Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

I would avoid flash cards. A few tangible steps you could take:

- Play and read lots of sheet music. Especially by sight. It will come, I promise :)

- Complete Ear Trainer is hands down the best aural training aid out there. Be warned, it is difficult (I got it while studying for my later instrumental grades and it was initially very tough) but I’ve never come across a tool as good. Think of it as being a bit like aural flash cards with harmonic context

- Transcription is a good idea. I’ll also suggest transposition; my main instrument is horn, and for grades (at least in the UK) you had to do sight transposition as well as sight reading. Once you’re comfortable sight reading, try doing the same thing but playing it up a fourth, or down a third, etc.

I would recommend using something like tonedear.com and practicing ear training mostly. I played a lot of classical music when I was 14-15, my biggest regret is not focusing more on ear training :)

I made a (bad) video about interval recognition and how you can map to songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DILEEOybFQI

In addition to https://tonedear.com, I have used the functional ear trainer app and seen good results.

Le logiciel gratuit et open source Pure Data permet de consolider ton apprentissage. C'est tout approprié pour comprendre comment et pourquoi les notes ont telle ou telle hauteur, tu pourras facilement recréer n'importe quelle gamme, notamment les gammes microtonales. Pure data est aussi intéressant pour comprendre et composer de la musique sérielle. Aussi, pure data étant une véritable appli audio , il pourra tout aussi bien gérer la sortie audio et midi de tes instruments, et t'accompagner dans tes compos et impros. L'interface est très déroutante, mais compte tenu du ratio 'potentiel du logiciel/prix', ça mérite le détour. Le seul bémol au regard de ton post original est que pure data ne suffit absolument pas a lui seul à appréhender ce qui fait l'essence de la musique. Sur youtube et autres plateformes tu pourras trouver des sons, des effets et des preuves de concepts proprement hallucinantes réalisées avec pure data, mais les compositions musicales estampillée 100% puredata sont souvent assez fades et décevantes à mon goût.

The problem with flash cards is they don't actually help you with your problems which are remembering the theory and sight reading.

Sight reading is more than the note names, it is also the action of moving your fingers and not just finding the note on the keyboard but keeping your hands in the right position so your others fingers can do what they need to do. So you set your metronome nice and slow and play through your scales while singing the notes and get ear training thrown in for free. Flash cards will just add in an extra step here, you still have to learn those finger movements, sight reading and ear training. Just remember to speed up that metronome when things get easy. The Theory side is much the same.

The single best thing you can do is make practice a part of your daily routine, an hour a day every day. If you are doing that or close to doing that then you need to talk to your teacher about the lack of progress and possibly find a new teacher.

> Play and read lots of sheet music. Especially by sight. It will come, I promise :)

Grabbing an old hymnal works wonders for this, even if you're not religious. Most of the pieces are short and simple enough to use as exercises for sight reading and learning theory.