LogFAQs > #946464391

music theory is mostly useful so you can say

"when the maj7 chord modulates up a half step"

instead of saying

"when the one note and the one note 4 notes above the first note and the one note 3 notes above that one, and the one note 4 notes above that one are all being played at the same time and then all four of those notes get played a second time but are moved up by the note one note above them on the keyboard"

to mean the exact same thing.

its shortcuts based on observed patterns to make music easier to talk about. but knowing the language of music theory doesn't actually mean any tastes or preferences you have are any better/worse. or even that you understand the music any more/less. it just means you can put a name to common (or uncommon) patterns and traits that show up in music; whether or not those traits are things you like

and you can observe those exact same patterns without knowing the names for them, and certainly even if you never think about things beyond vague things like atmosphere/emotion or whatever, you are still impacted by those patterns and have preferences that can be described through theory. you just may happen to describe your interest in a different way. but it doesn't mean you even understand music less, it just means you either don't know the shortcut names for the patterns that interest you, or that your focus is in areas less detail-centric.

i'm basically painfully detail-centric in any interest i have; and music luckily has a language that can make it more convenient to talk about tiny details in it. so i know it adequately in-depth. and i usually assume that if someone's reading what i'm saying and they don't know what i'm talking about they can just look up words or concepts if they want to.

but when i'm talking about things i like in games? there's all sorts of things i like that could probably be described more conveniently but i don't have an existing language with shortcuts to do so. i'll make wacky flowcharts of game structure or whatever to describe what i enjoy on that front, but certain concepts could be described in single words that don't exist (at least not that i'm aware of). and what i will express in THOSE settings is /more convoluted/ than anything i'm able to more concisely express thorough 'music theory words'

i suppose 'being really detail-centric' is actually part of why i'm attracted to this community actually, even if i consider myself out of place here in many ways. excessive stats analysis and discussion of the tiniest trivial details of /everything/ being such a norm in every project it makes me so happy~!
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