For a comp sci major with years of theoretical studies, I’ve proven to be unbelievably immune to learning music theory. I know about scales and chord progressions, and basic harmonies if I’m allowed to calculate them. I’m completely useless with time signatures.
Trying to do something djenty, I’ve previously failed over and over to intuitively create some nice-sounding riffs and odd time signatures. So I had to resort to using theory.
Luckily I found this amazing YouTube channel: Hack Music Theory. It teaches music theory completely based on practical tips and “hacks” to fix problems with various parts of composing, recording and arranging. And it’s very oriented towards metal.
In uni our calculous teacher called this “engineering solutions”, basically a way of demeaning applied methods in place of deep understanding and thinking your way through a problem. For some of us, not engineers yet and all, that sounded cooler and more useful – and I was always team “engineering solutions”.
