Formal higher degree music education

[BCsab]

Hi All,

As this is my first post on the Reasontalk I'd like to connect it with a little introduction of myself. So I'm 37 years old man living in Hungary working as quality engineer. I picked up the Reason nearly a year ago as a hobby and I still learning it along with the music making. I've learned 4 years on classical guitar.

And this part where my question came in. What do you think how important a formal higher music education in music making? Is there a barrier which will be hit sooner or later without it? ( unless your are a one in a million natural talent).
How many of you are formally trained musicians?

[Jackjackdaw]

I know a load of very talented trained musicians who cant write music for sh*t. And there are loads of hit makers who don't know anything about theory.

If writing music is your intention you need to tap into the emotional side of music. You have to use whatever musical knowledge you have and express something with it. A three chord punk song or an orchestral opus. You won't be able to write the opus if all you know is three power chords but equally you may be able to play someone else's opus and not composer your own.

In short, music theory and classical training will make it easier to understand the music you make and will open doors in the creative process but you have to dig inside your soul to write music that will touch people and you can do that with a 2 string guitar banging on a coffee can if that's all you've got.

[Reasonable man]

Hi All,

As this is my first post on the Reasontalk I'd like to connect it with a little introduction of myself. So I'm 37 years old man living in Hungary working as quality engineer. I picked up the Reason nearly a year ago as a hobby and I still learning it along with the music making. I've learned 4 years on classical guitar.

And this part where my question came in. What do you think how important a formal higher music education in music making? Is there a barrier which will be hit sooner or later without it? ( unless your are a one in a million natural talent).
How many of you are formally trained musicians?

I thnk if your a quality enigineer then you'd be used to... and familiar with organisation. There's a DIY element to organising the reason rack so that will help you intially more than a degree in music.
Drum programming , synthesis, insert/send effects. mixing, layering frequencies etc etc...a music degree wont help you with any of these things initially but maybe if film score is your insterest and working with natural intruments/samples is your aim rather than electronica then music knowlege is arguably more important . You havn't stated your exatct aim so its difficult to critique.
I guess the short answer is that your music knowledge can't possibly harm you in any way!

[guitfnky]

I'm essentially self-taught, and have put very little focus on theory, and it hasn't hindered my ability to create interesting music whatsoever. in some cases, it can be a GOOD thing to not be writing with some arbitrary set of 'rules' nagging at the back of your brain all the time. I've managed to come up with some really cool-sounding stuff because I rely on my ears and not my 'knowledge'.

that's mainly because you rarely can 'know' something will sound good or bad until you hear it. even dissonance can sound great in the right context. music theory is a great tool for communicating with other musicians and for analysis, but not at all necessary for the creative side, if you're mainly working alone (or have patient collaborators).

but, of course it's different for everybody. some people work better with few/no constraints (like me), and others work better with some guidelines to offer a framework. neither approach is better than the other--they're just opposite ends of a scale with a whole lot of gray in the middle, and you get to figure out what shade is best for you.

[Djeroek]

Autodidact mostly, but have done the conservatorium thing at a later age. Definitely not needed, but has brought different insights and is great if you are into networking, jamming and woman .

[willy_dinglefinger]

[...]What do you think how important a formal higher music education in music making?[...]

I studied music and music technology for like 6 years or something, got the diploma and degree etc. Really really enjoyed it, learned so much new stuff and was introduced to all sorts of things that I would otherwise never have considered (noise and musique concrete being two which are still very important to me today).

Having said that, I really don't think formal education is that important in music today. In all honesty, I only studied it at Uni because 1) I was a rough lad who drank every day and thought my band was gonna take off any day now so didn't want to get a full-time job, and 2) at that time, the music industry hadn't fully turned itself inside out so studying music / sound and then finding work at the bottom of the food chain in some studio or radio station etc was actually still fairly feasible (all changed as I graduated though...!).

Anyway. Aye I'm of the view that formal music education isn't that important these days. I would suggest, however, that having an open mind and making time to research / practice / study theory / just listen to new stuff is important. For popular music anyway, there's really no longer any need to sit in seminars for hours studying Bach Chorales and inputting inverted triads into Sibelius.

[gullum]

absolutely not needed but can be useful when making music. But it is 100% more important to make something that sounds good rather than something that theoretically should sound good.

Ow and I am 100% self taught

[visheshl]

well, the thing is you need to know the basics at least...there are people who jump into it withou even knowing what a scale or a chord is...in that case they should get some basic knowledge about music.
however, since you've learnt classical guitar for four years, i assume you would already be familiar with all the basics needed to make at least music which follows some structure and not entirely based on trial and error without even the basics like staying in the key(or breaking out knowingly).

higher education like someone else said depends entirely on your goals.
if you want to make music which relies heavily on theory the yes it would be important.
but if you're trying to do club music or electronic music...then its not that important however additional knowledge would definitely come in handy, it could make your music stand out as you would be able to use better chord structures or experiment with various scales, ragas etc...its not a requirement though.

[visheshl]

that said there are thousands of hit songs using the same GDC chords...so...does it really matter ? i dont really know...

[jam-s]

With the lot of free learning resources online you can easily learn the basics all by yourself. In the end the results count and not if you've got a fancy paper that certifies that you set/got through some courses and exams.

[BCsab]

Thank you guys for your thoughts. I was a little bit afraid that it would would be a big mistake not to have some such kind of education. And may it would be, but on the level i am now is very far form that and won't be a problem for a long time.
But what i hope to come with such education beside the theory is a genernal hearing, or mindset. I mean i have a mechanical engineering degree but even if i don't remember all the math, material science, and so on it gave me good basis how to think in term of engineering, and gave me perspective that i would not have without it. Is there such thing in music education?
Maybe i am very impatient and i should not think about the end of the road before i even started, just enjoy the ride and see how far it goes.