inversions, modes and so on helped me to COMMUNICATE around what's happening!
It's a bit like watching a movie in a foreign language: you don't really need the subtitles to FEEL what's happening, but with them, you get finally most of the subtleties of it.
And it's way more easy suddenly to explain where we are to someone just arriving, ...before he or she just ruin the all jam by "trying" all around!

[movingtargetschannel]

Theory is invaluable. Helps you put voices together, empowers your versatility in composition, leads via comprehension to instinctvely knowing chord variations and relative harmony and melody. Before there were recordings, composers needed to "hear" it all in their head. Certainly didn't hurt Beethoven or Mozart! Great topic, Mike!

[dougkidder]

Having some formal (stress some) education under my belt regarding MT combined with years of experience in various settings, I find it incredibly useful in multiple circumstances. I'll use MT when inventing that magic chord I'm looking for, as mentioned communicating with other musicians, gigs where you walk in and are handed charts to music you've never played before as you're meeting the rest of the band for the first time - if nothing else it helps with the confidence in a situations like that - but the knowledge of relationships between tones is invaluable I think.

[MrOnemoreknight]

A lot of very valid points you made there Mike. I have been playing guitar for many many years and although I never had any formal training, I have found that having some music theory knowledge has helped my playing, given me more confidence when playing with other muscians and led me down paths I probably wouldn't have gone down otherwise. At the end of the day it is just another tool in the music box.

[UnpleasantChuck]

Interesting topic. As a child in the 1950s, I learned to play trombone in elementary school, and played in the school band all the way through high school. There was little exposure to general music theory, it was all centered on learning my instrument and reading the notes on the page. It was playing someone else’s compositions. There was virtually no creativity of my own, in fact, it was discouraged.

In the last few years of school, I became interested in rock music of the day, and began fooling with guitars and a cheesy combo organ. After a couple of years, it occurred to me that this experimentation had taught me more about music theory and song structure than all the previous years of sitting in a chair looking at dots on a sheet of paper and fearing criticism from a guy waving his arms around with a baton in his hands.

I’m now 73 and appreciate the values of both types of learning, and have had a long fascination for chords - especially more complex and altered chords - chord progressions and harmony.

It's all good!

[ronaldmiller]

I've been playing nearly sixty years and I've absorbed a fairly good working knowledge of music theory, although I'm no maestro. What I've found is that having that knowledge has enabled me to work with a greater range of other musicians: session players, jazz & classical players etc. For me that's the greatest reward. Sure you can be a musician without theory but there's nothing wrong with constantly learning, It's been of no detriment to me - I still love music and the people who make it as much as I've ever done.

[HOLLASOUNDS]

Im going to comment before watching and then see if what I say match up with what you say. I never made any effort to read music or pearn all the names of chord progressions, and when I see people talking about chord selection and what notes must be played I zone out. I play by ear and have memorized to position of keys and chords and can hear it in My head before playing, and for about 17 years have been able to wright or play really good chords and melodys. I cant play any pop songs on request but if anyone needs a quality unique melody or chord progression I can do that in seconds.

[Noname-kopj]

Spot on.I love your approach. I was raised by 2 professional classical musicians and they put me through the initial "by the book" early training. They meant well, and did what they knew how to do, but little did they know they'd produced a little rocker kid. I crapped out of lessons early and didn't start playing seriously until my early 20s, instead spending time assimilating all the music I could get my hands on via my ears. At that point, learning theory helped me make sense of why the music I liked, from ANY genre, sounded the way it did, and how to get those sounds into my own music. I love your approach. I had a teacher once who said that it was important to learn the rules so that when the time comes, you'll know how to break them properly.

[thomasjohnson-utzl]

Music theory can be a tool in the creative process, like a DAW, effects, rhyming dictionary, etc. it is not limiting.

[panneddead-centre]

Hey Mike. Kevin Parent here. My experience was quite different. There was always a piano in the house, though I didn't do anything with it until 1977. I did some playing by ear, but mostly I was reading sheet music. No lessons in reading; I just figured it out myself and asked my mom questions when I had them. But my attention was drawn to the chord symbols, and I was soon analysing them, figuring out that a major chord consisted of the named note, and another note four black&white keys above it, etc.

One day, Sister Mary Holy Water told us to get a book on our own and do a book report. I found a book called, simply, 'Music Theory' and bought it. It was a college textbook and I was in the 6th grade (US, so 11 or 12 years old). It was no problem for me. With that book I taught myself theory up to and including four-part writing.

Honestly, it never occurred to me that there were musicians who didn't know these things or didn't want to. If you want to be a historian, you read history books and articles, so as I wanted to be a musician, I read music books and assumed everybody else did as well. (Incidentally, I was hyperlexic as a toddler and have always been bookish.)

Some people just take to the theoretical side of things, and eventually I realised that just who I am.

[Promidi]

Sometimes the connection between an awesome musical phrase and music theory is pure

[jammer]

Your content here and on Studio One Revealed is very much appreciated! Thanks for all you do!

[alancollins]

I'm 65 and I've been playing guitar and writing songs since my late teens. I was totally self-taught and could not read music. I learned to sing and play "by ear, " as they say. A few years ago, I decided to go back to school (I never finished college when I was younger) with a music major because I wanted to learn music theory. I was hoping by expanding my knowledge it help make me a better musician and song writer. It did, but what I realized when I started back to school, was that I already knew a lot of music theory just by playing and writing. But now I could put words to everything I already knew.

[allenlindsey]

You just made me realize that I unknowingly came to my main instrument, piano/keys, via the Yamaha method you described. I just did all the other stuff on my own before I got to any kind of formal training. When I was five I went to the same elementary school where my mom taught 2nd grade and being a teacher's kid I was always there early. Started spending that hour listening to another teacher's kid practice and was fascinated by it, started picking up what she was doing and not long after that asked my parents if I could take lessons.

It's funny you asking about people's experience of being scarred by having to learn it too early on. I was fortunate that I came to it very organically. This isn't exactly the kind of thing you meant, but I think it falls in line with it. I have people tell me all the time when I play, "Oh, my parents made me take lessons when I was a kid. I really wish I'd stuck with it." That's the key difference to me, the word "made." I wasn't made to study an instrument, I asked to.

I actually ended up majoring in music theory and composition in college. They spend the first year of theory teaching all of the rules you mentioned, more or less based on Bach and other Baroque composers' writing, and make them sound inviolable. Then you get to the second year and you find out Bach broke all of those rules and you're allowed to as well. By the third year you're looking at atonal, 12-tone stuff, mapping weird things on a grid to analyze them and going WTF?!

But I will tell you, when I'm working out vocal harmonies with my band or sorting out new arrangements I use what I learned every single time without even thinking "ok, I'm doing theory now."

[RichardIresonMusician]

I always remember playing the first track of an Album I released back in the '90s to a highly qualified music teacher friend of mine... his first comment can't do that"....make of that what you will in the context of this video!😊

[glennlittle]

Almost perfect video on the subject. If you didn't have me before you did at "conflate" and "descriptive not prescriptive" and "by osmosis". As one or two others have said a bit of music theory has made me MORE creative not less. It's led me to places I could not have got to without it. And as you also point out everybody learns some whether they think they have or not. The first time you play your first chord you've learnt something about harmony.
On the subject of reading I totally agree: reading is not theory. In fact the traditional approach to music teaching starts you reading almost immediately but teaches you hardly anything about theory - and that it because the traditional approach is designed to train classical players to play what somebody else wrote!! Theory helps you to compose yourself!

[terry]

Very well said. I agree 100% with your view Mike. I use theory at times to help my creativity, and have ignored theory at times and created something at least I liked very much.

[thefretboardplayground]

I learned formally early on for 9 years from the start, moved to Nashville, got to work professionally, got to play with some really cool people and heroes (Vince Gill, Les Paul, Tommy Emmanuel, Richard Bennett, Guthrie Trapp, Billy Cox (once, at NAMM, graciously orchestrated by Dave Pomeroy who set the whole thing up, etc.). Theory didn't hurt me. It DID lead to a few gigs I got hired for, put my time in on and didn't ever want to do again because it wasn't fun or where my heart was (musical theater pit reading gigs, transcription work, etc.) but it was nicer to not want to do than to not be able to do. How music works helped me become a deeper and better musician.

A few years ago Steve Lukather called it in an interview I heard: "Let's be honest, if it wasn't going to happen, it wasn't going to happen."

Theory kills nothing. It's declining relevance to professional musicianship is not a product of the Internet age and should not be used to cast blame in any direction. It is however a sign of the times and how things have changed in the world over the past several decades. In the Wrecking Crew era it just wasn't a topic of conversation. Carol Kaye or Barney Kessel were not hemming and hawing back and forth on the value or lack thereof. Music has changed. The world has changed. I can't speak for you, you'll have to decide. No judgment just experience and thought.