For the last 2 years of my life I've had a bad case of insomnia and to help make time go by late at night I'd either listen to music, or write riffs. Many times before though I've tried to string together riffs in Guitar Pro and I can never figure out how to make convincing transitions. Nor can I seem to figure out how to get a lead riff to sound good over a background/rhythm riff. I'm convinced though that I have good ideas, I just don't know how to present them properly.

I really blows my mind though when I listen to bands like Paysage D'Hiver, Burzum, Wyrd, etc. and see how much amazing music they can pull off with simple strings, power chords, etc.

I'm going into college next year and I'm sure I could take some music-related classes. Possibly music theory. Is it worth it to get musical training?

Good songs for me have always come from one session of sitting playing some riffs writing them down and having part of the arrangement for the whole song done.

Music theory is worth having knowledge about when writing songs, but you don't need to have oodles of knowledge, though it does help.

I think learning music theory will help you in making good transitions and write a good sounding rhythm riff for lead parts.
however you still need the talent...especially for the transitions,which is the hardest part for me.

I find the trial and error process is best. I have abit(minimal) of experiance with music theory, but I still prfer the trial/error.

I know quite a bit of theory and I find that my songwriting was really lacking until I learned to not base everything on theory and mainly use it as a tool for cohesion.

I find it's really easy to come up with individual riff ideas and putting them all together is the hard part. For me, the times when I have the inspiration put a whole track's worth of ideas together don't happen too often and it usually happens at an inconvenient time when there are other things I should be doing. I'm not sure if it's the same for anyone else but I have to be really focussed for long periods on writing to get anything together. When I was younger I didn't really think of anything else but music. I think what I come up with now is much better but I'm busy with other things and the volume of ideas is far lower. Also there will probably be times when you'll not be able to come up with anything at all for quite long periods. It's really frustrating but it passes.

On the question about theory, it will help you if you're already good. It will help you understand why things work. Use the knowledge as a tool, not as a set of rules. People who do this almost always write terrible music!

as the last poster said, learning music theory isn't necessary for some people, take most black metal bands for instance. sometimes bands just find a style and it works for them, and they're able to put songs together like it's nothing. however if you can't do that, learning some basic theory should help you. if you know basic scales, then putting a song together should be easy, because you'll know if the notes you're using go together or not. i couldn't write good songs until i learned a couple scales. once i learned the dorian scale i put together my first song easily

What makes you think most black metal bands don't know any theory? I'd wager that most know a decent amount and a few know a lot.

You know you're talking out of your ass, right? What is "most black metal bands" to you?

You don't have to be amazing to write good music. Take Hellhammer for example. At that time, they weren't the best at playing their instruments. Though, they took what they did know and just morphed it into something primitive, and bam, they influence a shit-ton of bands.

It depends on what sort of music you want to play, really. Raw, primitive black metal? Well, learning theory might help but it's not a priority. Neoclassical progressive power metal? Yeah, you'll want to learn your theory.

I think that one should know at least the minimum of musical theory to be able to make listenable music, regardless of the music genre.
Of course, the talent is an advantage but no necessarily the condition for making music. Less or no talent means more toil.

You know you're talking out of your ass, right? What is "most black metal bands" to you?[/quote]


i'm not talking out of my ass at all, and i hate when people say that. you're responding as if it was an insult or something. i love black metal, and i meant literally MOST black metal bands. black metal has nothing to do with theory, by nature it's atonal, of course that probably doesn't hold true for progressive or symphony black metal bands. when i think of black metal i generally think of old school black metal bands and the norweigan scene, which is mostly what i listen to from that genre. i was making a very general statement, but it holds for many metal bands, steve harris for example doesn't know theory at all, he just goes by what sounds good. since he started playing bass he's never learned a single scale.

You'll be surprised how formulaic a lot of black metal is when you actually know theory. Even Darkthrone's early records followed a specific songwriting structure. I am sorry, but you are wrong. Using Steve Harris as an example is quite ridiculous. Steve Harris doesn't know "official" theory, but after playing for so many years he naturally has picked things up without realizing it. You can tell by hearing him play. That doesn't even matter anyway, because it does not make your statement about black metal bands valid to begin with.

You can use theory to compose atonal music, and as far as I'm aware, most BM isn't atonal anyway.

I think there's a lot of truth to this. I cannot stress how much learning theory has helped my music. While a lot of guitarists don't know theory, I think the trouble t1337Dude is having would be assisted greatly by learning theory. Once you understand scales and chords, you'll have a wonderful template from which you can construct cohesive, well structured music.

Of course, once you have basic theory down you can start playing with chords and progressions that may not fit a particular key. But you'll know it sounds good, which is all that matters.

Most metal is more or less in the minor or diminished scale, so focus on learning them. The only metal that is in a major key, I think tends to be power metal or melodic/progressive styles, or some of the traditional stuff.