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

[jancivil]

I had a lot of exciting moments in succession in 'Diatonic Harmony' at community college; the thing was, the teacher of the course played everybody's result on the piano.
So it turns out I had a knack for it (I had ideas, I was trying to stretch the procedures to get my sevenths and ninths and such in there) so there were 'Oh shit yeah' moments. I liked the 'weak progressions'. I sounded like Debussy in there.

[Jafo]

Realizing its proper place: it's a tool to be used as I see fit. Great for understanding, lousy for creating.

[acYm]

a bit of a variation on what's been said already... I think you're either below or above music theory, I was underneath it for quite a long time, but not anymore and I sure as shit don't miss it - I have to think about it a whole lot less now while either producing or just playing and everything feels more logical and natural.

[IncarnateX]

Only downside I can think of is that after music school my music became more structured and “schooled”, so to speak, and lost some spontaneity, creativity and chaos and thus some orginality. However I would eat this downside any time in favor of all the technical things I could do after training. It is like being able to play one key only on a keyboard compared to being able to play all of them.

[shonky]

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.

I think knowing theory is helpful but I find myself figuring out what the basic chords and key are after writing them now. I think that once you get into extreme levels of reharmonisation that pretty much anything can go over anything, it's only your own aesthetic choices that determine whether it is right for the piece.

[woggle]

I think that once you get into extreme levels of reharmonisation that pretty much anything can go over anything, it's only your own aesthetic choices that determine whether it is right for the piece.

which brings me to my big helpful advice that I must have read about 1975 - "any note can go with any other note" (I think that opens the Persichetti that jancivil mentioned) the extension of which is any sound can go with any other sound, before after or at the same time - Cage's proposition, although I doubt he was the first.
and
"make a mistake, make it twice and call it a technique" which is my teenage joke from the 70s that is supported by academic work on music as a probabilistic system that plays with learned expectations.

obviously there is functional theory - the underpinnings of conventional style which one needs to play with whatever style is at hand - but any more than that has a class or ideological basis. That is, one's interest in or application of theory as a moral code has no universal or objective truth

[imrae]

Being able to hear and think in terms of named intervals and knowing how those dyads vary in dissonance is a really fundamental building block.

Reading/writing sheet music is very helpful for communicating with other musicians and nearly a prerequisite to learn more about harmony.

From there, four-part chorale harmonisation is a very powerful exercise in "learning the rules so you can choose when you break them". Most things that sound a little bit bad can be improved using those principles. If you notice that something sounds good and breaks the "rules" that's fine too, figure out what you like about it and use that more.

[ChamMusic]

The ability to ignore it

EXACTLY!

When I'm drafting / sketching initial ideas for a piece of music in whatever genre, I rarely, (if ever) think actively / consciously about 'Music Theory' in anyway whatsoever...I just get on with it directly...Either just playing it or sometimes writing it down on manuscript as the ideas flow through my head.

As I redraft and refine a piece, I will very occasionally think specifically about 'Music Theory' if a particular idea is just not working...asking myself 'why?'

If you're constantly and actively thinking about various aspects of 'Music Theory' whilst creating, then you've sort of missed the point and it will inevitably just 'get in the way'!

[donkey tugger]

Tune the guitar before recording it?

I can see that theory is useful for some people, particularly those who need to play other people's music, but I can't say I've ever really missed it for what I want to do.

When people start talking about it, it all seems a bit weird and my brain switches off - like literary criticism and theory; all well and good but you don't need to know it to enjoy a book, or indeed write one.

[IncarnateX]

When people start talking about it, it all seems a bit weird and my brain switches off

Arh man. Sounds like the mind block of an exam. You need comfort

like literary criticism and theory; all well and good but you don't need to know it to enjoy a book, or indeed write one.

Yeah for some but not everyone has natural talent and must struggle instead. I know because I was/am one of them.

At the time I went to music school I worked with a song writer who knew his guitar chords only and made wonderful tunes by ear alone. At music school we had few autoddidacts too that had played since childhood and whose skills in what they did exceeded the level of theory we learned (they were bored, no wonder). However, in both cases, I seemed that they already had chosen their path for the rest of their lives and I find it dubious whether they would have been able to do something entirely different if they wanted to. This is another point where theory has helped me and still does. I many cases I know precisely what to do differently if I want to change my style or seek inspiration from a new genre by analyzing the core of it.

[JoseC.]

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.

Schoenberg said that one should compose first and analyze later.

[JoseC.]

my memories of 1980 are a bit fuzzed.

As they say about the 80's Madrid scene, "if you can remember it you were not actually there"

[jancivil]

I can see that theory is useful for some people, particularly those who need to play other people's music, but I can't say I've ever really missed it for what I want to do.

When people start talking about it, it all seems a bit weird and my brain switches off - like literary criticism and theory; all well and good but you don't need to know it to enjoy a book, or indeed write one.

Well, as your music is kind of conventional at least in my experience of it, you're using 'music theory' in the same ways people typically do to grasp 'other people's music'; you understand the conventions and even the why of it in a mechanical sense. It's like McCartney who says he has no use for it but he's done it all under the hood, in a subconscious fashion.

This is a very common misconstruction of what theory is; it isn't theory, it's mechanics. Equally there are people that understand literally what's 'under the hood' (of the automobile) without needing to read it.

It's not analogous to criticism at all. It's more like grasping grammar and syntax. I forgot half a century ago how to diagram a sentence, this came naturally to me. But music theory can go beyond that in terms of acquiring vocabulary. Not everyone is interested in that, but I grew up under modern jazz and extended vocabulary may indicate the need for 'reading'. So Persichetti '20th Century Harmony' was a compendium of new words and a suggestion of new language for me. I have heard of but don't know what literary theory really is; I do know the convention of the three-act screenplay and principles of drama that fit that. Yeah, I read up on it.
I would probably need to study the form of novels before I tried to write even a novella. I'd be shite at it so that's a pass for me.

[jancivil]

The ability to ignore it

EXACTLY!

When I'm drafting / sketching initial ideas for a piece of music in whatever genre, I rarely, (if ever) think actively / consciously about 'Music Theory' in anyway whatsoever...I just get on with it directly...Either just playing it or sometimes writing it down on manuscript as the ideas flow through my head.

As I redraft and refine a piece, I will very occasionally think specifically about 'Music Theory' if a particular idea is just not working...asking myself 'why?'

If you're constantly and actively thinking about various aspects of 'Music Theory' whilst creating, then you've sort of missed the point and it will inevitably just 'get in the way'!

Miles Davis to John McLaughlin (recording one of those records): Play the guitar like you don't know how to play the guitar.

You have to know things to forget them.

I call on what I know about spacing or general things like that. But it's shit I don't have to puzzle on for long, it's basics. I speak certain 'languages' in music well enough to not have to worry about the primary school sort of business.

Now, regarding 'other people's music', I originally took 'Music Theory: Diatonic Harmony' (and talked myself into Chromatic without that prerequisite, so as to have them concurrently) in order to grasp JS Bach which I was not getting by analyzing it with my ear. And so conventional part-writing is part of my wheelhouse, the Common Practice Paradigm. Today I'm embracing freedom and am not likely to call on that again anytime soon.

[donkey tugger]

I can see that theory is useful for some people, particularly those who need to play other people's music, but I can't say I've ever really missed it for what I want to do.

When people start talking about it, it all seems a bit weird and my brain switches off - like literary criticism and theory; all well and good but you don't need to know it to enjoy a book, or indeed write one.

Well, as your music is kind of conventional at least in my experience of it, you're using 'music theory' in the same ways people typically do to grasp 'other people's music'; you understand the conventions and even the why of it in a mechanical sense. It's like McCartney who says he has no use for it but he's done it all under the hood, in a subconscious fashion.

This is a very common misconstruction of what theory is; it isn't theory, it's mechanics. Equally there are people that understand literally what's 'under the hood' (of the automobile) without needing to read it.

It's not analogous to criticism at all. It's more like grasping grammar and syntax. I forgot half a century ago how to diagram a sentence, this came naturally to me. But music theory can go beyond that in terms of acquiring vocabulary. Not everyone is interested in that, but I grew up under modern jazz and extended vocabulary may indicate the need for 'reading'. So Persichetti '20th Century Harmony' was a compendium of new words and a suggestion of new language for me. I have heard of but don't know what literary theory really is; I do know the convention of the three-act screenplay and principles of drama that fit that. Yeah, I read up on it.
I would probably need to study the form of novels before I tried to write even a novella. I'd be shite at it so that's a pass for me.

I was sort of referencing literary criticism in that (and this is from many, many moons ago..) it's similar in a way how poems/prose are dissected down to a very granular level to see how they achieve the effect they do. So they look at higher level level stuff like themes and imagery, social context etc, right down to metre and rhythm, the sounds of words. Of course that's a gross oversimplification, and there are many schools of thought;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_theory

Personally, I found it massively pretentious and often intentions and meanings seemed to be ascribed to pieces, which I'm sure a lot of the time the writers never in a million years considered. At least in music theory you don't have that.

And you're right, I am more 'conventional' in approach (I like summat you can sing!) - more James Patterson than James Joyce (arggghhhhh!)