The "Know Your Music Theory" Argument

There are several arguments in the composer's community that keep popping up in a new iteration every few weeks. Mac vs. PC, John Williams vs. Hans Zimmer are for instance two of the standards.

One more is "Music Theory vs. Using Intuition". This one has recently been fueled again by controversy company number one: Spitfire Audio. They released a new library a few days ago with the advertising claim "Less Theory - More Feeling".

And of course they got exactly what they intended, people got outraged and talking about it on the usual forums and social media communities.

And in one or the other way, in such discussions there are always two extreme positions present.

1. Music Theory makes your music better and is necessary to be a legitimate composer.

2. Music Theory is used by academic snobs who think they are better than others and relying too much on it makes music constructed and lacking emotion

In a way, it has become a synonym for "academically trained composers".

And as always, there is no black and white in this discussion. To form a healthy relationship with music theory, it is essential to understand that the most part of it is recursive. Theory always came after the creative inception of a new concept. To put it simple it tries to find logic in an idea that has been brought to life from creative inspiration. So in a way it always came after the music, not before. Only in the 20th century, this approach has sometimes been reversed with composers trying something out because it theoretically made sense.

But the theoretic fundaments that we base our musical understanding on is formed on theorists trying to make structural sense out of creative intuition and finding a predictable logic in it.

Consequentially, the stricter you follow a theoretic construct in music, the more unlikely it is that you end up with music that feels "fresh". So, theory basically is a catalogue of tools that have proven to work over the century long history of "modern music".

And this is exactly how theory should be used. Composers who have a strong theoretical knowledge will have it easier to work their way out of tricky situations as they can easily fall back on concepts that have been tested before to work in these cases. Composers who work more on intuition might need a bit longer to figure something out but might eventually reach the same goal depending on how strong their intuition is.

However, there is one very strong effect of knowing theory which is that you can systematically categorize things in your head because you have an understanding on how things build on top of other things while intuitive composers might live in a "chaotic vortex of unorganized musical devices".

Having said that, as you all are following this Patreon channel and I definitely do dive deep into theory here once in a while, it seems like we all see a point in expanding our horizon on this matter.

Personally, I often tend to use theory intuitively. Studying these things for so long has engrained quite a bit of these concepts into my subconsciousness where some things come out in a "theoretically correct" form without thinking much about it. Theory helps me to find out what's going on when I feel that "something is not right" and it allows me to "try what else should theoretically work".

On the other hand, I can actively observe with me how this upbringing puts invisible barriers into my musical thinking. Sometimes I hear music by a composer who doesn't know a single bit about theory that I really like and that has a freshness and unique approach that fascinates me and at the same time I think to myself that my "musical wiring" would have never gotten me to these ideas or concepts because it would have meant to crash through several theoretical barriers at once.

So of course, that Spitfire claim "Less Theory - More Feeling" triggers me too as it makes it seem like an either-or equation where theory contradicts musical feeling which of course is complete nonsense. And for the most part, I'm very happy about the theoretical knowledge that I accumulated over the years as it is really helpful in many ways. But there is that small voice in my head that wishes to not know any of this and just experience music like that magical wonderland where you can find a new path at every corner. It's not that I never have that feeling but "knowing what I'm doing" simultaneously also diminishes that constant wow-factor.

However, I decided to do this whole music thing professionally and am grateful for being able to earn money with what I love. And being in this economical necessity to create a predictable output requires me to be able to create results that I can count on. This is where music theory often saves my life (or my sleep).

In the end, I would say that my personal standpoint is about 85% music theory is great, and I need it and everybody should study it and 15% I wish I knew no theory and would just wiggle my way through this with my intuition.

I feel however, that this is deeply depending on personality. I have heard music by composers who were absolute kings of music theory. Music that was impeccable on the theoretical side and blew my mind on how well it was constructed and yet, it felt lifeless, pale and predictable. And I heard music by composers who wouldn't even know where the C on the keyboard is that I found extremely refreshing and mindboggingly creative.

So this constant music theory vs. no music theory discussion feels more like a constant self reassuring bubble for people who want to justify their own position on this scale and want to hear an echo chamber of people agreeing with them that they don't need to study music theory or that they are better because they have a degree in music.

Personally, my approach is: "I love this stuff, so yeah, I want to know as much as I can about it, show me all these obscure things that I can try out!" I can see a point in people who claim that understanding theory better might change their music for the worse and take away raw creativity from it. But I can not see a point in people simply being too lazy to put effort into it.