How to sound less offensive than Coldplay.

Music theory can be used to create music and the kind of music that music theory creates is often very bland, I'm sorry to break it to you kiddo, I hate giving people bad news.

Why?
If I tell you to get to Aberdeen from London, how would you want to do it? Car with a map, by plane straight there, by train... Who's first thought was "I'll start out on foot, get a bit lost, get some help ... meet an interesting old guy with odd ideas, break the law in a minor way.." what entertains us is the journey and the story and the suspense and guess what there is precious little of when you know what's going to happen next.

How?: in order to answer this question I will use the words "before", "done" "it's", "because" "been". You're disappointed ... okay I'll explain it using the words "dinosaur", "bikini", "explosion", "super hero" and "kipper" - it's probably a lot more exciting hearing that, oh boy you might think, how's he going to use the words dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland I bet he can't manage to use the words dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland, even now you might be hoping I'll use the words dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland but in your secret heart you know I'm not really going to use dinosaur, bikini, explosion, super-hero and kipper to describe why music theory is bland. I'm sorry kiddo I hate giving people bad news.

How?: we know the sounds, they're cultural artefacts. If a bikini clad super hero has to stop a dinosaur from demolishing downtown Tokyo, you know the dinosaur will be defeated and probably not rehabilitated to be a useful member of society wearing a bowler hat and a kipper tie. Explosion!

But that's cheating! Yes if there were any rules. The people that dislike music that doesn't abide by some set of rules are a bit like people annoyed because paintings aren't more like photos... photos are more like photos, so lets do something else.

The Nashville system uses roman numerals to denote the diatonic chords in a song. So the 12 bar blues can be written ||: I | I | I | I | IV | IV | I | I | V | IV | I | I :|| that's the I(one) chord say C major, the IV (four) chord F major and V (five)chord G major or in the key of Bb I(one) chord Bb major, the IV (four) chord Eb major and V (five)chord F major - the notation allows people to transpose quickly.

whatever you do, DON'T use lower case letter to denote minor chords in the Nashville notation: I ii iii IV V vi viib5 isn't big or clever.

A lot of times the most interesting sounds are distinctly NOT the chords you're expecting ... turning them to a minor or a diminished and so on sounds great