17 Reason Why All Musicians MUST Learn Music Theory

Music Theory. Maybe if it wasn’t called music theory and if teachers approached it as an exciting scientific adventure then students would be more enthusiastic about its study.

I feel that we have a very narrow approach to music education as a whole. It’s like we segment it into different unrelated topic areas and just expect students to connect the dots.  Instead of integrating the broader areas of performance, composition, theory, aural training, history and philosophy into one holistic approach we study each in isolation. Performance and composition become the ‘fun’ subjects while theory, aural and history seem irrelevant and boring instead of interrelated, dynamic and exciting.

Unfortunately, this predicament is largely due to time, money and resources. Instrumental and music teachers are simply doing the best they can with what they’ve been given. Hopefully, this list will help you join some of the dots together and give some reasons and the motivation to pursue the study of music theory.

Music theory should be so much more than a collection of rules that must be memorised and adhered too. Theory (taught properly) doesn’t restrict creativity but gives people a system for naming and describing how music works. This allows us to make sense of the music and to understand the why; why certain thing work and why we like these pieces and not those pieces.

So, without further ado here is:

17 reasons why all musicians must learn music theory

1. To understand how music works.
2. Enables you to critically listen to music.
3. Allows you to talk/write intelligently about music.
4. Enables you to perform music accurately because it gives you greater insight into the composer intention and you know the stylistic nuances of the work.
5. Equips you to composer music within a certain style.
6. Allows you to detect errors in the score.
7. Improves your sight-reading.
8. Imparts an understanding of styles and genres found within classical music.
9. Helps to expose you to a greater range of music.
10. Allows you to develop a greater appreciation of music.
11. Forces you to become acquainted with many of the masterworks found in the classical canon.
12. Develops critical reasoning skills, as you need to make choices and then musically justify your decision.
13. Without a working knowledge of music theory improvising is very challenging.
14. It can help get you out of a creative block when you’re composing a piece.
15. Makes jamming with other musicians painless and easy because you both speak the same language. Particularly in relation to keys, chords and roman numerals.
16. Can save time in composing because you already have a sense of what will and won’t work and the aural effect it will produce.
17. Can allow you to first identify and most importantly break out of composition ruts and self-imposed boxes.

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