is it necessary for singers to be good at music theory?

XHellChris

Is it necessary for a pop singer to at least be good at theory? I'm someone who's aiming to be a full-time musician, currently I'm only able to sing and also trying to teach myself to play the keyboard. My knowledge for music theory is very basic and at the same time quite weak.

Gaston_Jauregui

it´s not necessary per say, but i would encourage you to study, because the more you know about music in every sense, the more you can make a living in the music business, so not just study music theory or keyboard, try to get a glimpse of every area an see what you are most interested in, production, recording singing, guitar, vocal technique, vocal harmony etc

KevinGrem

It can't hurt. But I would say it's probably unnecessary if you're a pop singer.

XHellChris

What about going to a school to study music, do you think it's necessary? Or maybe... even take exams? For example, in my country we can take pop vocals examination from London College of Music although my country isn't London , the syllabus consists of some theoretical stuff and singing.

Gaston_Jauregui

The Degree is probably gonna help you only if you’ll give lessons in a music school, which is great, but again as I said before, the more you know and apply to your singing the better you will be, for example knowing music theory will help you if you ever record background vocals and you want to do certain type of vocal arrangement, instead of just going for the regular background vocal in the chorus, which again, sometimes is the way to go, that can even help you, if you are producing someone, or simply when you are writing a song you might know what chord options you have for a melody you have in mind so there is a lot you can do with this knowledge, the more you are in this career, you are gonna want to have learned more, and be more self sufficient, because the music business is expensive and while you are getting to your goals, you wanna be able to work in music stil 😎