What one bit of Music Theory was really helpful that caused your songwriting to improve ?

[MasterTuner]

If you could choose one or two bits of music theory that were a lightbulb moment that really enhanced your songwriting, what would it be ?

e.g. when you learned to use non-chord notes to create tension
or.. you found out that you could borrow chords from the parallel minor and use them
or.. when you discovered that you could mirror your melody a 5th up...

Or it could be a mixing or mastering tip too.

[Niklashe]

Twelve tone theory and DNA music. Not kidding.

[J. Smith]

The best moment for me was when I realized that chord progressions can't be copyrighted.

[IncarnateX]

Seriously just about all of it: Learning scales, triads, tetrads, chorale harmonization and especially training the species of counterpoint over a cantus firmus The distance between what I could do without such training and with such training is almost surreal. Though, I mainly make electronic music and is not a song writer.

[dark water]

Passing notes.

[aMUSEd]

The ability to ignore it

[IncarnateX]

The ability to ignore it

That does actually make sense to me even if you are joking. Getting all the insights into your muscles and brain to an extent where you just do it and don’t have to analyze or think about what you are doing is the ultimate goal of training, imo.

[MasterTuner]

thanks all... thats helpful.

[goleat]

Curiously, before getting into the theory and practice (quite basic) of music, I used to achieve more complex chords, melodies and arpeggios that sounded very good and vivid.

Now, knowing a bit of music theory, I often find myself limited or slow when it comes to finding a progression of chords that I like. This may be because I am not used to relating the imagination when composing with theory and practice.

I think it's just a matter of getting used to the skills as a whole.

Still, knowing about scales and chords helped me understand what I was doing.

[nineofkings]

Learning about unusual extensions and non-chord tones was big. I'm still working on it, mostly by trying to use more sus chords without feeling like I have to resolve them

[ChamMusic]

a lightbulb moment that really enhanced your songwriting

My parents bought me a piano...composing songs on the trumpet had become a real bind! :0)

Seriously - my big leap was a TASCAM Cassette -based Porta 2 multitrack recorder! It was all well and good composing song ideas at the piano, but suddenly I could layer everything together and experiment with various textures and different instruments combos etc.

[Scotty]

For me....

Understanding how to use a common note to pivot to a new chord or modulate to another key influenced my guitar progressions

Understanding that passing tones aren't necessarily part of the chord helped me to understand musical passages as written and influenced my writing to explore the neck of the guitar a bit more.

Understanding that diminished chords could resolve in any direction and how useful they are.

There is more I distinctly remember having those moments where you go " ahhh that is how it is done". My ear was rarely ahead of my playing in the earlier days so basic theory informed by ear and led me to understand music a bit from the outside in... If I had been born with a better ear I likely could have figured it out instinctively but that wasn't me.

[jancivil]

I was able to put 2 Revox B-77s side by side and run the tape over both playback heads and mix that with the input (learned off the back cover of that Eno record, seems like Music for Airports but my memories of 1980 are a bit fuzzed), afforded to me in 'Lab' at SFCM, they happened to have all that set up in there.
So the sums and differences colliding and the degradation over time due to the tape medium, all this stuff generated through this system was a sort of Eureka moment. I used rather pure tones I recorded doing feedback with the very nice speakers and the microphone in there.

As to music theory proper, there is no one moment. I benefited from having to part-write incessantly in the course at CCM, advanced and tortured chromatic harmony was most of the course. It was intense, and not normal. But I was writing freely before then. Not extensively, little idiomatic guitar pieces.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

If you could choose one or two bits of music theory that were a lightbulb moment that really enhanced your songwriting, what would it be ?

I'll let you know in a few years

[ChamMusic]

As to music theory proper, there is no one moment.

And that's how it should be, surely!?