Moss

I agree. Sadly I'm not. Guess I'm left brained. I can learn and play any rock song you ask (within reason) but ask me to write a good song...

Pet_Sounds

Not really. Most teachers do quite a bit of ear training. And again, if improvisation is your thing, you'll learn it by experimenting on your own, whether you've got a teacher or not.

In the end, we're all self-taught.

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Zack

I was largely self-taught for about 8 years, but then began taking private lessons and studied contemporary music composition in school.

Yes, aural learning is the most important thing I've learned, but I'll be damned if my professor's didn't all think so too. Most of them were of the mind that transcription is the single most effective learning tool for a a musician, that nothing, absolutely nothing beats listening to other people's music and trying to figure it out.

So, I would say that yeah, aural learning and self-teaching is great, but that having SOME sort of experience guide you through that process is better, at least for most people.

honestly, the largest portion of what I learned in college was not in class, it was talking to professors, it was independent study, it was just being around a body of people, all of whom had some band, some record, some text, some tome of interesting knowledge to recommend.

And, let's be honest. Learning music theory (and I mean REALLY learning it, getting into all the detailed, nitty-gritty advanced stuff), is a huge step up in terms of exploring music. If nothing else, it's a great way to force yourself to explore new sounds that you may elsewise never have encountered.

I don't actually recommend the college route, i just did that because my parents were convinced that all my family's hardships stem from not having degrees. (And I never quiiiite finished up my last few credits and graduated, heh.)

BUT, I do recommend as highly as possible connecting yourself with experienced musicians, if not as formal teachers, than at least as friendly knowledge sources.

It's amazing when you spend 7 months trying to figure out some musical concept on your own, and then some guy with 40 years experience says, "Oh, that's quartal harmony, it's really simple and commonly used," and suddenly it all makes sense. Then you kick yourself for not having asked sooner.

So yeah, self-teach if you like, it a great way to learn, but don't forget that, for millenia, music has been taught carefully from teacher to student.

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The Passage of... ------- (Classical Synth)
Danceables ------- (Dance Synth with a Latin Flair)
Meanderings ------- (Classical Synth)
Raven ------- (Rock Opera)

Pet_Sounds

^
Nailed it.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Zack

Most teachers I've had have done MOSTLY ear-training, of one kind or another, unless they were specifically teaching a course in Music Theory. And even then, it was about 70% learning to recognize the sounds associated with the theory. I mean, it's music, how would you teach it without ear-training? That's like expecting to learn to paint without ever learning to mix colours. No, that's like learning to read but not being taught the phonetic sounds of letters...

So very, very, very true. Teachers are great, because they can say, "practice this, it's what you're trying to do," or maybe, "read this book, it explains the concept you're interested in," or especially, "listen to this album a few dozen times, you'll like it, it'll turn you on to new stuff."

But basically, all the really good learning you're going to get from your own experience.

And please don't drop $160,000 on a music degree, if what you want is to learn music. There are ways to learn without condemning yourself to debt for your entire life.

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The Passage of... ------- (Classical Synth)
Danceables ------- (Dance Synth with a Latin Flair)
Meanderings ------- (Classical Synth)
Raven ------- (Rock Opera)

Frownland

Having a base knowledge of music definitely helps understand what to do with it. However, I like the self taught approach because it allows me to play the instrument in the way that it speaks to me. I feel like sometimes, people learn themselves into a box with their instruments, and they're never aware that they could go outside of that box. That's what I'm afraid of. That being said, at this rate whenever I pick up a new instrument I can carry over things like rhythm, whether to go up or down, and melody (to a certain degree, since of how much intervals can differentiate from instrument to instrument), and that base knowledge came from my dad when I first picked up the guitar.

Another thing to consider is what you're playing. If you're an (pauses to say as unpretentiously as possible) avant-garde improvisation multi-instrumentalist (****) like myself, my approach definitely works wonders for what you can do on your instrument. But if you want to play classical music on the piano, lessons would be the route to go. In the long run, it doesn't really matter as long as you make some interesting music.

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Plankton

One of the drawbacks of being self taught, with years of experience, is that I really couldn't tell you a lot about theory, modes, or anything technical music-wise. I can tell you what key something is in, or what chords are being played, but when it comes to theory, and the nitty gritty (as described above), I'm clueless. Not because I'm against injecting that knowledge into anyone's musical arsenal, but because I've never felt the need to have to learn any of it. I'm the type of person that likes simple, and steer far away from over analyzing anything, unless it's a necessary evil. I've given lessons, but I can only take the kids I teach so far in the technical side of it.

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Chula Vista

Good article here:

Creativity Can be Learned

Then start by writing a bunch of bad songs. Eventually you'll get better at it.

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on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

EPOCH6

Even having taken lessons for many years and having endured the rather boring technical depths to some extent, for me at least, it doesn't stick around for very long. I've been out of lessons for probably about 4 years now, consistently writing music and playing in groups, yet most of the technical knowledge has vanished from my mind, only the muscle memory remains. I think for the vast majority of musicians, especially in rock and blues, all of that theory is more of an exercise in control and precision, it serves to train your brain to always be in key, and to be able to gracefully recover when your fingers do drift elsewhere, the vocabulary of musical theory only ever seemed useful in a teacher / student scenario. I've never come across a situation where I've been writing music with some other people and felt the urge to go "Okay fellas, I think this section of the bridge should be contained within the Phrygian mode". I could see that being useful or practical in maybe a jazz band with a dozen or more members, but in most areas of music I think musicians are making a conscious effort to avoid boxing themselves into rigid theoretical structures, concerning yourself primarily with theory when writing music seems to harm creativity more than bolster it. So I don't think you missed much, besides maybe something to bull**** about with pretentious music students over a glass of wine at a jazz concerto (no offense to genuinely brilliant jazz musicians), you seem to be doing just fine without the tedious nomenclature.

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MasterBaggins

I learned how to read music for trumpet by memorizing what fingering I needed, rather than the note names. I play a lot by ear, and experiment on piano by ear, but I'd like to actually understand music theory.
But hey, Louis Armstrong learned trumpet all by ear, so..

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