"Musical Enthusiast" in need of advise

[Jakos]

Did you ride a bike right away without training wheels? If you did - it probably really sucked and that wasn't a lot of fun.

Most people here had some training wheels.

Taking a MIDI for the first couple times to learn it would be the training wheels. Good musicians develop their ear over time and are able to "see" the music on their instrument of choice. That is a given and doesn't need to be said.

My advice? Download the MIDI and learn it. You'll quickly realize that everybody rips off everybody and you'll recognize chords and melodies quickly after learning songs. What these people are saying is that you should never look for an aid but to put your dick to the grindstone and hammer it all out by ear. That's good if you're a masochistic individual who enjoys pain and long fruitless hours.

Maybe a little bit late answer but better late than never.

I learned to ride a bike without training wheels, and thanks to it (I think) I learned better and faster, but maybe not safer.

I think that if you learn how to play any song by MIDI instead of trying to learn the song by ear you don't learn the things that you would be able to learn the other way. That doesn't mean being a "masochistic individual", I just believe in the confort zone, and if you don't push yourself and prefer to do the easier things, probably you will get to a point where you can't still learning that way.

Also the poster asks for help to improve his music creation/composition skills, and I think that by just copying you don't improve, and less in terms of composition where you need a good ear. That's my opinion.

[timaeus222]

Maybe a little bit late answer but better late than never.

I learned to ride a bike without training wheels, and thanks to it (I think) I learned better and faster, but maybe not safer.

I think that if you learn how to play any song by MIDI instead of trying to learn the song by ear you don't learn the things that you would be able to learn the other way. That doesn't mean being a "masochistic individual", I just believe in the confort zone, and if you don't push yourself and prefer to do the easier things, probably you will get to a point where you can't still learning that way.

Also the poster asks for help to improve his music creation/composition skills, and I think that by just copying you don't improve, and less in terms of composition where you need a good ear. That's my opinion.

I actually agree with this sentiment; if you learn without MIDI, then it's easier to develop an ear for differentiating from what melodic contour or chord progressions might be in the original MIDI. I was honestly against using MIDI from the start of my music production experience, and you know what, I'm glad I made that decision, because it allows me to make stuff like this, with complex chord progressions and whatnot. Some people learn in different ways, but I really would suggest not using MIDI so you develop that ear for writing your own, more personalized interpretations of music.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Heck, zircon polishes his music until it's pretty much perfect, beyond what most people could criticize, and he knows fairly well what he wants in his head, and works until he gets it. So those types of people exist.

If you watched his livestream you'd know fairly well that this isn't remotely true

[timaeus222]

If you watched his livestream you'd know fairly well that this isn't remotely true

If that wasn't true, he wouldn't have kept reworking his synth work and retweaking his melodic contours. I'm not saying he just knows precisely how to get where he wants to go. That's not quite how music composition always works. I'm saying he has a good idea of what he wants to accomplish (not how), and tries things until he gets to a point where he has enough context to deliberate what he wants to do with what he has laid out.

Maritain actually says that Art is "the undeviating determination of works to be made" (Ch. 3, pg. 18, Art and scholasticism, and the frontiers of poetry)---that Art (a.k.a music...) has an "infallible rectitude" (Ch. 4), and the artist, specifically, finds his way blindly with accidental deliberation/counsel (paraphrased, Ch. 4). I quite literally read that two weeks ago, and asked my professor in class, and he said yes. So when you say something to the effect of criticizing him for not being able to produce precisely what he wants to do, exactly how he wants it, it's unreasonable to expect, in my opinion. I would expect him to know what's bad, not to be perfect. All I said was "pretty much" and "beyond what most people". I didn't say "perfect" without qualifiers or "all" instead of "most", nor did I say "he knows exactly what he wants", but "he knows fairly well what he wants".

Besides, if you don't mess up, how will you learn? I learn from my mistakes, so I like making mistakes, fixing them until it sounds right for me. That's totally in line with the phrase "happy accident", which is technically a "good" kind of mistake. And like I said before, if I don't just write something at all, I don't really get anywhere, so sometimes, if I get stuck on writing something, I just play SOMETHING, and when I get an idea of where I want to go, I (as stated earlier) work on it until I get it just right for my intents and purposes.

Whenever I'm not sure what I want to write, I still write SOMETHING through some improvisation with some chords maybe, and then revise it until it turns out how I want it. If I doubt what I might write, then I might not actually write it and I won't get anywhere. As long as I have some context, I can figure something out on what to write next.

Edited March 8, 2015 by timaeus222

[Nase]

lol, i don't think neblix was criticizing your beloved zircön, tim. it's about pointing out that all musicians use some form of trial and error. if they don't, i dunno if they can be classified as musicians even. they're probably more like a living jukebox then.

getting abstract about it, art is probably about finding that sweet spot between knowing and not knowing.

plans are alright, but be ready for surprises of any kind.

the specific way in which you react to those surprises has a large effect on your musical output.

musicians are just explorers. art is exploration of semantics and symbols. our intuition has a way of making us say the wrong (non-intended) thing at times, and they sometimes end up being exactly the right thing, once we understand them in context. think freudian slip.

Edited March 8, 2015 by Nase

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Omfg, such a simple question leads to all this philosophy and argument.

Learn by MIDI, sheet music or ear. It really doesn't matter. Why not do all three?

Learn music theory too, it will only help you despite what all the hippy music philosophers want you to believe.

"You need a good ear to compose music"

I say this as a person with a pretty decent ear: I keep seeing this pop up and quite honestly it's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. You need functioning ears and even that's debatable if you're Beethoven. This idea that a strong ear for pitch or whatever is necessary to compose music well is straight up bullshit. All you really need is to be able to play and improvise with an instrument well (or use a mouse in this day and age), understand the fundamental theoretical concepts of melody and harmony and be able to listen and judge whether or not it sounds good. If something comes out sounding "wrong", there is an explanation for why it doesn't sound the way you want it too. It has nothing to do with your ear. When I first tried writing a neoclassical metal tune as a teenager, it didn't sound like I wanted. Why? Because I didn't understand the aspects of the composition that make it sound like I wanted it to.

A competent teacher will be able to teach you how to compose and harmonize a good melody in an afternoon's worth of time - it's not rocket science, people.

I think that if you learn how to play any song by MIDI instead of trying to learn the song by ear you don't learn the things that you would be able to learn the other way

Like what exactly? I found learning with some sort of visual aid, a frozen picture of the music if you will, a far far better way to learn about music in general than just by listening to it alone. If anything, learning stuff by ear has only helped me memorize what I've learned better or in some cases transcribing melodies I have in my head. However, you don't have to "hear it in your head" to be able to compose great music.

Playing by ear's use is grossly exaggerated and it's more just a convenient skill rather than a necessary discipline at this point.

[timaeus222]

It has nothing to do with any bias I have for zircon (which, by the way, I've never seen spelled with an umlaut ). It's just a purely logical thing. You can't expect someone to perform better than a human can do something.

all musicians use some form of trial and error. if they don't, i dunno if they can be classified as musicians even. they're probably more like a living jukebox then.

That IS what I said, though.

Besides, if you don't mess up, how will you learn? I learn from my mistakes, so I like making mistakes, fixing them until it sounds right for me. That's totally in line with the phrase "happy accident", which is technically a "good" kind of mistake. And like I said before, if I don't just write something at all, I don't really get anywhere, so sometimes, if I get stuck on writing something, I just play SOMETHING, and when I get an idea of where I want to go, I (as stated earlier) work on it until I get it just right for my intents and purposes.

Edited March 8, 2015 by timaeus222

[Nase]

Playing by ear's use is grossly exaggerated and it's more just a convenient skill rather than a necessary discipline at this point.

it cannot be exaggerated. you only got your ears, haha. how else to make a choice in music?

that said, i agree, use all help available, if you like using it. that part is very simple. midis are cool, and stuff.

look at it as added guidance to have some decision space to navigate, just beyond what sounds good right now.

theory and such.

edit: ok, you can actually make a choice in music without your ears. deciding to apply theory, for example. use some chords or notes you know from theory, without knowing beforehand how they will sound in context. but then you'll judge with your ears yet again ("what sounds good now").

so it's a matter of extending the decision space through borrowed knowledge, but after that your ears are the final judge.

trust me, it is not a simple question. but doing it is simple, luckily. doing things can be very simple, while philosophizing about them can be very hard. because the doing is so simple, and talking about it more often than not obscures that.

that's kind of the beauty of it innit.

you're right in the sense that talking about it too much is of questionable value, of course ;D

so ya, just do it.

and tim, it's ok that you like zircon a lot

i know you're saying the right things basically, but then you forgot about them while defending one of your idols. it's alright, lol.

point was, neblix didn't intend criticism of your hero, he just criticized what you're saying (which is a thing among u 2, apparently ). he pointed out that Zorkon, too, arrives at knowing what he wants through a series of accidents where he doesn't. so yeah, same thing.

peace out lol

Edited March 8, 2015 by Nase

[Nase]

so in conclusion, all these discussions are a fart in the wind compared to the greatness that is musical experience. we're still having them. they're clearly not music, but maybe they can be fun...it's just about understanding stuff.

i like to talk about stuff and see what comes out of it. it's a bit like music, anyway...exploring and stuff. except that the syntax of actual music is more freeform, and that makes it such a liberating thing.

music is so sexy.