We‘d like to teach music, not music theory
by Gabriel Gatzsche
At Audanika we are working at a system that allows SoundPrism to teach itself to the player. This tutorial framework will show you — step by step — how to play and compose with SoundPrism.
In that context I had an interesting discussion with my brother David this morning. David is a music teacher, co-founder and musical consultant of Audanika.
We discussed the objective of our tutorial system. My Brother: „Our goal should be to teach music theory!“. I replied: „No, I think we should help people to compose or create better music.“ After a short discussion we concluded that any music theory — as beautiful as it might be — is useless if it doesn‘t help to improve musical skills.
From our education we are used to be confronted with theories and after that we are told where to apply the acquired knowledge. But life teaches us in the opposite way: typically we first make experiences and after that we find the formulas that describe what we experienced. Knowledge acquired in that way is internalized more easily.
It is related to the reality and not to a theory. It is colorful, not black and white. Therefore when developing tutorials we want to make sure that the player of SoundPrism mainly makes musical experiences. Teaching of music-theoretical knowledge will only play a role when it directly helps to improve the playing and the composition skills of the player.
