What is music theory? What does the theory say about music?
In: Culture
Music theory is like a toolbox. It gives things names and separates them in groups. That way you can navigate your musical project in a much more organized manner.
You can learn to speak and understand a language by living there for a couple of years.
Music theory is like learning the grammar of that language. It’s not strictly needed for listening/understanding or even playing/speaking, but deepens you’re understanding and makes it all generalizable knowledge to be applied elsewhere (on other instruments/in other languages).
Only difference: you can read language without understanding grammar. You can’t read or write music without understanding music theory.
music theory is more descriptive than predictive.
Constructing a musical piece following the “rules” of music theory does not make a remarkable piece -by far. In contrast a lot of remarkable pieces do follow various rules on music theory.
Often most magnificent pieces just break certain rules just enough to make the piece unique, pleasant and special. It’s like musical theory describes what you would expect from a musical piece, but for actually enjoying music you want to be surprised just enough to keep there piece interesting.
I think it’s very similar to tropes in movies: “the ugly villian”, “good side wins eventually”, “if you see a random scene it will be important later”. Those tropes are plentiful in good movies, but sticking those together doesn’t make much of a film.
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