Does Classical Training Inhibit Creativity?

WetDaddy

I've been talking to a few friends who have what they'd consider classical training. As a self-taught musician, it puzzles me to find out that they find it very difficult to break away from what they've been taught.

This means that when composing or even learning a piece that doesn't quite abide by classical rules (I could be getting out of my depth here!), it can be tough for them. E.g. Being taught for years not to go near 9th chords "because they're jazz chords"...

So, I was just wondering what everyone here thinks? Are there any classically trained musicians that have similar problems? Likewise, what about those of you who are self-taught?

I know personally that I would love to have been taught correct technique and theory, but then again I do like how I've developed my own (and this sounds a bit muso-ish and self-righteous, but I can't think of any other way of saying it) 'style'... I don't know if I'd have done that had I had years of training or not...

Thoughts?

the fnj

The idea some people have, that they have evolved a special technique and that to learn properly would somehow dilute this ability was formed deep within a bull’s rectum.

If you want to be creative and break the rules you have to learn them first.

How could knowledge of your instrument possibly hurt you, I’m self-taught but I’m always looking to learn new styles of play. I do think I am developing my own style of play but I don’t think it will be affected if I know a few jazz numbers or if I have some classical guitar in my arsenal. These things can only help me improve and become more creative.

Your friend probably suffers from a lack of creativity and blames being taught properly, some people just aren’t very creative.

WetDaddy

I agree with you on the point that people of the preconceived farcical notion of "sticking it to the man" (the man in this context being musical convention / education) in actuality only inhibit themselves.

However, the question I was raising wasn't whether people were complaining about teaching methods or concepts (my friend in particular wasn't moaning!) but rather do you guys think that these two succinctly different backgrounds of music (classical vs. self-taught) affect how the person composes?

Personally, I feel that what I listen to and what I like has the biggest influence on how I write.

You're right about the whole "adding to your arsenel" thing: As long as you don't let it take you over, it can only improve your playing!

Black Amnesia

I would say it does inhibit creativity..

I have loads of friends classically trained, it pains me to see how stuck to there rules they all are.. I suppose they do have an easier time composing within their more than likely learnt rules, I've taught myself a great deal of what they learnt, but I've had the added advantage of being able to disregard anything I didn't like so I use my own rules..

Its like being taught an instrument or learning yourself - I notice a pretty nasty trend of people who've been taught playing so similarly to the person who taught them, its inevitable.. One of my friends recently qulaified as a piano teacher can't play anything without sheet music in front of them, its such a waste unless you're planning to join an orchestra.. I do plan to get some advanced lessons on my instruments now that I'm confident in the way I play just to tighten up though..

Bungalow Bill

I think that it altogether is based on how creative you are as a person. Matt Bellamy is a perfect example of someone who was classically trained and has adapted it to form his own style. I think that if being trained means that you can understand your instrument better or sing with a greater range then it can only benefit and enhance your creative limits. Great topic btw.

M@lice

What do you reckon about classically trained musicians being stuck to sheet music. Put a chord sequence infront of them and ask em to adlib a bit and most of em are lost as far as i can see.

But i do think that knowledge is power. The more musical styles/theories you know the better.

WetDaddy

I've heard similar before, about classically trained musicians saying they can't really improvise.

The thing is though, that I don't think that's because they're classically trained. I think it's because a large majority of them don't compose. There's a lot of non-classically(!) trained / self-taught musicians about (especially in Ireland) who compose things, play the likes of lead guitar (which is an accompaniment), etc.

A classically trained pianist, for example, won't be used to improvising or ad libbing along to something. Very often, they play instruments because they started at school, or their parents sent them when they were young. They didn't, say, take up the guitar in order to learn to play Oasis (groan...) tunes, but instead have always been told what to play and that pieces of paper will tell them exactly what to do.

That's not to say they couldn't do it if they experimented. The fact is that they'd probably be MUCH better than the rest of us lay-musicians...

shabbyroad

"trained" is such a wide ranging description.

- does it mean technically trained to play the instrument ? knowing the techniques, understanding the capabilities of the instrument; learning how to setup, tune, care for your instrument

- does it mean learning how to improvise ? understanding the structures available to you and the underlying theory ? knowing what you could do if you wanted to ?

- does it mean learning a particular style of music ? "classical" is too broad : do you specialize in baroque ? or are you a debussy fan ? do you want to (need to ?) improvise in that style ?

- does it mean learning the skills of a writer/composer/arranger (there's 3 very different skills).

My experience has been that since I stopped formal piano training my technique has gone to sh1te... I heard a recording I did back in 1988 on a decent grand piano for a now defunct band in Dublin.... it was pretty good and I'm not sure I could do the same now.

Lessons and training will only give you clues and suggestions, skills and techniques, ideas and starting points. After that it's up to you. How you choose to use all of this is up to you.

I've done lessons in traditional playing (fiddle, whistle), brass (sax), piano and guitar. What I've got now is a palette that gives me a lot of satisfaction. (can't say the listeners agree !! haha).
Although I did a degree in music I have learned more about arranging through studio recording : but that's probably because I didn't have access to a piano until I was 19.

jaysis I've started rambling again. time for my medication

Executive Steve

well squarepusher has said that had he ever been involved academically with music he would have lost all interest in it... then again, he is as much a prisoner to to his peculiar brand of joyless hollow stylistic comments on underground music genres as your average classical composer is a slave to postwar modernity... its whatever floats your boat to be honest... theres as much orthodoxy in the freeform avant garde noise movement as there is within opera these days.... people at the Darmstadt Summer Course will boo and jeer if they detect even the hint of a regular rhythm or a major chord... the original innovators of techno in detroit in the mid to late eighties had the fortune to be misappropriating machinery for purposes it wasnt designed for to create a new form of urban music predicated on the soul of the machine... the original hip hop dj's were doing something utterly creative and avant garde with just turntables records and a microphone, the hardcore and early jungle pioneers of early nineties london redefined the concept of rhythm [sampler versus drummer in a symbiotic clash of cultures].... none of them had much in the way of training, all; the seminal breakbeat hardcore tunes sound shockingly shoddily produced to todays listener and yet thre was more creative inventiveness in a minute of one of those tunes then in any of the hundreds of dance vinyl tunes that get released now its a multi million euro industry that you can go and do a college course to learn.... academia will only get you so far... compare the tunes forum on www.cubase.net with the unsigned producers page on www.dogsonacid.com and you will see that production/musical values dont always equal creative exuberance.

i cant really speak for the dead tree end of music, but thats the view from this side of the fence.... i would imagine that its the musician who has the intelligence to recognise the shortcomings of theory [and the humility to understand the importance of the backbone and context which it can provide] who in the end is the luckiest... those who recognise that you CAN be creative within limits. i'm not much of a techno fan but it seems to me that there is a purity in its insistence of imposing limitations of technique in the pursuit of a result.... hell... what is poetry but the acceptance of constraints of metre scansion rhyme etc on ones linguistic expression???

WetDaddy

Very eloquently put, [cm]tyranny...

Now, I don't know very much about techno music (I know what it sounds like, and I know I'm not too fond of it), but while I can appreciate the originators' innovation I find it hard to admire subsequent artists' contribution.

There doesn't seem to be anything new stemming from the genre. The creators of a new genre of music such as jungle, techno, etc. really gave something interesting to the music world. But after a long time of people giving that SAME thing over and over, it gets a bit boring.

Anyway, that's just how I feel about some of the more repetitive artists / genres out there.

The same goes for, say, rock music. I've just finished up a few months rehearsals in the Temple Bar Music Centre. When taking a break and wandering around past the rooms, very often I'd hear the SAME music happening in each room. For example, Mick Jagger-esque singing appears to be "in" now.

Why not do something different? That's what we're attempting to do...

Wow, I really strayed from the point there and nearly got a plug in for the band... Guess it's just a Monday morning rant!

Executive Steve

articulate! oooh! cheers!

yes... i can certainly see what youre saying up to a point, but then again dance music is generally "designed" music... ok, to get really nerdy about it, my definition of "craft" [as opposed to "ART"] is that it has form AND function, and it marries the two in an aesthetically pleasing manner. a good, well produced piece of techno is in no way the informational equivalent of, say, a piece of jazz. it is first and foremost designed as a blueprint for a dj to manipulate it [through dexterity and use of a dj mixer with its combinations of eq knobs and crossfader etc] with the intention of facilitating a social context [eg: the people dance and enjoy themselves]. these two factors [the musics function and the limits imposed on its form by the neccesity for it to be "manipulable"] are the reason that genres within dance music have developed and polarised over the years. to an outside observer the difference and progression from one year to the next may well be arcane and imperceptible, but that doesnt mean theyre not actually there.... it is a fact that a live techno or jungle or house act will differ dramatically from the focused sustained vibe of dj-led music in terms of the performance dynamic, but it is also a fact that it is the producer of the records that the dj's play who has the chance to create new genres within genres and crosspolinate and seek out new areas... if you think about it... in 1989 if you were at a rave you were dancing to house music, thats all there really was, bar a few older more modern sounding disco records and the acid jazz tunes that the likes of soul ii soul were pushing etc.... nowadays, fifteen years later, there are so many different subgenres and styles and streams and aesthetics that are popping up every week [not to mention the huge electronica-as-art-music movement that resides in a separate context altogether from the form and function aesthetic of your basic dj-led "dance" music] that to complain of any dearth of creativity or a lack in boundaries being pushed is.... not preposterous exactly, but perhaps imperceptive.
additionally you must bear in mind that the development of dance music goes hand in hand with technology, its very rare to buy a record that was made using the same equipment software etc as a four year old record.... [whereas the white stripes boast about not touching equipment that was made post 1963!]

the point is that interesting music is being made on a weekly basis, only a tiny tiny percentage ever made it onto cd for sale to the genarl non djiing public and only a tiny percentage of it ever will, and i think the only way to be able to comment fairly on progression or variety within dance music is to immerse yourself fully within it... the people doing the really interesting stuff in drum and bass have a global market of 6000 - 10000 12" vinyls if a record is a really big success [i cant comment on sales figures for house (be it micro, glitch, progressive, hard, deep, funky or disco) techno (and its many impenetrable subgenres, dub minimal, compressor, swedish, european, detroit, german, acid or hard) breaks electro breakcore uk garage ghetto tech kwaito gabber dancehall soca or trance, although i have heard anecdotal evidence from reliable sources that the de-centralised and more populated markets of many of those genres mean that proportionally there may not always be that much of a difference] so its very very hard to really understand and penetrate with any accuracy whats actually going on. thats the whole point of a dj, youre hoping that a dj will have invested enough time and effort in aquiring a selection of records that is broad enough and mature enough and personal enough to facilitate a social gathering. it is a very very long way away from the concept of performance in the context of a band on stage with instruments.

the limiting factors faced by a rock band in creating and conserving music on the other hand are very different. a rock band is limited by their personal taste, by their musicianship and by the interpersnal relationships of the band members. it doesnt take a genius to suggest that precisely the "streamlining" of media to the extent where a very very few bands are paid millions to produce a relatively tiny body of recorded work that reduces the potential influence pool of a young musician in a band... if youve only evr heard oasis and coldplay, youre not going to sound like captain beefheart in other words.

in terms of "repetitiveness" it could be argued that the concert going rock fan is exposed to far less music quantitatively than the average attendee of a club who is hearing a large amount of different pieces of music shaped like tools into a mix....

big up yourself for trying something different though! where are you coming from musically?

Doctor J

Regardless of whether you know theory or not, it is down to the individual whether they choose to apply these rules. Knowing them is irrelevant. In the same way a person may know the rules of the road yet still drive like a twat. Knowledge is power, the individual decides how they apply whatever knowledge they have. To say classically trained people can't improvise is, IMO, a blinkered statement. The onus is not on the 3rd violinist to compose a symphony. Generally orchestras do not compose their own material in the same way a rock band would. Hence, someone who's ambition is to play in an orchestra is likely to dedicate themselves to learning to sight-read more than improvise.

An Italian friend of mine is a concert flautist (sp?) and she doesn't really understand improvising as a concept, yet she is an excellent musician. It's not in her agenda to learn how to improvise, just as it's not in my agenda to learn to sight-read notation. I don't think classical training has stifled her creativity, I don't think creativity was an issue to start off with.

I've played in jazz, rock, metal, blues, pop and folk bands and I would put metal just behind jazz in terms of it's lack of boundaries and the rest way behind. The band I am playing in at the moment, we are trying to find our own sound, though not in a contrived way, with the tried and trusted guitar, bass, drums and singer set up. We have different influences and musical ideas and it's the combination of these which makes the band sound like we do. There is no dominating member or influence. I know some theory and scales, etc, and I sometimes explain how one riff works with another or what scale would work well with a particular sequence, but we don't stick to formulas or rules. We also don't stick to 4/4. Granted, most of the stuff is 4/4 but we aren't scared or inhibited to try something a little different, just whatever sounds good. I don't think we'd sound the way we do if there wasn't a little understanding of theory behind it all.