I'm a musician

reminder that music theory is descriptive and not prescriptive

>>I'm a musician
lol thats gay
>>What theory do you use?
i know scales, intervals, how to build chords, basically the necessary shit
>>Ah nah brah, music theory limits creativity - you gotta only write what sounds good dude!
these people are fuckin dummies, but in a way theyre right

STILL alive?
nigga, how old are you?

All you need is string theory

mate do you even know what the 10th octave in the key of d# tonic minor is?

one time i tried to not use theory and invent new notes
i didn't
i just used theory with different ratios of frequencies. it was fun

>But in a way they're right
No they're not, at all

They think learning about music theory will cause them to write music in a strict way like they're writing a fucking 4 part counterpoint for a music mid-term and they'll lose a "creative" edge

When in fact, you can write anything you want, and music theory will simply tell you why your piece sounds the way it does. Nothing more, nothing less.

yeah but what im saying is all you have to do is make cool shit. you dont necessarily need theory to do that but it helps

Yeah of course, and writing based on our own creative and artistic impulses should be our means to a musical outlet...you don't need to know theory for that

But those people who parrot the "music theory is limiting and kills creativity" meme think that theory (if you were to learn it) replaces our creative impulses with a rigid framework of musical ideals that we must adhere to.

But this is only applicable when writing score in music classes...not on your own. Bach isn't sitting on your MIDI keyboard yelling at you because you created an atonal piece with irregular instrumentation and timbre

That's true to a point, there's a level of musical academia that gets far too into the theory, and sounds derivative as a result.

Lots of musicians just do a lot of listening to music and figuring out sounds and are able to create cool sounds, and lots of people know a lot of theory and can't do shit with it, because they purely have theoretical talent.

It's much easier to compensate for lack of theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge than it is the other way around, which I think is the other guys point.