⟨aaronfreed.github.io/aboutme.html⟩
I’m writing this primarily to debunk the most common objection I hear to studying music theory: “If I learn the rules, I’ll be less creative.”
The problems with this are myriad. Let’s start simple: the first rule of music theory is that music theory has no rules. Music is anarchy: you’re free to do what you like, so long as it hurts only those that want to be hurt. Music theory at most provides suggestions. But learning those suggestions will give you powerful insights into why they were codified in the first place, when it’s most effective to contradict them, and how doing so will best elicit a desired emotional response.
The zeroth law of music theory is that speaking of ‘music theory’ as an invariable monolith fundamentally misconstrues what music is. In truth, the term music theory, singular, is intrinsically misleading; it’s more accurate to speak of music theories, plural. Johann Sebastian Bach, Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis, Brian Eno, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Marvin Gaye, Ravi Shankar, Fela Kuti, Tito Puente, and Taylor Swift each wrote or write in idioms (often multiple idioms) with often vastly different theories behind them. Practice may vary tremendously even within a single idiom: Ennio Morricone, Vangelis, Philip Glass, and John Williams all wrote or write film scores, and each has stylistic hallmarks that unmistakably differentiate him from the other three.
Thus, to the extent that Bach, Swift, or Williams followed suggestions, each followed different suggestions. But they weren’t obligated to make the compositional choices they made: they simply did what they felt best expressed the emotions they wished to express, and to the extent that any formalized music theory has emerged around those choices, it has done so to encapsulate those choices into a shorthand others can understand.
In plainer words, practice doesn’t serve theory: theory follows practice. To the extent that any music theory has rules, they’re descriptive rather than prescriptive: that is, they don’t define what people should do in theory, they describe what people actually do in practice. The entire name music theory is, in this sense, fundamentally misleading, but unfortunately, in the context of music, practice is already defined as “how to get to Carnegie Hall”. (It’s especially unfortunate since its other, more helpful definition, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, is mistakenly conflated with insanity in popular culture, but that’s another story.)
But to the extent that we can even consider any music theory to have rules, they only apply to that theory. V-IV-I progressions are heavily discouraged in classical music – and cap off the most common chord progression in blues music, twelve-bar blues. Which one is correct? Whichever applies to the genre you’re writing in, to the extent that you’re trying to write conventionally for it.
And nothing says you even have to write conventionally. Maybe you want to mimic Bach, then use a twelve-bar blues progression to elicit a specific emotional reaction from your audience. Anyone who says you’re not allowed to do that fundamentally misunderstands your goal, to which the ideal sort of response is: “I’m not allowed? I’m sorry, who appointed you Music Pope while I was busy composing? Because I’d never vote for anyone with such a narrow conception of creativity.” Then drop the mic and walk away.