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I am an adult beginner, taking lessons for three years with a piano teacher. As I advance towards difficult pieces, I'm finding my lack of knowledge with chords, triads etc hinder my playing. I read notes, one by one and have difficulty in distinguishing chord patterns. My teacher does incorporate some music theory but there's not enough time within the lesson for full discussion. Has anyone taken a theory course and was it helpful towards your playing?

Thank you.

My theory was little help in reading and playing chords. Better was practise in reading and playing chords, e.g. Schumann's Album for the Young, Wild Rider (#8), Folk song (#9), Spring Song (#15) and Little Romance (#19), etc.

When you meet an unfamiliar chord practise moving to it and from with another chord (from the same key or piece) until it's familiar (notation and hand position).

I have found some interesting music theory videos on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB585CE43B02669C3&feature=plcp

This guy has recorded 50 well structured videos of 15 to 30+ minutes in which he teaches music theory in an interesting way.

I hope it can help you.

Thank you!

this guy is funny to listen to, watch it though as he does know his stuff

Music theory courses offered at local community colleges are usually of pretty decent quality and really valuable in my opinion.

For personal study, I certainly recommend it - check out this thread [below] I made a little while back that I toss around frequently when theory discussions come up. There's some especially good links to lesssons on chords - all the types, how to build and recognize them, etc.

Music Theory 101 Click Here!


As far as recognizing chords on the written page goes, you could practice general sight-reading as well as sight-reading chords off charts for quicker hand and finger position recognition

Have you talked to your teacher about wanting to learn more theory? How long are your lessons? I find that lessons shorter than 45 minutes really are not as successful because we have no time to delve into things too deeply. You may want to consider increasing your lesson time to accommodate that.

However, even if that is not financially possible, talk to your teacher about wanting to learn more theory. She or he should be able to select an appropriate book for you and spend at least a few minutes each lesson talking about the coming week's assignment.

Dolmetsch Online is also a good resource.

Thank you everyone for the great feedback. One of the many reasons Piano World is a blessing!

+1 on BobPickle's link. Start at the top and work your way down.