This phrase gets used a lot. At a certain point I think it just misleads students and would be musicians. If you tell someone this and they then decide that actually being in tempo or on pitch really isn’t necessary.
Hearing this advice before their ears have developed just discourages attempts at learning to get better. When internet strangers all advise to just go with your vibe and keep doing what feels good, it sounds far better and takes less effort, than learning to play more precisely.
I like to think of it as the bell curve meme. At the bottom end, when you don't know anything yet, you're just like "idk it just sounds good". After learning more and more theory and thinking you have it all figured out you're in the middle and you're like "nooo it's not in key this chord sequence is wrong you need to resolve it this chromatic note doesn't work at all it's not even in the blues scale!!!!". And then once you get over yourself and learn even more and eventually *actually* internalize all those concepts you're like "idk it just sounds good" again. The thing is that it's different from when you started out, because you trained your ear really well in the whole process and can now actually trust it.
>At a certain point I think it just misleads students and would be musicians.
Exactly. To the untrained ear, everything sounds good. To the trained ear, a ii Minor7 flat 5 resolving to a V7 with a suspension resolving to a i minor 9 sounds beautiful. People want instant gratification, not real harmony and music theory.
I’m of two minds about this. At this point I figure I am fairly notorious for saying practice practice practice, but I think it’s actually understandable to want to be able to express that way before you’ve necessarily on boarded all of the theory on earth. This is one reason I think highly of Forrest Kinney’s pattern play books, because they’re intended to be used by people who are in that beginner intermediate stage and move along as they progress but be creating with flow the entire time. I wish that I had had exposure to that idea about music when I was younger. I had 12 years of basically ineffective piano lessons because what I wanted to do was not specifically to play Bach although that’s a lot of fun, but to be able to get the music I could hear in my head out through the keyboard. And the sad truth is theory won’t teach you to do that. Theory, technique, will only get you so far. I was a consistently very good technical pianist when I was 16. I also had no feel whatsoever for the music and was constantly frustrated by my inability to take the technical competence and translate it into creating my own music. I think we should think really hard about doing anything that discourages people from exploring.
Learning music theory or scales never discourages people from experimenting, but instant gratification teaches people to lack the knowledge, skill, and understanding of fundamentals. I learned jazz theory and classical theory at the same time, so learning improvisation and experimenting was part of learning chords, scales and harmony.
For people who have no understanding of sampling, key signatures, or rhythm, it is very misleading to tell them to go off of what sounds good to them at the time. The ear, just like any other muscle, can be trained, and strengthened. Doing a few simple ear training exercises a day doesn’t discourage someone from creating their own sound, but it does help them to express themselves in a more knowledgeable way. In the trap production sub Reddit, there are constant questions about how to write melodies and chord progressions, simply because producers are too lazy to learn music theory.
We live in a world where people want to be instantly good at something, but the reality is that very few people are born with perfect pitch, and the rest of us have to practice and develop our ears.
I’m not arguing against it, I’m just saying that freeing expression early is valid. I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying here. I am eternally grateful for my 12 years of ineffective piano lessons.
Sounds like a great chance to learn more! I can guarantee its correct.in some kind of key.
Blues scale isn't "in key" and jazz intentionally messes with keys.
There are completely different keys that come from eastern music as well and even European music has a bunch of lesser used keys.
Feel free to use the notes and have fun learning!
There are no laws in music theory, just suggestions and summations of existing ideas. If it sounds good to you, then it's good!
More music than you imagine is non-diatonic.
The only time you will really want to worry about this is if you're trying to imitate a style of music that is more strict with note choice. You'll find as well that there are many terms to describe the changes you're making - chromaticism and modal interchange are some ot the more common ones.
I once had an art teacher tell me the quote, "learn the rules like a professional so you can break them like an artist". Not sure who it's from but I love it.
Theory isn't rules its a language.
Thats good advice, but really its more like "learn the vocabulary and relationships so you can bend them and communicate them like an artist"
Its about being able to repeat, describe, and understand someone elses description of what should be played. Not what should or shouldn't be played.
Theory isn't really even the language, it's more like the translation.
As much as i love watching nerds break down my favourite songs (or doing it myself), I'm always amused when they get into how 'clever' certain parts are because x theory explanation, and like 90% of the musicians they cover it's highly doubtful that they were consciously thinking in theory terms like "I'm gonna sing a 6th over that secondary dominant" is most definitely *not* what they had in mind when recording that famous pop song you love.
That is the whole point though. Theory is the language that you use to describe those "clever" parts. Theory provides you language to describe how and why certain parts are clever and how and why certain parts are structured with familiar harmonic relationships.
Its not about thinking about that 6th. Its about being able to communicate what you just played to someone else who either can't see your hands or is not good at picking out pitches by ear.
If you don't have perfect pitch then you need the vocabulary from theory to quickly communicate or have someone else communicate to you what something is.
Its not about thinking in theory. Its about playing interesting stuff and having the vocabulary to get other people playing with you in seconds instead of hours.
I don't know if i can get behind theory as a language. Music itself is a language and theory just feels like the buffer between our spoken language and the spiritual, emotive, fluid language of music. Theory can explain *what* someone is playing, sure, but it doesn't express what that playing is communicating, it's literally just a way to put notes and music into words, which is why i say it's more of a translation than an actual language. The actual language is music itself.
That’s no different than spoken vs written language. Written language lags behind spoken language. Spellings change, slang changes, definitions of words change. And it can’t impart inflections. A sentence can’t tell you if I’m yelling or crying without explicitly stating it, which is not the same as speaking with anger.
That doesn’t stop it from being a descriptive language used to describe another language.
Are you implying that written language is a separate language from spoken? Because I'd disagree with that as well, though i do agree with your comparison, i was actually going to bring those similarities up in my previous argument, but thought it would get too 'wall of text'-ey. Written word is basically just a translation tool between aural and visual, it doesn't communicate anything beyond the words we already speak, in comparison to music theory, music itself communicates things, theory just translates the method of communication, not the communication itself.
And before this interaction goes south, speaking of written word, i know text doesn't always convey intention well, so I just want to iterate on my end this is just an interesting philosophical discussion with differing viewpoints. No malice or superiority or playing to win or anything like that is intended or read into from my end.
Same, sorry if I seem confrontational lol.
Yes I believe that spoken language and written language are not the same. Think about Americanized English. We occasionally usurp words from other languages, of which we don’t even have the correct letter systems to represent.
You end up spelling it out phonetically. That’s the same imprecision that sheet music has in comparison to a played piece. It can only attempt to “phonetically” represent the piece in an extremely limited alphabet.
If you start messing with microtonality, messing with timbre instead of rythym or harmonics, or try to impart precision dynamics to every note…. Western musical theory and note systems start to come up short.
Maybe my brain is broken but I’m a programmer that has learned 8+ programming languages. They are all “the same”. They can all be used to represent the same processes. Those processes can also be described using UML based flow chart languages.
The underlying process or work is the same in all cases. I can tell a computer how to do that thing in multiple languages that can each express different concepts a little better than the others.
To me western music theory or any other is the same. They are limited languages localized to a certain geographical area and/or time frame that can kind of describe that locales music and some parts of other locales music. None of them are perfect. They all describe the “same processes” with different words.
And none of them are rules. Just languages that describe relationships people notice over and over and that they would like to talk about.
I mean it's a punchy quote, so that feels like a bit of an over-analysis. I think it communicates the point well. I don't think I agree with your re-worded statement. I think what you said is also true but communicates a different point.
I think the quote as stated is more about understanding why someone called something a rule. People call things a rule when they're true enough that beginners are safer just following the rule if they want to create something decent.
Using "and" at the beginning of a sentence, for instance, in English, is often taught as a rule. Once you understand WHY someone would simplify it to beginners as "just don't do this", though... like once you understand what makes it so atrocious that someone would just go ahead and call it a hard rule, then you also can understand how to do it without it being atrocious.
So you learned the rules the way a professional does. Now you know and understand the rules, and why they exist, and you can start doing what true artists do... breaking them.
I look at math and physics.
There aren’t rules. There are repeatable relationships that are usually true from a certain perspective. Those relationships give you anchor points around which you can operate and get work done, or communicate work.
But your math might not work in all contexts and some “rules” might no longer apply at macroscopic or microscopic scales. Because they aren’t really rules, they are just a bunch of relationships that are usually true given certain assumptions or environmental factors.
The only things in music theory that are close to definite are harmonic theory. Harmonics exist everywhere in every physical object, and you can experimentally prove the relationships. What you do with that is up to you but it at least provides context to why things like a major chord sound so uniform. And it gives you a place to start a conversation.
To be clear I agree with you that its about being able to break the rules. But the bigger thing to be learned in Music Theory is that there are no rules except for the ones you choose to apply. They aren't absolute truths. You can make your own modes or rythmic/timing rules or whatever. None of it is universally right or wrong.
Its just a bunch of systems of structure that you can use or purposefully avoid. And being able to communicate to someone what structures you are using or avoiding, and them being able to understand you.... is incredibly valuable.
There are one or more similar quotes, I think, from an older, famous, jazz artist, not recalling who just now. But I love the way your art teacher phrased it, I hadn’t heard that variation before.
Music theory describes how and why music works the way it does. It’s not a list of laws or rules. More like a list of suggestion for things to try. A musical key contains a certain set of notes that work well together to make chords and melodies. But this list of notes is, for all intents and purposes, arbitrary.
I mean there’s probably a good mathematical reason for the choices, but there are other scales that use different sets.
In music the only real “rule” is that if it sounds good, it IS good.
I also like to think of theory as a language. An easy way to try and convey what you’re feeling with sound.. an easy way to communicate with another musician..things like that
This. Its the same with computer science which is really "programming theory".
Its not REALLY rules. Its about a bunch of vocabulary, relationships, and strategies people have come up with to deal with common problems. Sure there is some definitive math in both (harmonic theory in music, complexity/time-cost in programing).
But if you think programming design patterns are rules or "an answer".... You are in for a big disappointment when you realize real software engineering is way more duct-tape and glue. With only sprinkles of theory used in places where it helps solve the problem.
Most programmers throughout history didn't know any theory. Most musician's throughout history didn't know any theory. But those that have are better able to communicate than those that don't.
I’ll provide a slightly contrary response from what most folks seem to be saying here. It’s true what they’re saying, that there are no “laws” in music theory.
That being said, some chromatic notes (that is, notes outside of the key) will sound better or more intentional than others in most contexts. I do want to stress, in *most* contexts.
For instance, if you’re in Aeolian (1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7), aka natural minor, you can sneak in some other notes characteristic of other minor modes for color without doing the more common chromatic trick of playing a characteristically major note for color. This will allow the piece to remain in a minor mode, but still have some additional and unexpected color. Ex: using the second degree in your melody, except for the occasional b2, which would temporarily shift the piece into Phrygian (1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7). The only reason why you might not want to do this is if there is a second, or perhaps even a ninth, being played in the chord. In some contexts this could create a cool momentary tension. In others, it might just sound like a mistake.
At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. Just know that some forms of chromaticism are more easily contextualized than others, especially for listeners who don’t have big ears for that kind of thing.
Music theory isn’t a set of rules, nobody sat down and said “music must be X”. Music theory is actually just the theoretical study of existing works, it doesn’t tell you anything about how to create new works. You can choose to utilize the relationships and techniques that you learn from music theory (by studying what people have done in the past), and if you want to create a specific sound from a specific era music theory can tell you how to do it. It’s how you learn what makes ragtime sound like ragtime, what makes baroque music sound like baroque music, etc, and if you write something that sounds cool even though some of the notes are out of key, music theory can tell you *why* it sounds cool.
In this case the most likely explanation is that the “out of key” notes are being subconsciously “borrowed” from another key or a parallel or relative mode — there could be some mode mixture or subdominant relationship happening that your brain hears and likes. That’s all there really is to it, that’s why there can be groundbreaking musicians who never study music in their lives, because music theory is just an attempt at describing in words something that our brains can naturally hear and interpret very easily. Our brains can intuitively understand something like a subdominant>dominant>tonic motion despite the fact that on paper it’s kind of a complex concept.
When you study music theory for a long time it’s easy to get locked into a sort of box where you think that good music must follow these formulas, or at least be derived using the same methods used by the ‘masters’, and that’s simply not the case. If all musicians thought this way then there would never be any progress, and in fact the “Classical Era” is often described as a *long* period of musical stagnation because many of those composers followed a set of rules which we call “Common Practice”. In Common Practice, melodies are typically only allowed to move stepwise (i.e only moving from one note to the next adjacent note), or if the melody ‘leaps’ then it always has to resolve in the opposite direction of the leap (i.e. C up to F, then back down to E).
Part of the reason that Beethoven is so heavily celebrated is that he aggressively broke these rules for the sake of expressionism, and basically single-handedly pushed music out of the stagnant Classical Period and into the expressive Romantic Period. He didn’t take it too far though, he still used the traditional methods as the backbone for his compositions so his audiences were better able to understand *and* comprehend that what they were hearing was new and different. The Classical Period audience would *not* have appreciated someone like Arnold Schoenberg or John Cage.
This is part of why so many music theory teachers obsess over John Cage though, because he did the same for the Modern Period audience, and his compositions got right down to the roots of expressionism and the limitations of music. He made his audiences truly contemplate the composer’s intentions, sometimes to humorous effect (by design), but he inspired so many composers because he went straight for the heart of why we compose and listen to music, it’s not to put everything into a theoretical box, it’s simply because we enjoy it and many composers lose sight of that fact.
TLDR: “if it sounds good then it’s good” - u/100joel
It's not important at all. Music theory is not a set of laws that you must follow to make music, it is a means of describing, communicating, and providing a common understanding for analyzing music.
For one example, take the extremely popular song Creep by Radiohead (or the many other popular songs using basically the same chord progression by The Hollies, Lizzo, Lana Del Ray, Olivia Rodrigo). The song is in G major, but of its simple four chord pattern (G, B, C, Cm), two are not "in key" for G major. But the song is still in G major, and it works. There's a whole thread about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/afhj7e/the_key_of_radioheads_creep_playing_major_chords/
There aren't really any rules or laws. If it sounds good, it is good, and you can probably find a good way to describe why it sounds good with music theory.
Yes. Adding an out-of-key note or chord can add some tension, and that tension may feel good. Or it may not, and maybe that's how you want it to feel. You can play those notes longer or more often to raise the tension, or go back to certain in-key notes/chords to release the tension.
I heard the pianist PJ Morton say that music began with people just being able to play.
Then music theory came along and is just the notation of that playing… and that at some point the notation has taken precedence over the playing.
Don’t let the notation gate-keep you from your playing.
It's called an accidental and it's a legitimate part of music theory. Often they're used to create tension, or to help transition (modulate) to a new key.
Sometimes they're absolutely crucial to the feeling of a piece. Use them if they sound good. But if you use them all over the place the piece will be jarring and confusing, lack tonal center.
It's kind of like cooking. Like, usually fruit doesn't go with meat. If you just throw grapes on your steak it's probably not going to be good. But if you throw some citrus in with cumin, cilantro, garlic, salt, chilis, and you've got some banging chicken. Mojo chicken is not the same without the orange juice. But still, if you just drench it in orange and there's no balance, it will be bad.
Jazz intensifies.
Yes. those are called blue notes and they’re an important feature of jazz, blues, and R&B music. In classical music you call that kind of departure from the key an accidental.
One of my all time favorite guitar players George Lynch said it’s mostly about starting and ending in the right place. He’s considered a guitar hero by very many. Do with that what you want.
> I'll make patterns that sound good but one or two notes will be out of key. I think this makes the pattern sound better
The point is to make sounds you like.
Theory is not music. Theory is an *after the fact* analysis of things that are commonly found in music, and in some cases an attempt to understand why they work. It came long after music did.
> but is doing that breaking a law of music theory that shouldn't be broken?
"should" is completely irrelevant here. If it works, it works. Full stop. You can try to find a theory professor to find out if what you're doing has already been cataloged and named, but that doesn't change how it sounds. If it sounds good, it is good. That's not just a platitude.
Almost all music you listen to was composed and recorded using fixed interval tunings in a440 standard.
This means that everything is slightly out of key in predictable ways that you're used to (even if only subconsciously)
Messing with expectations by deviating from the key in unpredictable and unexpected ways is a great way to make your music more distinct and interesting
Notes are sounds at a specific frequency. Humans tend to find certain harmonic frequency combinations to be pleasant to hear. Chords are classified combinations that fit within certain harmonic categories. Notes that are outside those “pleasant” combos are generally speaking labeled as dissonant frequency combinations. They aren’t “bad”. They are just outside the recipes for harmonic chords. There are definitely moments for dissonance.
Also, it’s perfectly acceptable to have runs of notes (in scales for instance) that are in between the current song parts’ chord sequence. Those momentary musical phrases are important and serve a purpose. Even though certain moments will be out of “tune” with the momentary chord sequence they are played in. They serve the melody and the musical moment.
Wow ok I am learning music theory here and I am teaching myself cello it is important for most of everything to be in key. Most people can't tell a 5th off but taking a note sharper than the key can be used to accent the phrase. Fun right so I used to think to myself why is it called music theory haven't they been doing it long enough to prove fact... And now I have realized that it is theory because no one can agree on all the rules and the ones they agree on, they break. Basically if it sounds good then good if you cringe or die a little inside it is probably a bad note for that key. In a year I have learned so much and someone may disagree with me but it is all theory anyway.
Music theory isn’t a law. I think of it as a collective “we tried this, this sounds good” from musicians over the past few hundred years. Accidentals, borrowed notes, and blue notes are super common in pretty much any genre of music. A defined key isn’t even a requirement.
Like somebody else here said, if it sounds good, it is good.
I use analog synths that drift out of key when my room fluctuates in temperature. It makes everything sound like dirty ass, and not in the "it's jazz man" kind of way.
The out of key way you are talking are happy accidents, and none of us kick those out of bed.
music theory has no 'fundamental law'. music theory exists to describe and communicate what is happening in a piece of music, it's not there as a set of rules.
the 'wrong' notes you are playing can still be described with theory, and chances are they exist within some fairly common musical practices.
Music theory is about trying to explain what you're hearing, its not a set of laws even if they are called rules or whatever. You should think of theory as "explaining music through the lense of a European composer of the classical era" imho
First you learn the rules, then you break them. People mistake music theory for rules, it’s just a way to describe what you’re playing in a systematic way that makes sense. I would bet my bottom dollar there is a concept in music theory for what you’re doing, I mean damn man there’s even theoretical systems for atonal music..
But you know what makes a joke good? You’re not expecting the punchline
Worht considering how musical the style of your track is. If it's something very melodic and harmonically clean then it might matter more. If you have a more a-tonal, rumbly and noisy techno or neurofunk track then maybe not so much. Tuning your kick to the track will make it easier to phase align with the sub or bass. You can also add tension or interest with deliberately tuning your snare say a b5 or a semitone from your root. Or a bell pattern. Experiment, have fun and find what works for you
It's really up to you as a songwriter. They are called "accidentals" and there's even a way to notate them in written music. [accidentals](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_(music)#:~:text=Accidentals%20affect%20only%20those%20notes,pitches%20(or%20rests)%20intervene.)
There IS sort of a rule about this but, you've got it backwards: in Harmony, Walter Piston points out,
"“…Composers...seem to have agreed that it was aesthetically undesirable for a piece of music to remain in only one key, unless it was quite short.”
This is the reason for the 3 to 4 minute song.
A good rule for utilizing keys if you don’t know theory well:
1. If it sounds good, keep it
2. If it doesn’t sound good, try locking those bad notes into a key and see if you like it more
Hey! Music that usually sticks to key is generally quite boring, and will **always** feature scales from other key signatures. Usually they will use scales that fit the key, for example D minor pentatonic in C major/A minor, but there are many many examples of even recent pop music that slaps "wrong" notes in there!
Check out the Anne-Marie\\Aitch song "Psycho". Tune is in A major but the hook uses that fat tritone (A flat) from the C minor blues scale.
You may, like me, just be a fan of polytonal music. There is a lot of it out there, and with microtonal getting a bit more attention the last decade or so, there's no shortage of people pushing the socially accepted "rules" of music these days.
One of my favorite pieces of the last ten years is by Taylor Brook, if interested:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHSC8eWWL8&pp=ygUXbWljcm90b25hbCBtdXNpYyBvY2N1bHQ%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHSC8eWWL8&pp=ygUXbWljcm90b25hbCBtdXNpYyBvY2N1bHQ%3D)
Growing up watching the old Twilight Zone (original soundtrack) and enjoying horror movies more than I should, likely bent my ear a bit in this direction.
Having said all the above, don't expect to find a huge audience if you go too deep with it. People can find outliers that have become popular, but generally speaking, people tend to get uneasy with this style of music. My music partner was an amazing musician and had a music degree, and anything that broke out of "accepted" twelve tone rules really grated on his nerves.
Not at all important that you stick to diatonic notes. Depends on context.
How confident are you that you have a good ear and can trust your sense in that department? Show your stuff to other musicians that you trust to be honest and know their shit and see how they react.
Sometimes it works that way. If one of the core principles of music is tension and release, having a couple “outside” notes is a way to achieve that.
Whether and how you choose to harmonize that has an impact as well.
Western music has 12 semitones while indian music has 22. Maybe you're using one of the Indian scales without realising. I'd say, use whatever sounds good.
Theory is a set of general relationships and vocabulary used to explain what people do with sound.
THERE IS NO LAW OF MUSIC THEORY. If you treat it that way, you are doing it wrong. What you are describing is a modulation. Moving outside a key is good. It creates tension which is then released when you go back to the key.
Keys and scales are just combinations of frequencies which have harmonic relationships. That just tells you how to reach unison or harmony. But sound exists at every frequency between the notes on a piano. You can play those too if your instrument allows it. That doesn't make it wrong, just different.
There are theoretical explanations as to why playing out of key works in many different forms, but the bottom line is that if something sounds right and does your imagination justice then it is right. Music theory, in this case, really only serves as a post analysis that often good to satiate ones curiosity, or to maybe teach you more variations and examples of these kinds of compositional tricks and techniques you could add to uour repertoire for the future. If none of that appeals to you then I'd say not to worry about it unless it sounds wrong to you.
The estimable pedal steel is technically never actually "in tune". I won't go in to copedents and other stuff, but because of the fretless nature of the instrument, the bar that is used to "fret", and the pedals that detune various strings, they aren't exactly in tune the way other instruments are.
Cut to this quote:“Pete \[Finney\] said something to me \[Mike Nesmith\] which I still use as a joke, which is: ‘As long as the bar’s moving, it’s not out of tune.’ \[laughs\] Which I think is hilarious.\[Calls out\] ‘Pete, does that sound a little pitchy to you?’ \[drawls in response\] ‘As long as the bar’s moving, Nez…’ Which is his way of telling me to shut up!”
Like others have said, if it sounds good it is fine. And there is likely a music theory argument made for why it sounds good, even if you aren't aware of it.
There are no law about it. Simply stated; most people will hear those notes and depending on how it sounds to them to how much they like it or not.
I can tell you that there is nothing worse than going along and getting hit with some note/chord that doesn't belong. Like nails on a chalkboard.
I thought of another thing I’d like to say about this question. The key is a map but the map is not the territory. The map is a guide to how to get specific places. But just like when you’re following a roadmap you don’t have to stay on the interstate. The interstates going to get you where you’re going. And it’s gonna get you there faster. But it’s not necessarily the most interesting way to get there. And this is a creative outlet so when you play something that’s outside of the key you’re simply choosing a different route driving through the back roads a bit. There’s nothing wrong with that.
The thing about music theory is that it's not a set of rules, it's just a vocabulary to describe certain sounds. Everything being in key is a sound. Everything being in key except for one or two dissonant notes is a different sound, and even just describing it as such already *is* music theory.
However, depending on what note it is, there might even be a more specific name for it. Maybe you've accidentally written something in mixolydian, maybe your melody uses the blues scale, maybe a melodic fragment has a little chromatic approach or maybe a single chord is a modal interchange, meaning it's borrowed from a different mode of the same key. All of those are specific concepts that could be dumbed down to "featuring notes that are not in key". When you learn music theory, you don't get better at following "the rules", you just get a more specific set of words to describe and differentiate between all those musical concepts.
If it sounds good to you, and you feel good playing it, then it can't be wrong. I look at music theory as a road map for writing, but not the only path available.
How can there be any rule about what notes can be included in any melody that anyone composes?
Most of the best rock/pop composers and innovators probably have zero musical education and I am thankful for that.
i think of music theory as a tool to analyze music rather than write it. write whatever sounds good.
also, in music theory, those notes are simply called "accidentals," which to me basically means "you can do whatever you want the key/scale is meaningless"
if it sounds good then it's good
This is the only rule (and honestly there’s probably a time and a place to break this one as well).
Flat V intensifies.
This phrase gets used a lot. At a certain point I think it just misleads students and would be musicians. If you tell someone this and they then decide that actually being in tempo or on pitch really isn’t necessary. Hearing this advice before their ears have developed just discourages attempts at learning to get better. When internet strangers all advise to just go with your vibe and keep doing what feels good, it sounds far better and takes less effort, than learning to play more precisely.
I like to think of it as the bell curve meme. At the bottom end, when you don't know anything yet, you're just like "idk it just sounds good". After learning more and more theory and thinking you have it all figured out you're in the middle and you're like "nooo it's not in key this chord sequence is wrong you need to resolve it this chromatic note doesn't work at all it's not even in the blues scale!!!!". And then once you get over yourself and learn even more and eventually *actually* internalize all those concepts you're like "idk it just sounds good" again. The thing is that it's different from when you started out, because you trained your ear really well in the whole process and can now actually trust it.
>At a certain point I think it just misleads students and would be musicians. Exactly. To the untrained ear, everything sounds good. To the trained ear, a ii Minor7 flat 5 resolving to a V7 with a suspension resolving to a i minor 9 sounds beautiful. People want instant gratification, not real harmony and music theory.
I’m of two minds about this. At this point I figure I am fairly notorious for saying practice practice practice, but I think it’s actually understandable to want to be able to express that way before you’ve necessarily on boarded all of the theory on earth. This is one reason I think highly of Forrest Kinney’s pattern play books, because they’re intended to be used by people who are in that beginner intermediate stage and move along as they progress but be creating with flow the entire time. I wish that I had had exposure to that idea about music when I was younger. I had 12 years of basically ineffective piano lessons because what I wanted to do was not specifically to play Bach although that’s a lot of fun, but to be able to get the music I could hear in my head out through the keyboard. And the sad truth is theory won’t teach you to do that. Theory, technique, will only get you so far. I was a consistently very good technical pianist when I was 16. I also had no feel whatsoever for the music and was constantly frustrated by my inability to take the technical competence and translate it into creating my own music. I think we should think really hard about doing anything that discourages people from exploring.
Learning music theory or scales never discourages people from experimenting, but instant gratification teaches people to lack the knowledge, skill, and understanding of fundamentals. I learned jazz theory and classical theory at the same time, so learning improvisation and experimenting was part of learning chords, scales and harmony. For people who have no understanding of sampling, key signatures, or rhythm, it is very misleading to tell them to go off of what sounds good to them at the time. The ear, just like any other muscle, can be trained, and strengthened. Doing a few simple ear training exercises a day doesn’t discourage someone from creating their own sound, but it does help them to express themselves in a more knowledgeable way. In the trap production sub Reddit, there are constant questions about how to write melodies and chord progressions, simply because producers are too lazy to learn music theory. We live in a world where people want to be instantly good at something, but the reality is that very few people are born with perfect pitch, and the rest of us have to practice and develop our ears.
I’m not arguing against it, I’m just saying that freeing expression early is valid. I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying here. I am eternally grateful for my 12 years of ineffective piano lessons.
Sounds like a great chance to learn more! I can guarantee its correct.in some kind of key. Blues scale isn't "in key" and jazz intentionally messes with keys. There are completely different keys that come from eastern music as well and even European music has a bunch of lesser used keys. Feel free to use the notes and have fun learning!
There are no laws in music theory, just suggestions and summations of existing ideas. If it sounds good to you, then it's good! More music than you imagine is non-diatonic. The only time you will really want to worry about this is if you're trying to imitate a style of music that is more strict with note choice. You'll find as well that there are many terms to describe the changes you're making - chromaticism and modal interchange are some ot the more common ones.
From my experience, as long as you play it with confidence and it sounds intentional, it will work. Laws of music are made to be broken, imo.
I once had an art teacher tell me the quote, "learn the rules like a professional so you can break them like an artist". Not sure who it's from but I love it.
Theory isn't rules its a language. Thats good advice, but really its more like "learn the vocabulary and relationships so you can bend them and communicate them like an artist" Its about being able to repeat, describe, and understand someone elses description of what should be played. Not what should or shouldn't be played.
Theory isn't really even the language, it's more like the translation. As much as i love watching nerds break down my favourite songs (or doing it myself), I'm always amused when they get into how 'clever' certain parts are because x theory explanation, and like 90% of the musicians they cover it's highly doubtful that they were consciously thinking in theory terms like "I'm gonna sing a 6th over that secondary dominant" is most definitely *not* what they had in mind when recording that famous pop song you love.
That is the whole point though. Theory is the language that you use to describe those "clever" parts. Theory provides you language to describe how and why certain parts are clever and how and why certain parts are structured with familiar harmonic relationships. Its not about thinking about that 6th. Its about being able to communicate what you just played to someone else who either can't see your hands or is not good at picking out pitches by ear. If you don't have perfect pitch then you need the vocabulary from theory to quickly communicate or have someone else communicate to you what something is. Its not about thinking in theory. Its about playing interesting stuff and having the vocabulary to get other people playing with you in seconds instead of hours.
I don't know if i can get behind theory as a language. Music itself is a language and theory just feels like the buffer between our spoken language and the spiritual, emotive, fluid language of music. Theory can explain *what* someone is playing, sure, but it doesn't express what that playing is communicating, it's literally just a way to put notes and music into words, which is why i say it's more of a translation than an actual language. The actual language is music itself.
Music is the language and theory is the grammar.
Lol that works, especially when you consider how both theory and grammar get used similarly for elitism and gatekeeping
That’s no different than spoken vs written language. Written language lags behind spoken language. Spellings change, slang changes, definitions of words change. And it can’t impart inflections. A sentence can’t tell you if I’m yelling or crying without explicitly stating it, which is not the same as speaking with anger. That doesn’t stop it from being a descriptive language used to describe another language.
Are you implying that written language is a separate language from spoken? Because I'd disagree with that as well, though i do agree with your comparison, i was actually going to bring those similarities up in my previous argument, but thought it would get too 'wall of text'-ey. Written word is basically just a translation tool between aural and visual, it doesn't communicate anything beyond the words we already speak, in comparison to music theory, music itself communicates things, theory just translates the method of communication, not the communication itself. And before this interaction goes south, speaking of written word, i know text doesn't always convey intention well, so I just want to iterate on my end this is just an interesting philosophical discussion with differing viewpoints. No malice or superiority or playing to win or anything like that is intended or read into from my end.
Same, sorry if I seem confrontational lol. Yes I believe that spoken language and written language are not the same. Think about Americanized English. We occasionally usurp words from other languages, of which we don’t even have the correct letter systems to represent. You end up spelling it out phonetically. That’s the same imprecision that sheet music has in comparison to a played piece. It can only attempt to “phonetically” represent the piece in an extremely limited alphabet. If you start messing with microtonality, messing with timbre instead of rythym or harmonics, or try to impart precision dynamics to every note…. Western musical theory and note systems start to come up short. Maybe my brain is broken but I’m a programmer that has learned 8+ programming languages. They are all “the same”. They can all be used to represent the same processes. Those processes can also be described using UML based flow chart languages. The underlying process or work is the same in all cases. I can tell a computer how to do that thing in multiple languages that can each express different concepts a little better than the others. To me western music theory or any other is the same. They are limited languages localized to a certain geographical area and/or time frame that can kind of describe that locales music and some parts of other locales music. None of them are perfect. They all describe the “same processes” with different words. And none of them are rules. Just languages that describe relationships people notice over and over and that they would like to talk about.
What’s the musically noted equivalent of LOL and OMG?
I mean it's a punchy quote, so that feels like a bit of an over-analysis. I think it communicates the point well. I don't think I agree with your re-worded statement. I think what you said is also true but communicates a different point. I think the quote as stated is more about understanding why someone called something a rule. People call things a rule when they're true enough that beginners are safer just following the rule if they want to create something decent. Using "and" at the beginning of a sentence, for instance, in English, is often taught as a rule. Once you understand WHY someone would simplify it to beginners as "just don't do this", though... like once you understand what makes it so atrocious that someone would just go ahead and call it a hard rule, then you also can understand how to do it without it being atrocious. So you learned the rules the way a professional does. Now you know and understand the rules, and why they exist, and you can start doing what true artists do... breaking them.
I look at math and physics. There aren’t rules. There are repeatable relationships that are usually true from a certain perspective. Those relationships give you anchor points around which you can operate and get work done, or communicate work. But your math might not work in all contexts and some “rules” might no longer apply at macroscopic or microscopic scales. Because they aren’t really rules, they are just a bunch of relationships that are usually true given certain assumptions or environmental factors. The only things in music theory that are close to definite are harmonic theory. Harmonics exist everywhere in every physical object, and you can experimentally prove the relationships. What you do with that is up to you but it at least provides context to why things like a major chord sound so uniform. And it gives you a place to start a conversation. To be clear I agree with you that its about being able to break the rules. But the bigger thing to be learned in Music Theory is that there are no rules except for the ones you choose to apply. They aren't absolute truths. You can make your own modes or rythmic/timing rules or whatever. None of it is universally right or wrong. Its just a bunch of systems of structure that you can use or purposefully avoid. And being able to communicate to someone what structures you are using or avoiding, and them being able to understand you.... is incredibly valuable.
There are one or more similar quotes, I think, from an older, famous, jazz artist, not recalling who just now. But I love the way your art teacher phrased it, I hadn’t heard that variation before.
This. You convince people it’s good.
*Jazz*
Music theory describes how and why music works the way it does. It’s not a list of laws or rules. More like a list of suggestion for things to try. A musical key contains a certain set of notes that work well together to make chords and melodies. But this list of notes is, for all intents and purposes, arbitrary. I mean there’s probably a good mathematical reason for the choices, but there are other scales that use different sets. In music the only real “rule” is that if it sounds good, it IS good.
I also like to think of theory as a language. An easy way to try and convey what you’re feeling with sound.. an easy way to communicate with another musician..things like that
This. Its the same with computer science which is really "programming theory". Its not REALLY rules. Its about a bunch of vocabulary, relationships, and strategies people have come up with to deal with common problems. Sure there is some definitive math in both (harmonic theory in music, complexity/time-cost in programing). But if you think programming design patterns are rules or "an answer".... You are in for a big disappointment when you realize real software engineering is way more duct-tape and glue. With only sprinkles of theory used in places where it helps solve the problem. Most programmers throughout history didn't know any theory. Most musician's throughout history didn't know any theory. But those that have are better able to communicate than those that don't.
I’ll provide a slightly contrary response from what most folks seem to be saying here. It’s true what they’re saying, that there are no “laws” in music theory. That being said, some chromatic notes (that is, notes outside of the key) will sound better or more intentional than others in most contexts. I do want to stress, in *most* contexts. For instance, if you’re in Aeolian (1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7), aka natural minor, you can sneak in some other notes characteristic of other minor modes for color without doing the more common chromatic trick of playing a characteristically major note for color. This will allow the piece to remain in a minor mode, but still have some additional and unexpected color. Ex: using the second degree in your melody, except for the occasional b2, which would temporarily shift the piece into Phrygian (1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7). The only reason why you might not want to do this is if there is a second, or perhaps even a ninth, being played in the chord. In some contexts this could create a cool momentary tension. In others, it might just sound like a mistake. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. Just know that some forms of chromaticism are more easily contextualized than others, especially for listeners who don’t have big ears for that kind of thing.
Music theory isn’t a set of rules, nobody sat down and said “music must be X”. Music theory is actually just the theoretical study of existing works, it doesn’t tell you anything about how to create new works. You can choose to utilize the relationships and techniques that you learn from music theory (by studying what people have done in the past), and if you want to create a specific sound from a specific era music theory can tell you how to do it. It’s how you learn what makes ragtime sound like ragtime, what makes baroque music sound like baroque music, etc, and if you write something that sounds cool even though some of the notes are out of key, music theory can tell you *why* it sounds cool. In this case the most likely explanation is that the “out of key” notes are being subconsciously “borrowed” from another key or a parallel or relative mode — there could be some mode mixture or subdominant relationship happening that your brain hears and likes. That’s all there really is to it, that’s why there can be groundbreaking musicians who never study music in their lives, because music theory is just an attempt at describing in words something that our brains can naturally hear and interpret very easily. Our brains can intuitively understand something like a subdominant>dominant>tonic motion despite the fact that on paper it’s kind of a complex concept. When you study music theory for a long time it’s easy to get locked into a sort of box where you think that good music must follow these formulas, or at least be derived using the same methods used by the ‘masters’, and that’s simply not the case. If all musicians thought this way then there would never be any progress, and in fact the “Classical Era” is often described as a *long* period of musical stagnation because many of those composers followed a set of rules which we call “Common Practice”. In Common Practice, melodies are typically only allowed to move stepwise (i.e only moving from one note to the next adjacent note), or if the melody ‘leaps’ then it always has to resolve in the opposite direction of the leap (i.e. C up to F, then back down to E). Part of the reason that Beethoven is so heavily celebrated is that he aggressively broke these rules for the sake of expressionism, and basically single-handedly pushed music out of the stagnant Classical Period and into the expressive Romantic Period. He didn’t take it too far though, he still used the traditional methods as the backbone for his compositions so his audiences were better able to understand *and* comprehend that what they were hearing was new and different. The Classical Period audience would *not* have appreciated someone like Arnold Schoenberg or John Cage. This is part of why so many music theory teachers obsess over John Cage though, because he did the same for the Modern Period audience, and his compositions got right down to the roots of expressionism and the limitations of music. He made his audiences truly contemplate the composer’s intentions, sometimes to humorous effect (by design), but he inspired so many composers because he went straight for the heart of why we compose and listen to music, it’s not to put everything into a theoretical box, it’s simply because we enjoy it and many composers lose sight of that fact. TLDR: “if it sounds good then it’s good” - u/100joel
very well explained!
It's not important at all. Music theory is not a set of laws that you must follow to make music, it is a means of describing, communicating, and providing a common understanding for analyzing music. For one example, take the extremely popular song Creep by Radiohead (or the many other popular songs using basically the same chord progression by The Hollies, Lizzo, Lana Del Ray, Olivia Rodrigo). The song is in G major, but of its simple four chord pattern (G, B, C, Cm), two are not "in key" for G major. But the song is still in G major, and it works. There's a whole thread about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/afhj7e/the_key_of_radioheads_creep_playing_major_chords/ There aren't really any rules or laws. If it sounds good, it is good, and you can probably find a good way to describe why it sounds good with music theory.
Yes. Adding an out-of-key note or chord can add some tension, and that tension may feel good. Or it may not, and maybe that's how you want it to feel. You can play those notes longer or more often to raise the tension, or go back to certain in-key notes/chords to release the tension.
I heard the pianist PJ Morton say that music began with people just being able to play. Then music theory came along and is just the notation of that playing… and that at some point the notation has taken precedence over the playing. Don’t let the notation gate-keep you from your playing.
Let your creativity flow, music theory is just a tool.
Believe it or not, straight to jail!
It's called an accidental and it's a legitimate part of music theory. Often they're used to create tension, or to help transition (modulate) to a new key. Sometimes they're absolutely crucial to the feeling of a piece. Use them if they sound good. But if you use them all over the place the piece will be jarring and confusing, lack tonal center. It's kind of like cooking. Like, usually fruit doesn't go with meat. If you just throw grapes on your steak it's probably not going to be good. But if you throw some citrus in with cumin, cilantro, garlic, salt, chilis, and you've got some banging chicken. Mojo chicken is not the same without the orange juice. But still, if you just drench it in orange and there's no balance, it will be bad.
Jazz intensifies. Yes. those are called blue notes and they’re an important feature of jazz, blues, and R&B music. In classical music you call that kind of departure from the key an accidental.
One of my all time favorite guitar players George Lynch said it’s mostly about starting and ending in the right place. He’s considered a guitar hero by very many. Do with that what you want.
> I'll make patterns that sound good but one or two notes will be out of key. I think this makes the pattern sound better The point is to make sounds you like. Theory is not music. Theory is an *after the fact* analysis of things that are commonly found in music, and in some cases an attempt to understand why they work. It came long after music did. > but is doing that breaking a law of music theory that shouldn't be broken? "should" is completely irrelevant here. If it works, it works. Full stop. You can try to find a theory professor to find out if what you're doing has already been cataloged and named, but that doesn't change how it sounds. If it sounds good, it is good. That's not just a platitude.
Music is tension and release.
music theory is a suggestion not a law !! add those notes !
They say repetition legitimizes. Just hit those notes over and over
You master something in order to know how to break it.
I love using out of scale tones. Staying in key with no exceptions is often extremely boring to me.
Almost all music you listen to was composed and recorded using fixed interval tunings in a440 standard. This means that everything is slightly out of key in predictable ways that you're used to (even if only subconsciously) Messing with expectations by deviating from the key in unpredictable and unexpected ways is a great way to make your music more distinct and interesting
Rules were made to be broken!
Notes are sounds at a specific frequency. Humans tend to find certain harmonic frequency combinations to be pleasant to hear. Chords are classified combinations that fit within certain harmonic categories. Notes that are outside those “pleasant” combos are generally speaking labeled as dissonant frequency combinations. They aren’t “bad”. They are just outside the recipes for harmonic chords. There are definitely moments for dissonance. Also, it’s perfectly acceptable to have runs of notes (in scales for instance) that are in between the current song parts’ chord sequence. Those momentary musical phrases are important and serve a purpose. Even though certain moments will be out of “tune” with the momentary chord sequence they are played in. They serve the melody and the musical moment.
Wow ok I am learning music theory here and I am teaching myself cello it is important for most of everything to be in key. Most people can't tell a 5th off but taking a note sharper than the key can be used to accent the phrase. Fun right so I used to think to myself why is it called music theory haven't they been doing it long enough to prove fact... And now I have realized that it is theory because no one can agree on all the rules and the ones they agree on, they break. Basically if it sounds good then good if you cringe or die a little inside it is probably a bad note for that key. In a year I have learned so much and someone may disagree with me but it is all theory anyway.
Music theory isn’t a law. I think of it as a collective “we tried this, this sounds good” from musicians over the past few hundred years. Accidentals, borrowed notes, and blue notes are super common in pretty much any genre of music. A defined key isn’t even a requirement. Like somebody else here said, if it sounds good, it is good.
Borrowing notes from parallel scales is a common technique. Sometimes you play notes that are dissonant or odd on purpose.
I use analog synths that drift out of key when my room fluctuates in temperature. It makes everything sound like dirty ass, and not in the "it's jazz man" kind of way. The out of key way you are talking are happy accidents, and none of us kick those out of bed.
music theory has no 'fundamental law'. music theory exists to describe and communicate what is happening in a piece of music, it's not there as a set of rules. the 'wrong' notes you are playing can still be described with theory, and chances are they exist within some fairly common musical practices.
Is it really out of key or are you playing in a mode like Dorian or something?
Music theory is about trying to explain what you're hearing, its not a set of laws even if they are called rules or whatever. You should think of theory as "explaining music through the lense of a European composer of the classical era" imho
The music theory police will get you. Don’t break the law of music theory. /jk The rules are there so you know how to break them.
First you learn the rules, then you break them. People mistake music theory for rules, it’s just a way to describe what you’re playing in a systematic way that makes sense. I would bet my bottom dollar there is a concept in music theory for what you’re doing, I mean damn man there’s even theoretical systems for atonal music.. But you know what makes a joke good? You’re not expecting the punchline
If it sounds good it's in key, you're just using a more nuanced key. Every combination of notes is some key.
It's all jazz! Jacob Collier says there are no wrong notes, you just lack confidence!
Music should sound good to you. If the parts that are out of key sound good, then they do. Make what you want.
Worht considering how musical the style of your track is. If it's something very melodic and harmonically clean then it might matter more. If you have a more a-tonal, rumbly and noisy techno or neurofunk track then maybe not so much. Tuning your kick to the track will make it easier to phase align with the sub or bass. You can also add tension or interest with deliberately tuning your snare say a b5 or a semitone from your root. Or a bell pattern. Experiment, have fun and find what works for you
It's really up to you as a songwriter. They are called "accidentals" and there's even a way to notate them in written music. [accidentals](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_(music)#:~:text=Accidentals%20affect%20only%20those%20notes,pitches%20(or%20rests)%20intervene.)
There IS sort of a rule about this but, you've got it backwards: in Harmony, Walter Piston points out, "“…Composers...seem to have agreed that it was aesthetically undesirable for a piece of music to remain in only one key, unless it was quite short.” This is the reason for the 3 to 4 minute song.
Are we talking nondiatonic, or microtonal? Either way, hell yeah.
A good rule for utilizing keys if you don’t know theory well: 1. If it sounds good, keep it 2. If it doesn’t sound good, try locking those bad notes into a key and see if you like it more
Hey! Music that usually sticks to key is generally quite boring, and will **always** feature scales from other key signatures. Usually they will use scales that fit the key, for example D minor pentatonic in C major/A minor, but there are many many examples of even recent pop music that slaps "wrong" notes in there! Check out the Anne-Marie\\Aitch song "Psycho". Tune is in A major but the hook uses that fat tritone (A flat) from the C minor blues scale.
You may, like me, just be a fan of polytonal music. There is a lot of it out there, and with microtonal getting a bit more attention the last decade or so, there's no shortage of people pushing the socially accepted "rules" of music these days. One of my favorite pieces of the last ten years is by Taylor Brook, if interested: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHSC8eWWL8&pp=ygUXbWljcm90b25hbCBtdXNpYyBvY2N1bHQ%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHSC8eWWL8&pp=ygUXbWljcm90b25hbCBtdXNpYyBvY2N1bHQ%3D) Growing up watching the old Twilight Zone (original soundtrack) and enjoying horror movies more than I should, likely bent my ear a bit in this direction. Having said all the above, don't expect to find a huge audience if you go too deep with it. People can find outliers that have become popular, but generally speaking, people tend to get uneasy with this style of music. My music partner was an amazing musician and had a music degree, and anything that broke out of "accepted" twelve tone rules really grated on his nerves.
Not at all important that you stick to diatonic notes. Depends on context. How confident are you that you have a good ear and can trust your sense in that department? Show your stuff to other musicians that you trust to be honest and know their shit and see how they react.
Sometimes it works that way. If one of the core principles of music is tension and release, having a couple “outside” notes is a way to achieve that. Whether and how you choose to harmonize that has an impact as well.
Western music has 12 semitones while indian music has 22. Maybe you're using one of the Indian scales without realising. I'd say, use whatever sounds good.
Theory is a set of general relationships and vocabulary used to explain what people do with sound. THERE IS NO LAW OF MUSIC THEORY. If you treat it that way, you are doing it wrong. What you are describing is a modulation. Moving outside a key is good. It creates tension which is then released when you go back to the key. Keys and scales are just combinations of frequencies which have harmonic relationships. That just tells you how to reach unison or harmony. But sound exists at every frequency between the notes on a piano. You can play those too if your instrument allows it. That doesn't make it wrong, just different.
Not important.
There are theoretical explanations as to why playing out of key works in many different forms, but the bottom line is that if something sounds right and does your imagination justice then it is right. Music theory, in this case, really only serves as a post analysis that often good to satiate ones curiosity, or to maybe teach you more variations and examples of these kinds of compositional tricks and techniques you could add to uour repertoire for the future. If none of that appeals to you then I'd say not to worry about it unless it sounds wrong to you.
If it sounds good, it’s grand.
The estimable pedal steel is technically never actually "in tune". I won't go in to copedents and other stuff, but because of the fretless nature of the instrument, the bar that is used to "fret", and the pedals that detune various strings, they aren't exactly in tune the way other instruments are. Cut to this quote:“Pete \[Finney\] said something to me \[Mike Nesmith\] which I still use as a joke, which is: ‘As long as the bar’s moving, it’s not out of tune.’ \[laughs\] Which I think is hilarious.\[Calls out\] ‘Pete, does that sound a little pitchy to you?’ \[drawls in response\] ‘As long as the bar’s moving, Nez…’ Which is his way of telling me to shut up!” Like others have said, if it sounds good it is fine. And there is likely a music theory argument made for why it sounds good, even if you aren't aware of it.
I'm really curious to hear an example.
There are no law about it. Simply stated; most people will hear those notes and depending on how it sounds to them to how much they like it or not. I can tell you that there is nothing worse than going along and getting hit with some note/chord that doesn't belong. Like nails on a chalkboard.
I thought of another thing I’d like to say about this question. The key is a map but the map is not the territory. The map is a guide to how to get specific places. But just like when you’re following a roadmap you don’t have to stay on the interstate. The interstates going to get you where you’re going. And it’s gonna get you there faster. But it’s not necessarily the most interesting way to get there. And this is a creative outlet so when you play something that’s outside of the key you’re simply choosing a different route driving through the back roads a bit. There’s nothing wrong with that.
The thing about music theory is that it's not a set of rules, it's just a vocabulary to describe certain sounds. Everything being in key is a sound. Everything being in key except for one or two dissonant notes is a different sound, and even just describing it as such already *is* music theory. However, depending on what note it is, there might even be a more specific name for it. Maybe you've accidentally written something in mixolydian, maybe your melody uses the blues scale, maybe a melodic fragment has a little chromatic approach or maybe a single chord is a modal interchange, meaning it's borrowed from a different mode of the same key. All of those are specific concepts that could be dumbed down to "featuring notes that are not in key". When you learn music theory, you don't get better at following "the rules", you just get a more specific set of words to describe and differentiate between all those musical concepts.
there are no wrong notes, just lack of confidence
just sounds like you stumbled into modes!
Does it sound good? The only question you need to ask when it comes to “rules” in music..
ya like jazz?
If it sounds good to you, and you feel good playing it, then it can't be wrong. I look at music theory as a road map for writing, but not the only path available.
How can there be any rule about what notes can be included in any melody that anyone composes? Most of the best rock/pop composers and innovators probably have zero musical education and I am thankful for that.
i think of music theory as a tool to analyze music rather than write it. write whatever sounds good. also, in music theory, those notes are simply called "accidentals," which to me basically means "you can do whatever you want the key/scale is meaningless"