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Comment by LeSaucy | Hacker News Reader

Most method books will touch on a wide variety of genres, usually to illustrate specific topics in music theory. If you can’t reason about intervals/scales, key, and chord progressions, “learning” genres like jazz will be like trying to learn differential calculus before linear algebra.

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This is the same kind of logic that leads to whiteboard algorithm questions. Music theory and musicianship are not the same thing. There are many many great musicians who only enough to make the sounds they want to make. Sure they might be better if they took the time to learn, but not necessarily.

> Music theory and musicianship are not the same thing.

No, but it helps a lot to know a language that helps you write down and learn musical concepts.

> There are many many great musicians who only enough to make the sounds they want to make.

Are there great musicians who don't know what a scale, a chord progression or a key is?

While I agree with your overall point, and these people are definitely the exception to the rule, yes actually.

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, Flea from Red Hot Chili Pepers, Omar-Rodriguez Lopez of The Mars Volta / At The Drive-In / Antemasque

https://twitter.com/davemustaine/status/942528968779096065?l...

https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/flea-returns-to-scho...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080601005441/http://www.signon...

I’m curious if you are a musician? This description of music theory (whiteboard algorithms) feels really off to me (feel free to look at my sibling comments as to why).

If it’s your experience as a musician I would like to understand why.

Calculus in practice involves a lot of symbol manipulation, so it's important to understand the symbols. Jazz in practice involves a lot of playing an instrument, so it's important to understand…

Fill in the blank. I don't know about you, but I don't fill it in with “music theory”.

... how to use music theory to develop efficient practice routines for your instrument(s), goals, and current abilities.

— jazz musician of 25 years

(this calculus metaphor is pretty far off - music theory in practice, by a working jazz musician, doesn’t involve “manipulation of symbols”, at least not in the same way as one works mathematical problems and proofs. it involves a lot of time on your instrument, applying theory in practical and experiental ways. oftentimes we will write out a lead sheet, or transpose something, and use theory to do that. and so there’s some calculations happening. it becomes second nature with practice).

It's more akin to reading and writing than to calculus.

> Fill in the blank. I don't know about you, but I don't fill it in with “music theory”.

That's because you aren't a jazz musician. Jazz features lots of complex harmonies, and theory is a big part of writing and playing it. Certain subgenres are virtually impossible to perform without a solid theory foundation. You think you can just solo over Giant Steps by feel?

Not sure about this analogy, since linear algebra is largely orthogonal to single-variable calculus. Agreed on the musical part though.

Replace liner algebra with basic algebra and the analogy holds.

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