Do You Need Music Theory to Produce Music and Make Beats?

How many times have you heard people tell you that if you want to be a real musician you have to learn music theory or learn an instrument?

I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say a lot, especially if you mostly produce electronic music.

Personally, I think we’re in one of the best times for music creation. Not only has the cost of music creation hardware become more consumer-friendly but software has also come a long way. There are pieces of software out there right now that will walk you through scales and chords, turn them into MIDI data and allow you to drag and drop them into your DAW to help you finish a song.

For every piece of software like this, however, it seems like there is always a person who is quick to call you out for using these tools and claim that real musicians know theory and play instruments.

Today I want to discuss this topic and specifically dive into whether or not you need to learn music theory/instruments to produce music and make beats.

Enjoy!