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Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

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Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#121

Post by aidenn0 »

Rochus wrote: post #118

> What is your experience? What process or tool would you recommend to learn music theory? I play the piano since nearly 50 years and was working for some time as a professional musician and also composer/producer. To just learn the piano and play classical literature from scores you don't actually need music theory; it's a nice to know, but not a need to know. Some music theory is helpful if you want to compose musi…

Piano is, to a large degree, directly applied music theory.

Recognizing scales, chords, and arpeggios is incredibly helpful for sight-reading.

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#122

Post by Rochus »

aidenn0 wrote: post #121
Rochus wrote: post #118

> What is your experience? What process or tool would you recommend to learn music theory? I play the piano since nearly 50 years and was working for some time as a professional musician and also composer/producer. To just learn the piano and play classical literature from scores you don't actually need music theory; it's a nice to know, but not a need to know. Some music theory is helpful if you want to compose musi…

Piano is, to a large degree, directly applied music theory. Recognizing scales, chords, and arpeggios is incredibly helpful for sight-reading.

Like it is helpful to know some details about your car engine for driving, but it's not a mandatory prerequisite.

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#123

Post by mtalantikite »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #119
mtalantikite wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to hear and feel the theory, it's not only intellectual. This is the most important part, for sure. The theory needs to get into your body. I'd also suggest to the OP to find a teacher that specializes in jazz, because the practice of improvisation requires you to embody that theory. A good teacher that focuses on improvisation will help you navigate through all the different building blocks you need, whic…

> It's amazing how little you actually learn about music when all you're doing is reading sheet music as a kid. I would add that historically, most musicians did not read music or theorize. They were practitioners who picked up the skill by listening to others, practicing, and improvising. Improvisation was what historically characterized musicianship, not theory, not sight-reading. As the philosophical joke goes: an…

Totally agree. The practice is what's important. My teacher won't let you look at sheet music for songs at first, he'll make you listen to Donna Lee 1000 times, sing it and work it out yourself before you check your work with the sheet music.

Which reminds me of an anecdote in Hampton Hawes' autobiogrophy [1] where some famous teacher convinces him to take a lesson, after which Hampton writes he didn't really care for all of that theory stuff, he learned from playing with people like Mingus and Charlie Parker.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#124

Post by byproxy »

For a traditional approach to common-practice music theory, I’d very much recommend the lessons at https://www.musictheory.net/lessons

It basically goes over what you’d expect to learn in the first few semesters of university-level music theory (though, that might’ve changed since my time…).

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#125

Post by adrianmonk »

arjvik wrote: post #37

Lots of people suggesting great ways to get around reading sheet music! But what's a way of getting fast at reading sheet music? I picked up the piano again after quitting several years ago, and one thing I'm really struggling with is glancing at sheet music and being able to play a phrase—I need to step out one note at a time. And I'm hopeless with ledger lines, I have to stick my face close and count the lines to s…

> what's a way of getting fast at reading sheet music?

I can answer because, while I'm a thoroughly mediocre pianist, I'm really fast at sight reading.

First of all, realize that this is a slow process. You won't get quick results. You just have to practice it lots and lots over a long period of time. But if you do, you will eventually get there. It will gradually become second nature.

Another thing is to regularly devote time to practicing the skill of reading specifically. One way to do that is to get a gigantic pile of sheet music[1] (of an appropriate difficulty level), grab something off the top, read/play through it ONCE, and then never look at it again[2]. Keep working your way through the pile as you have time to practice.

Playing through a piece multiple times is great for other things, but if you want to practice reading, you need music that you've never seen before. Otherwise, you'll rely on memory, which is not reading. (Or if you've heard it before, you may rely on your ear, which is also not reading.)

Yes, this process is going to feel tedious and annoying. Pausing and naming notes, like you said. But try to see that as a good sign. It means you're really focusing on the things that you're weak at.

Once you've gotten the basics down through practice, there are two other things you can do to boost your ability to sit down and play through a piece by sight reading it.

One is to understand the structure and theory well enough that, if you can't read every note, you can make educated guesses. If you think about the notes that you've just been playing and realize they form an Am7 chord followed by a D7 chord, then you can predict that the next chord might be a G or Gmaj7. Then you can just check that the notes you see now are in fact one of those. But, this trick has limitations. Sometimes music does clever and unexpected things, and then this trick hurts more than it helps. In those moments, you're better off just focusing on what it says on the page instead of trying to understand it.

The other thing is to read ahead. As you're playing one measure, you look at notes which are a measure or two ahead. This requires a bit of multitasking and juggling stuff in your short term memory, but it's doable with some practice, and things are less likely to fall apart when you encounter a certain part that's a little more complicated.

---

[1] There are lots of places you can get tons of free sheet music online. One place is https://imslp.org/ .

[2] Or do, if you want, but just be aware that that doesn't count towards practicing reading.

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#126

Post by Aidevah »

shirleyquirk wrote: post #47

I grew up in a family of classical musicians, got a degree in music, and was briefly a professional classical musician myself. So my advice may be very out of touch with the experience of someone learning for the first time, but my experiences learning beyond European classical music theory left me feeling insulted. The basics of music theory are presented as though they are the foundations upon which all subsequent…

The pianist Charles Rosen mentioned a longstanding error when most pianists play Chopin's B-flat minor sonata: when they repeat the exposition they begin from the Doppio movimento, instead of the very beginning. Rosen's argument is pretty persuasive, and it's really head-scratching why pianist continue to make this mistake for so long. My impression was that most classical musicians aren't very bright, at least the pianists are no smarter than tenors :). More seriously, it is lamentable that critical thinking is not exactly encouraged when learning an instrument, and many are happy to play what they were told to without thinking. Although I note with some optimism that after nearly 200 years things are looking up for the Chopin sonata, during the latest Chopin competition, all contestants went back to the very beginning when they played the repetition of the exposition.

I find that at least the musicology literature is much more sceptical about received wisdom. Iconoclasts like Richard Taruskin (R.I.P.) have become mainstream figures, and I don't think you can possibly look at music theory (specifically for Western literate music in the classical tradition) entirely innocently after reading through some of his work, not least his massive tome on music history. Hopefully the average university student who took a music course semester or two are better informed now thanks to Taruskin and others like him.

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#127

Post by analog31 »

mtalantikite wrote: post #123
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's amazing how little you actually learn about music when all you're doing is reading sheet music as a kid. I would add that historically, most musicians did not read music or theorize. They were practitioners who picked up the skill by listening to others, practicing, and improvising. Improvisation was what historically characterized musicianship, not theory, not sight-reading. As the philosophical joke goes: an…

Totally agree. The practice is what's important. My teacher won't let you look at sheet music for songs at first, he'll make you listen to Donna Lee 1000 times, sing it and work it out yourself before you check your work with the sheet music. Which reminds me of an anecdote in Hampton Hawes' autobiogrophy [1] where some famous teacher convinces him to take a lesson, after which Hampton writes he didn't really care fo…

I'm a jazz musician, and have likewise learned very little theory. On the other hand, there is a lot of attrition in jazz, so watch out for survivor bias. And it depends on what you want to do. Everybody I know who is active in composition and arrangement is fluent in theory. Being able to create original material is super cool and valuable. And there were certainly theory experts among the greats.

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#128

Post by jdiez17 »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #119
mtalantikite wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to hear and feel the theory, it's not only intellectual. This is the most important part, for sure. The theory needs to get into your body. I'd also suggest to the OP to find a teacher that specializes in jazz, because the practice of improvisation requires you to embody that theory. A good teacher that focuses on improvisation will help you navigate through all the different building blocks you need, whic…

> It's amazing how little you actually learn about music when all you're doing is reading sheet music as a kid. I would add that historically, most musicians did not read music or theorize. They were practitioners who picked up the skill by listening to others, practicing, and improvising. Improvisation was what historically characterized musicianship, not theory, not sight-reading. As the philosophical joke goes: an…

Your last point is one of my long-standing pet-peeves about language teaching methods. It seems the universally accepted practice is to give students mountains of vocabulary to study, grammar rules that make no sense, and a little bit of speaking practice.

It is no wonder that native speakers of language X have a characteristic accent when speaking in a different language. When they try to read a word in the foreign language, they default to their native language's pronunciation heuristics.

That is completely backwards from how children learn languages. They are exposed to the sounds and intuitively figure out the rest.

Re: Ask HN: Tools to learn music theory?

#130

Post by scarecrowbob »

If you are mostly wanting to play written classical music, you might consider just not learning "theory" per se. Much of what you might learn studying theory directly has little application for musicians early in their practice.

My experience (as a practicing musician who works in several generas) is that theory is great when it's explaining things you already kind of understand, and that gaining understanding comes from a lot of playing and performing things other folks have written.

That is, first we learn the music by ear or eye, then we have a feeling for what sounds "right" in some situations, then we find a theoretical explanation for that feeling so we can replicate it quickly.

If you're just wanting to get to where you read faster, more reading is the answer, and lots of sight reading easy material. The more you do this, the more patterns you'll see and the logic of what you're seeing will be easier to understand.

To your question, though, a jump start on "learning theory" can be had by learning to play songs off lead sheets (like the Real Book or (better) the Great Gig Book). This Django book is an example of what I mean:

https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/jazz_band/sheet/fakebook...

It may seem daunting and it might seem like if you're just wanting to read faster or learn theory that it's a bad path.

However, the process of learning the chords in a tune, figuring out which inversions work for the progressions, having to figure out a bass line that work, and being able to play with ornamentation can be an excellent playground for generating the kinds of questions that music theory can help answer.

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