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Comment by dj_mc_merlin | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine learning to play music by fooling around with a piano and discovering that some keys sound good together. Even if after a while you begin to structure music that sounds halfway decent, if you ever want to get good and collaborate with other musicians, you're going to have to start from the beginning and learn theory, chords, and musical notation.

Sure, like Bowie. Or Prince. Or McCartney. Wait..

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Or entire generations of first-rate blues musicians. They may have had instruction from older players, but many had no formal musical training. Many got their initial "education" by playing around on homemade-from-literal-garbage single-string instruments.

Yeah it’s odd because this analogy does actually work with technical fields in many cases (i.e needing a base in mathematics for higher level physics etc) but it’s not like the vast majority of musicians in the history of the species have had formal training!

As a self taught musician this is totally bullshit TO AN EXTENT. I fucking shred and know zero music theory. All self taught and I can tune by ear as well.

When you start to play with a higher caliber of musicians, it becomes an expected threshold. I think its a bad analogy but it kind of is true the better you get. Still bad analogy

> "Sure, like Bowie. Or Prince. Or McCartney. Wait.."

A handful of people won the lottery, therefore everyone should play the lottery?

What is your evidence.

Paul McCartney himself: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=167778090799503

"I don't read music or write music, none of us do it in the Beatles. We did some good stuff though."

The 3 examples I listed are also probably the most well-known artists who have not studied theory, all 3 of them have said at various points in time that they can't read sheet music (and therefore definitely do not have a formal musical education). Funnily enough I _can_ read and play sheet music, and you do not see me drawing massive crowds..

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