TW #7 — The Importance of Music Theory (Future Assassin)

A personal essay by an 18-year-old tracker who plays by ear and never had a lesson — the earliest traxweekly piece in the theory-versus-ear argument that flared up again in #37–#40 (s-tw039-chord-theory-debate).

Key claims#

• Some scene musicians "have taken an extensive amount of theory, and by simply listening to some of their pieces, you can tell that they dominate from the rest"; worse, they "can USE their knowledge of theory to compose a beautiful piece in a fraction of the time".
• His own failure case: a panflute / toms / bass / trumpet progression that sounded complete in his head; instruments loaded in scream-tracker-3, but "I couldn't get what was in my head to come out onto the tracker" — the toms were off, the panflute rugged, the bass cruddy.
• Then he heard necros' NAiD-winning "Ascent of the Cloud Eagle": the same style and almost the same instruments, made by "a musician with 13 years of theory under his belt" (the author's figure) "with little needed effort", and it sounded better — so he abandoned his song.
• Music as therapy: he invents tunes when depressed or stressed, which is why not being able to write them down hurts.
• He leaves the question open ("there will be people who prove that it comes in handy, and then again, there will be others who prove otherwise") but regrets "never having taken a theory lesson in his life"; whether it is too late to start, "some say yes, others say no".

Practical takeaways#

• Theory's payoff, as seen from outside, is speed: getting an arrangement heard in the head onto the pattern grid without trial and error.
• Ear-only tracking works for single lines but breaks down when several instruments must fit together — exactly the ground covered by diatonic-chords and chord-progressions.

Notable quotes#

• "Just how important IS Music theory, anyway?"
• "Is it too late for me to start on theory now? Some say yes, others say no."

Relevance#

Motivation for the theory pages: it documents the cost of not knowing the basics, from a beginner's side, in April 1995.

Pages touched#

chord-progressions, necros (via notes), tracking-workflow (via notes).