How do you study music?

[Garpocalypse]

The title of this can be read a number of ways so i'll elaborate.

How do you study music?

GarAside: Nice one idiot, you just lost anyone who clicked on this thread

GarBside: Wait, I'm just letting it sink in. For the drama.

GarAside: You better explain yourself quick or people might think you have problems with your mental health.

GarBside: I know, I know. I love you man.

Anway, How do you study music?

Lately I've been doing alot of transcriptions, playing by ear as much as possible and of course going over scales and modes on my two main instruments, keyboard and bass. However, I feel like something has been missing since I got out of school.

So if anyone has anything special they do with regards to increasing musical literacy i'd like to discuss them.

[Guifrog]

Listening to the work of others and trying to put into practice what they tell me on the WIP forums and judges panel

By the way, I've been studying bass in electronic music... The basic 'oom-oom-oom-oom' and/or '...ooOOOOOOOOooom' sounds so basic now

[Koriantor]

By the way, I've been studying bass . . . sounds so basic now

I what you did thar.

[EC2151]

For me, it's usually "listening as much as possible, over and over again"

It's more or less how I feel like I've absorbed some of ZUNTATA's (specifically OGR and Tamayo) style into my own pieces.

I don't really look at orchestral transcriptions, but from time to time I do look at piano music from the "greats" (everyone from Bach to Grieg to Schoenberg to Steve Reich) and TRY to see what they're doing. Listening to a good symphony or two is always good too. Unlike ZUNTATA, I don't really "adopt" their styles (as if I could!) but it's always good to hear how the better composers have done instrumentation (what plays what and when, etc). Always useful to know.

My own compositions reek of bastardized Romanticism, and like you I haven't seriously studied music in a good long while (though I play almost every day the piano), so it's usually just the methods I described above.

If you are looking to increase musical literacy (as in, read more music), the only way forward is lots and lots of practice. If you are looking to increase your sound palette, listen to many diverse composers/bands/artists and broaden your mind (duuuuude).

[C7]

A good, old-fashioned bm in music composition helps. Lots of score studying and listening (and playing!). I personally like reading through a score for something I've never heard, trying to form how it'll sound in my head, and THEN listening to the piece with the score. For pieces I'm familiar with, just reading along as it plays along is great. Also, try to break down some of the score to a piano reduction (yes, do it in your head, but do it on paper, too). Pull out some good old fashioned analyzation. Also, spend some time at a piano--particularly if it isn't your primary instrument. If it is, learn something else, too. It greatly enhances how you perceive 'it all'.

Oh, and I keep a score for something I know and like on the back of the toilet for extended sessions. Seriously. I read Rite of Spring on the toilet and love every minute of it.

[Trinity Dragon]

I'm actually self-taught for the most part. The most music theory I learned was the really rudimentary in 1st through 3rd grade music class. After that, I was in the junior high and high school choirs and I learned some more basic stuff there. But I tend to listen to my favorite composers and arrangers (and remixers) and incorporate some of their style into mine. The results aren't that great, as of yet, but I'd like to think that I'm improving. Not that I wouldn't like some formal educating on that subject...

[DusK]

I don't. I really, really should, but I don't.