Do Music Producers Need to Learn Music Theory?

Musicians’ and Music Producers’ minds are beautiful and mind-boggling at the same time. There is always a debate among music producers that you need not learn music theory as a music producer. This is true to some extent but sad for the most part.

In this article, I am sharing my take on do music producers need to learn music theory or not.

Do Music Producers Need To Learn Music Theory

One can surely become a music producer without learning any music theory, but learning music theory helps a lot. Knowing just the basic fundamental of music theory like music notes, triads, intervals, major and minor scales, elements of rhythm helps you as a composer in making better writing decisions. You also understand musicians lingo if you know and understand music theory. It helps you communicate your ideas easily when working with other musicians and artists. Theory knowledge also helps you in breaking down songs by other artists and learning tips and tricks they used in their music.

Importance Of Music theory For Music Producers

Learning music theory as a music producer will help music producers work efficiently and be more productive in studios. If you feel that you have limited ideas, and you easily get stuck when producing music, music theory will help you grow and produce better music. Here are the benefits of learning music theory for music producers:

1. Write Better Compositions
2. Breakdown and Understand Other Artist Compositions Easily
3. Easily Communicate Ideas To Other Musicians and Artists
4. Easy To Work With Professional Educated Musicians
5. Overcome Mental Blocks

How Much Music Theory Should You Learn As A Music Producer

As a music producer, you must understand and learn the basic music theory fundamentals like musical notes, intervals, triads, chord formulas, major and minor scales, elements of rhythm and songwriting basics. Apart from knowing just these basics, if you learn some advanced concepts like seventh chords, relative chords, parallel chords, polyrhythm, and syncopation, it will be beneficial. These advanced concepts can help your composition stand out from the crowd. 

Can You Produce Music Without Any Music Theory Knowledge

Producing music is a challenging task with a lot to learn. Music theory is one of the challenging aspects of music production. One can easily make music without knowing any music theory, but not knowing music theory has its demerits. If you ignore music theory, your compositions, and production will be limited to the same concepts that you feel and use. Your growth will be subdued. On the other hand, if you learn music theory, you will have a lot more to experiment and compose with. Your knowledge will be vast, which will help you in the long term as a music producer.

There are a few successful electronic music producers like Deadmau5 and Audien who claim they do not know any music theory, but the numbers are limited.

Everyone has their own opinions on this topic. If you are new and just getting started, take my word for it and start learning music theory. Music Theory will do you no harm and help you become a better music producer.

If you wish to learn music production, check out the article here.

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