Metal Reviews

I saw in a Dillinger Escape Plan interview Ben Weinman paraphrased dude from Helmet as saying "Learn as much as you can about theory, but when you want to write a song, forget it." Do you guys agree? I tried to write some riffs this way but it's so hard to just dive in and do stuff.

Theory is an excellent tool. Definately learn all you can, it'll open up so much more.

And I'm not even so sure you should forget it when writing a song. Don't be tied down to it, sure, but plenty of theoretical stuff can be put to use, like secondary dominants, and chord extensions, and all of that.

Charlie Parker

Yeah.... I believe very strongly that in music you have to know the rules, and then you have to break them. But both parts of that is important

You have to know the rules before you can break them. Hell, J.S. Bach basically wrote the rules, but he broke them when he needed to.

Down tie yourself down to it. Sometimes when you break the rules, something brilliant is born

Definitely true. Theory is just too rigid, it stifles creativity. Imagine if every writer out there followed the rules of grammar all the time. Booooooring.

If you don't know the rules, you can't break them in interesting ways.

That's not neccesarily true, though. The way I see it, music theory works better as guidelines to help you write music more effectively than strict rules that must be followed at all costs. Knowing a thing or two about theory certainly wouldn't hurt.

Like your grammar analogy, theory helps you develop musical "sentences," if you will, and helps you construct them in ways that communicate your ideas better. And to continue the analogy, if you're fluent in the language, you don't even think about the rules of grammar as you speak, or write, or whatever. It just comes out.

btw, this sort of "music as a universal language" thing really interests me, but that's for another day.

Yeah, the writers that fuck with the laws of grammar in the most interesting ways are probably those that knew them in the first place.

Obviously depends on the type of music you want to play, though. This applies to more technical stuff but if you want to do some punk tunes who cares if you don't know the first thing about theory.

Didn't I say all that in less words?

I was kinda focused on



which is something I disagree with.

I know no theory and I can barely play guitar but I still manage to write stuff haha. The quality however is dubious.

Ah. That comment was more or less based on a what-if. What if someone just stuck to the "rules," you know. Did nothing outside the box.

Same here. I just write based on whatever I know (which is very minimal) and listen back to see if it sounds fine. If a part sounds odd, I'll just work on it till I'm pleased with it. And I find it a fun process to go through, trial and error. Imagine knowing all the theory in the world, and when you write something, everything comes out fluently and effortlessly. Where's the fun in that?

I imagine it'd be a lot easier to achieve whatever mood or effect you're going for, so that you could more effectively write what you feel. I'm by absolutely no means to the point where I can do so, but knowing what bit of theory I do know has helped me quite a lot.

Also, educated musicians give much more interesting lessons. Compare this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8jomTpGZ5o

To this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTQolymKmDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCdZwASSKuk

But nothing beats this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDnJ_AnVxZE


Notable quotes: 'OMG they think Abbath is the greatest guitar player in the world'

'I don't know how he does it, weeearrrgg (imitating Dime's pinch harmonics)'.

Fuckin hilarious.

Abbath is awesome. It's weird hearing him speak normally, and he still makes silly faces without the makeup.

"AAAH FUCK IT--- ARRRG, Y'KNOW, VENOM, FUCK IT"

And he's got that whole expression thing going on, like he's experiencing orgasm or something. He's a naturally funny guy. Very down to earth about his lack of skills IMO. "That's the only lead I can play, but people say 'Whoah Abbath the best'". Haha!