Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Music theory. Who loves it, who hates it???

I will admit that I'm not a fan. Any ideas of making it more interesting or relevant? I just can't seem to force myself to study it.

I love it,I just don't have a great understanding of it.

I love it too, but then again I'm a bit of a geek

Although I must say that I think children's method books make it more interesting and relevant IMHO. Have you tried any?

I would love it, if I could afford lessons from a teacher. But just reading it, I find it kinda dull. And that I hate.

I hated it when I had to learn it, until I understood it and why it was so brilliant and why music couldn't exist without it. Now I love it. You'll find that's true for many things.

I'm with Larry and Heather on this one. Theory is great. Sometimes I feel that I'm a bit slow to absorb it though. But its worth the work to understand it. I think in time it will pay dividends in my playing and ability to compose down the road.

How about both? The websites and books tend to make my eyes glaze over. It's as if the authors of those, speak in ancient Greek and I have zero idea about how it relates to the music that I know. Sometimes the jargon can be intimidating.

However, when someone can show me, with sound, with motion, or perhaps pointing at elements of a score and telling me the context, and I get it, it feels like a veil lifting.

Maybe that's my problem with it, as I have only tried to learn it on my own through books. I'm 61. I loved to study various subjects when younger. Now,I just want to learn new music and play it well. Studying? Blech!!!

Maybe if I worked with someone one on one and had it more explained to me, I might like it better. I'll admit that I'm terrible on chords. I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I finally after years could figure out the key signature of a piece! But simply memorizing stuff like the circle of fifths just turns me off.

It's one of the most basic, rudimentary elements of an understanding of theory. Next you're going to tell us you don't know the order of flats or sharps, or what a triad is. And you aspire to learn music and play it well?

I do know the order of the sharps and flats. But, I said in my intro that I did not have a good teacher when I was young. Theory was not hardly mentioned at all. The real truth is that the first time I even heard of the circle of fifths was about ten years ago.

If I play well, it is because I have listened to good music for all these years. I know how a piece should sound. And I try to play as cloe to how I hear the music in my head. I really don't know a lot of music theory. I know I probably should know it. Just rote studying is tedious. So, I end up not doing it. I'm just telling the truth.

I'd call the circle of fifths anything but rote learning, unless you are learning it without any comprehension of why you are doing so. I find it very intuitive and logical, and there are patterns in it which make perfect sense with all other aspects of theory.

I am fortunate that theory has always related to something I'm playing. When I returned to piano after about a 30-year break I started by playing oom-pah behind some fiddles. So I had to learn to read chord charts. So first I figured out major triads, and I knew I could do inversions because they're all inverted on a guitar Then at some point I had to look up what a minor triad was. And then I got curious about the chord progressions, so I picked up on the I-IV-V. So it was organic to me. By the time I took a theory course at the community college mostly it kind of tied together stuff I already had some knowledge of.

For me, that's the way to learn theory.

Cathy

One of the reasons theory can seem so irrelevant is it's often taught badly and w/out any real understanding on the part of the teacher. And music theory books usually, but not always, are not written by the most gifted writers. And/or theory books are written as textbooks for classes where the assumption is the book is a collection of formal rules to be used as a reference.

To give one example, the the circle of fifths is a beginning step w/theory. But just knowing the circle of fifths is, well, useless unless you know some way or another to apply that information to some musical goal - such as learning how to emphasise circle-of-fifth patterns to highlight phrases that use them. Or making phrases that use circle-of-fifth patterns sound related - or contrasting - in some way or another. That said, more than a few musicians know nothing about theory but play gorgeously because they have a strong sense of what the music they're playing should sound like. So they intuitively hear patterns, such as the circle of fifths, and however they do it, they know that those patterns require a certain kind of interpretive approach.

If you can find a way or a teacher to open the door and show how much it can help you in music making, well, then, that's the way to go about it. But if theory is just there for rote learning and no practical application, well, it probably is pretty useless.

BobPickle gathered a lot of resources and questions in this older thread:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1992607/Music_Theory_101_Ask_your_theo.html

link

Like I said, I have found many traditional approaches to teaching theory to be boring, bordering on painful. That said, I'm sure that some beginners reading this thread will connect with some of the material and find great value in it.

I'm glad Printer1 chimed in. Many good musicians know some of this stuff intuitively, or know it when they hear it, or play it, or see it on a score, or when they write music, but can not verbalize it in the jargon that theory folks often like to use.

For example, I still don't quite understand why the circle of fifths is made out to be such a big deal. Yes, I studied it, printed it out, looked at it over and over because so many told me it was such a foundation to music. Yes, I see that many folks use some variation on it, for chord progressions.

I am still missing something. Printer1 explains it better than most, but I am not close to the point where I understand it enough to use the Circle of Fifths as a tool in my own original compositions. And the next step to explain to someone else why I used it here, and not there. That would be understanding, and I am not close.

printer said it all. I love it, but only when - and thus because - it's relevant to what I'm playing or honestly think I will be playing in the near future (otherwise it's likely to be forgotten knowledge if unused for too long). Fortunately, knowledge of basic notation, musical form, [jazz] chord theory, and functional (and/or jazz) harmony are essential to understanding any given piece of music and so they're not only interesting to know and learn, but they also significantly facilitate accelerated learning and progress (something that interests everyone).

Thanks for the mention, too, Sand Tiger. My teacher loves the circle of fifths; he thinks it akin to a musical pandora's box - housing all kinds of secrets and wonderful information.

The lessons at http://www.musictheory.net/lessons under "Chord Progressions" near the bottom may interest you.

I have not looked at the link of Bobpickle's, yet. Although I am on the track of learning piano with theory. I am interested in writing music. In composing melodies.

I won't get into explaining about me. I've learned just a little so far. My teacher has verified that once I learn all the theory. Which is not easy. Once learned, the music comes alive on a sheet of paper. There is much understanding. It all really does work together and gives understanding. It isn't just a bunch of rationalizations so you can look at notes and play.

All this said. I still have always enjoyed music. Have always wanted to play piano. It's entertaining myself.

I love it...at least in theory...

I've been playing instruments in the folk tradition since the early 80s. I've found in 3 decades, I've absorbed much more theory than I thought. One eventually gets to a point where one has to describe or relay an idea, so one learns bit by bit. But it has been mentioned, learning anything without a practical application is tuff. Be it music theory, mathematics, or a foreign language. Essential no. There was music much before Pythagorean theorem.

Wen I had to do it, I did it. When I stopped taking lessons, I stopped it, but some must`ve stuck. To me, doing scales and other stuff is theory . . I don`t do `em!