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+1
I'd have saved a lot of time if I'd just learnt the tedious stuff by rote first off. The Tenato app is great for this btw.
It's handy - you can tell people (other musical collaborators) what key a song is in / what time signature it is and the like.
Slightly OT, @richardyot, check this video out - the slide chords in particular (it's more of an E Major tonal centre thing)
I think my no.1 rule would be learn common practice music theory. Not because it's the be all and end all of music - it isn't. But because it's a worked out system that gives you the tools to understand all the different facets of music. Not just harmony, but how to structure a piece of music. How to deal with repetition effectively. How to deal with tension and release. Counterpoint.
And once you've learnt it you realize that for any piece of music, you need to know what the rules are for that piece. The rules that you cannot break if you want your piece to sound good. Those rules will vary - but each genre (even if you just invented it) will have rules/structure that if you violate, your piece will fall apart.
Also, common practice stuff is a great launching off point for almost anything else. Jazz theory, modal music, atonal crazy stuff whatever.
Coming at this from playing in guitar bands my whole life. None of us knew any theory. In fact, we were very suspicious of those who did. What I would recommend today is to figure out other people's songs you admire. That's definitely how I learned how to play. (We didn't have tabs in my day! But if we did, I definitely would have used them.)
Learn by playing, not by studying. And that moment when you're figuring out, say, "Karma Police," and you come to the E7 in the break ("...for a minute there, I lost MYSELF...") and you have the certain knowledge that Thom Yorke stole that chord from "Space Oddity".... That's a great moment.
Now that I'm working on iOS with so many keyboards, I find I'm at a distinct disadvantage and will definitely look into theory....
Thanks for the Tenuto recommendation!
While looking for it I also stumbled on Tunerval, which looks interesting as well. The color scheme looks very similar to another app I already have InTune. Can't be a coincidence. Hopefully it's an homage, not a plagiarism.
I think like Joel 75. Know your chord prgressions. And listen to how drummers play. It depends on what you Want to produce. For Rock/Pop/Edm you don't have to know thatmuch anout about harmonies, perhaps more about loops, sidechaining et c. Lets do what we like and try to get netter. For myself, i have to open some more doors in terms of h.-progressions.
I've seen the whole film - it's excellent.
The original song is probably in E minor, sorry if I was sloppy about the key, I carried out my analysis on the white piano keys without listening back to the original track. I don't think it invalidates anything I said though (although of course it's all just IMO anyway).
Looking at the tab for the song the chords are E G C D B, which is ambiguous, but that is peobably down to the open tuning on the guitar (with the slide you can't play minor chords), but I don't think it's in E major, it's closer to E minor because the chords G and B are not in E major, they would be sharps or flats, whereas G and Bmin fit with E minor. Also the riff really can't be played on the major scale s far as I can tell. Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken of course.
@srcer
I've been also intending to give earmaster a try. Supposedly it has midi out. That's a request i made for tenuto a long time ago. The samples in tenuto are not great, and varying the timbres of what you practice with seem ideal. But i like tenuto, the practices seem practical. I need to find our more about earmaster, but if i recall you can sing notes into it.
Sorry, not seeing that one in the App Store, is it available for iPhone?
Reading this thread, hoping that theory learners might get help from it, I feel so sad. So many suggestions from all directions, from learners, from those knowing very little, from zero knowledge, from the well informed, how can any learner hope to make any sensr of this?
The only lifeline I can offer to anybody serious about their music is,
Find a book, a physical book, no wifi, no usb, no midi out, just a common practice harmony book with lots of good reviews. I used "Harmony" by Walter Piston but find whatever good one you can.
Study the tenets of harmony in a formal way,.
Don't worry about understanding any of it, bewildered confusion is normal.
Just learn the facts step by step, regardless of understanding, accept them as true.
Be confident that understanding will come later, for sure.
Understanding always takes longer than you think, and sneaks up by surprise.
You know how you learn a language, you learn the vocab, grammar rules, boredom for ages, haltingly generate sentences, understand more than what you can speak, then all of a sudden you can speak, not well, but suddenly actually communicate, and from there it only getd easier?
Harmony knowledge is like that.
I hope that helps somebody.
Huh? The OP simply wishes to know the skeletons in our musical closet. At least that's how I understood the question. I smell a flame war coming. I'm outta here. Peace.
How ironic would it be for a discussion involving harmony to devolve into a flame war? Is there tension here that needs to be released?
I will follow decibelle's lead and offer a resource. Search for Ravenspiral Guide to Music Theory. It's been passed around online for many years. Links are abundant, so choose your own adventure.
One other thing I just remembered:
I wish I hadn't let so many days go by without doing at least 10 mins of focused related work.
Every day that passes is a day you can improve, and every day that passes is a day you'll never get back.
Today is your only chance to achieve this day's worth of learning, every day you put off will put you another day behind. Even 10 mins DAILY attention can change that, draMATically.
So I warmly encourage you to get started on the learning on 28 Feb 2017. You will be gladder for it, I promise.
Seven hours and twenty minutes to sleep.
Sixteen hours and forty minutes to live.
On my wall, in direct eyeline across from my desk, is a white canvas, not much of a picture, it's a square made up, ten by ten, of a hundred smaller squares. Each one represents ten minutes of living and each day I try to be aware of them going by.
I myself am struggling to grasp the basics of music theory and I hope more of you can chime in as this thread is very informative and it's always good to know different methods of learning.
I have an ear training app named Better ears which was previously named Karajan, and I'm finding it hard to differentiate between fourth and fifth intervals and this is on the easy level.
I will continue trying but any tips to get my ears and brain registering intervals will be appreciated.
It's just practice. Don't expect instant results, but keep doing that every day for a month and you will make some progress. Do it for six months and you will make even more progress.
To riff on what @decibelle and @JohnnyGoodyear are saying, here's a quote I quite like:
Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
It's from a guy called Earl Nightingale, who ironically was a bit of a snake-oil salesman, but it's still a great quote.
I need to memorise that quote and imprint it on my minds eye in hope that it will rid me of a skill I have adopted and mastered along the way called procrastination.
Thanks.
Grey, dear friend, is all theory,
And green the golden tree of life.
Goethe
Are saying not to waste time with book study but to enjoy learning through life experience?
I can't speak for @Jocphone but IMO any time spent actually playing an instrument and/or composing is more worthwhile than pondering theory. Having said that, I think there's room for both, life is nuanced, and all the knowledge you can acquire is going to be useful one way or another.
Knowledge of theory is more of a left-brain analytical skill, whereas playing and composing happen instinctively in the flow of the moment, and require the more non-verbal intuitive right-brain thought processes. But I think any knowledge you gain, from whatever means, all gets thrown into the pot and comes out one way or another.
I love creativity but when creativity ceases and you're left with a regular routine life begins to stagnate which is why I'm always looking for something new to learn, my only problem is wanting the learning process to be easy.
@richardyot
Yes, it's not fixed tonally in EMajor, it's one of those songs (not uncommon in rock music) where the tonal centre 'shifts around' somewhat - an E Major chord, then a C Maj etc. Going back to the original post, having a bit of theory is helpful when (say) in a band, the guitar player can just say 'this is in E' then play the chords for the rest of the band
Ditto, I love learning stuff as well. But it shouldn't be too easy, or too hard. The concept of flow is that you are constantly challenged to reach just beyond your current abilities, but not so much that you get discouraged. So whatever you are doing needs to be just hard enough to keep you engaged (otherwise you will be bored), but not so hard that it's frustrating. That's the best way to make progress, you do have to push yourself a little beyond your comfort zone, but gradually and steadily.
Another way of looking at it is the Japanese concept of Kaizen, of making constant steady progress by means of continual small changes. IMO it works very very well.
I think of music theory as a quantified description of the language of music over the centuries, what has been heard and accepted to be music. New music expands the ears of listeners, and the theory then expands to describe it. So the theory describes what listeners expect to hear, and “breaking a rule” will surprise or challenge the ear. Contemporary pop music is in theory relatively simple to understand, but it often deviates (breaks rules) from the classical theory I learned in school. In the past, what was expected and accepted was narrower. We’re still evolving.
I can’t imagine anyone being able to create compelling music from the heart and soul without being able to hear it. Music doesn’t come from theory; theory comes from music.
Anyone can create art by ear, eye, or whatever sense is required. If you want to communicate to others, pick up the language however you can. However, learning the theory that describes the elements and how they’ve been put together to create successful art, whether it’s how to mix paints, how to put words together in coherent sentences, or how to organize pitch and rhythm, facilitates both the process of creation and also a larger understanding of other artists' creations.
Yes, TBH my analysis was a little reminiscent of that music critic in the sixties who wrote about the Beatles "Ionic Cadences". John Lennon thought it was a load of bollocks because they wrote by feel, and knew very little about theory in their early years (although Macca went a bit theory-mad later on, with all the key changes etc).
I'm sure Jack White wrote SNA instinctively without thinking in terms of scales or keys. But I found it interesting to analyse it nonetheless, because it works, and when you peer into the structure of the riff there is a scaffolding of theory that explain why (even if it wasn't done consciously). I've done the same exercise on a few other riffs and melodies, it's always interesting and sometimes surprising.
A composer/performer doesn’t need to know theory on an intellectual level to be influenced by it. Using your ear is, generally, based on what you’ve heard before. Copy what you’ve heard, derive new ideas from it, intentionally deviate from it. There’s usually music theory behind what you do whether you’re aware of it or not and, for instance, the Beatles, whether or not they could put the names to it, were what they were because they were critical listeners and had highly developed ideas of how music “works.”
Just that we all learn differently. I occasionally go stare blankly at something I class as theory. The odd thing probably sticks but I do limit my exposure.
Which Richard has put more eloquently. Thanks
Well, if you want to communicate an idea without searching randomly in vain for how to do it, and for your audience to accurately hear what you intend, then music theory absolutely is pretty vital.
Otherwise, sure, you can dismiss it as unimportant.
It's more nuanced than that though. Personally I agree that the knowledge is helpful, and the more the better. But as it happens many musicians have created culturally significant, even world-changing, music without knowing even the rudiments of theory. Some people can do it by ear, by feel, and it's still art.
The Beatles' ionic cadences being a case in point. They literally had no idea what the critic meant, they just put together chords that sounded good to them. Or the tonal ambiguity in the slide guitar part in Seven Nation Army, the guitar is tuned to open A, so what "should" be in a minor key (according to theory) is actually a weird mixture of minor and major (as @Igneous1 pointed out), still sounds great though.
its all about the rhythms, man. That is the primary substance you are working with when you make what we call music.