great musicians

i dont know if anyone will understand this or think it sounds absolutely stupid, but dont you think that its bad to know like almost every single thing about music and theory??

i asked because to me it seems that there are some musicians and bands that are so good that they get boring or they just cant be together

like return to forever....they have GREAT songs and were a really good band. but it seemed like they were too good individually to work together. you know, sorta like having 5 leaders trying to run a city!

and MAB.....he knows a whole lot of theory, but i think his brain will fry one day from not having any new ideas.....because everything he does sounds the same to me now

there was also this guy that my father told me about that knew so much about music that he went insane

and this bass player...i think it was jaco pastorius? he got stabbed for going up on stage with this band and embarrassing them with his skills...i think thats how that story goes

there are more examples but tats all i cant remember right now....

I like to think there is a difference between a a great instrumentalist and a great musician. One can be a master at their instrument and blow the world away with their 64th note sweeps (lol), but are they truly a great musician (as in musical, pleasant to listen to, creative, likable, etc...)? I've worked with people who were good instrumentalists, but lack musicality.

Thats just my two cents.

yea i wanted to say that too....there are great guitarist lead wise who cant play with a band for sh1t

I don't think it can be bad to know more and more and more about music theory. I don't think this causes a lack of creativity either, I think that is virtually impossible. How can you sound the same if you know more than anyone else about the music theory? Just do something different, and you would obviously have the knowledge to go ahead and do something different.

but what im trying to say is that say you start off with an idea...a simple riff/lick. you know so much about theory that it opens up multiple paths of which way to take the song...so many that you dont know which way to go. some songs ive heard from a billion guitarist that know so much theory and know about progressions and things like that are just the same...they change tempo/key and everything else like 80 times and then go back to the general idea at the end...IF they even do that. and these are from different genres too.

i didnt say it creates a lack of creativity. im saying that it gets you stuck in a rut(lol....rut)

its like when youre given a lot of choices of a candy but you can only have one....you will most likely say or think "i dont know which one to choose"....same thing as the music..you will sit there for hours/days thinking of what to do next simply because there are so many choices

If I get "stuck in a rut" I'm usually making something more complicated than it needs to be. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes I think it takes a true musician to figure that out. Theory and technicality can sometimes take away from a song. Thats just my opinion.

exactly....when people know theory they follow a rule book and try to correct whatever is theoretically incorrect

Wow. Is this a bad mouth theory thread.

lol

I support music theory an it possible to have something simple, yet theory rich. When I write songs, I'm very strict about theory, but thats just me. I don't know if I'm disagreeing with myself or not. I think I just counteracted what I said on the previous post :)

I think there are too many people who try to link the lack of creativity in music to knowing "too much" about it.

DISAGREE. I probably know more theory than you would give me credit for, yet I still write using chromatics if I need to. Sure, I "correct" something to see if it will sound closer to what I want but that doesn't mean I only follow rules and don't think for myself.
Many people know theory, and many people still write great music regardless of whether or not they know much theory or not.

I just edited my post up above ^^x2^^

Saying knowing music theory stops you being as creative as a musician is like saying knowing more words makes you a worse writer.

It helps but in the end it's up to you to use it right, you have to learn the rules before you can break them.

Those who dont know enough about theory make assumtions about it. NO offence to anyone please.

I'm in a rush so I'll make it short.

these arguments are always slightly silly as people get confused about what music theory really is. All it helps you do is expand upon your idea(s). But you need to have an idea or really you need to have something to say. So if your getting stuck on what to do next music theory isn't going to help you. You have to have something to say.

let's keep the writer medafor (whatever speeeling). You can learn all the fancy words, study the romantics for elegant word play, but in the end if you can't tell the story of a man who stood in front of a firing line just seconds before the king called it off. your a bad writer even if you know the whole dictionary by heart and can amazingly write up a story about a man waking a dog (ultimately who cares) .


They being said music is a performance art. Their are composers and performers, it is good to be aware of the distinction. The idea of everyone writing their own songs is really killing us.

also, most of these shredders don't know crap about music theory. If you think it about rote learning a bunch of scales and looking all fancy your surely mistaken