Intro to Theory

What's so important about Theory, anyway?

What lies beneath it all

Theory can often hold the key to learning a subject right; once you have the underpinnings of the area you are interested in, the rest comes naturally with practice; and right practice makes perfect, whereas misguided practice leads to questionable results especially given the time spent.

Shortcuts don't work

The shortcuts many people are looking for simply don't exist. There are some ways of learning that are more effective, but there is no automatic or easy way to learn complex subjects. The quickest path is often what appears to be the slowest, hardest, most boring path there is. This is deceptive, because so many people fall into the same trap, which ultimately defeats a large percentage of those who aspire to excellence.

A point of reference and a vocabulary

The study of theory opens up a new, practical world of possibilities within the subject area, gives the practicioner a point of reference, supplies a vocabulary to discuss abstract concepts, and orders the mind.

Right practice makes perfect

It has been said before that "practice makes perfect". This could be better stated as "right practice makes perfect". A classic example is the guitar student who picks up the guitar and strums around for a half-hour a day VS the student who diligently learns and practices scales and chords, then learns songs to see how those patterns play out in actual music. At the end of a few years, they can both improvise, but the guitar student who also studied the theory of music has a better chance of hitting the right notes, because there are generally only a handfull of good solutions to any musical problem - whereas the player who ignored theory has a more hit-and-miss approach. Practicing the right way leads to more effective use of time and better results.

You're only as good as your references

How do you know what right practice is? You go to the theory first, and then you find good references. Because references are templates upon which we take our first shakey steps towards mastery, the references have to be as good as possible. Take two equally talented animators, give one of them information on how a cat jumps, how a dog runs, combined with access to video footage of animals moving, and make the other animator work out of their own imagination. Which one will produce the most compelling creature animations? That's not to say the imagination is not important - but the imagination works best in the arts when it has a foundation to base ideas upon.

It's all connected

The content on these pages is necessarily broad, because the different arts are interconnected in not always obvious ways; a digital artist designing futuristic cities for a movie or game could benefit from some of the sketching skills of the industrial designer, and an exposure to basic building structural theory can broaden their ideas of what is possible and believable. The game developer who is conversant in the principles of 3d modeling and 3d animation has a better grasp of what could be graphically possible and compelling in the game, as well as an improved ability to communicate with the art team. The self-taught musician who is exposed to music theory broadens their possibilities of expression, and could conceivably be inspired by also gaining an understanding of related theories such as the principles of design, and color theory. The conceptual artist who is "stuck" can find inspiration in the geometric world of Buckmeinster Fuller, Oragami, or Biomechanics. No matter what the field of endeavor, they are all connected underneath it all.