Let's Talk about Music Theory

Let's talk a little about music theory.

Is it important, yes?

Do you need to sit an exam or take a course in order to understand music theory?

No, you don't have to sit an exam or take a course to understand music theory, you can just ask your piano teacher. It will take extra time so your lesson time needs to increase, or take 2 lessons a week, theory can be online too! You can also follow the course books by ABRSM or another exam board for their theory exams.

Music theory can seem scary and daunting at first, but it's not, it's just trying to put an explanation to the sounds we hear and why they work together. Sometimes those explanations can use complicated language and specific musical terms, but this vocabulary can be learned just like a foreign language.

How you approach music theory also depends on your current skill set. If you’re not comfortable with sight reading music or scores, begin with listening to the music and go by ear rather than the score. Try to describe in your own words what is happening at each stage of the music and actively listen to it repeatedly. This is the beginning, but a very crucial point, you have to be able to hear what is going on in the different layers of the music before you can put a label on it.

Some questions to ask yourself first:

Is there a change of mood in the music and then a return to something heard before? Is it a melody returning, or an overall sound/ chord progression heard before?

Does anything repeat but change slightly?

What emotions or pictures do you have when you hear each section of the music?

Does the melody or harmony have more of an effect on these pictures/emotions?

Do you feel tension or unease and then a release or a resolved calmer feeling at points in the music?

If available, when you have asked yourself these questions and are quite familiar with the music, look for an analysis, or discussion of the music on YouTube or a tutorial. Some wonderful teachers out there have uploaded video tutorials with an analysis/ explanation of some very popular piano works from beginner to advanced. You may not understand the terminology at first, but the examples they point out and play, can go a long way with your ear to help you identify similar patterns in other music.

This also applies to works written for anything other than the piano too.

Next go to an instrument, and by ear try to pick out the main melodies that are in the work. Or even if it's a song, the chorus or verse.

Have the music playing beside you and take only a few notes at a time.

This is difficult at first, remembering what you just played, so have some form of notation that makes sense to you so you can be helped to remember.

Now pay attention to the melody as you play. How does the distance between each note effect the next note? Does the melody rise, or does it fall?

Is the movement stepwise, notes beside each other, or does it skip a note?

Does the distance between each note make a sad, happy or uneasy sound?

These questions are to help you become aware of the melody line you hear. As you progress you can try to pick out by ear other layers of the music, the bass guitar or drums if it's pop/rock style. If it's orchestral pick out any other instruments and try to hear them at each part of the work. Try to pick out what is being played on your own instrument.

Now that you have practiced the above, you can put the theory on top, gradually step by step, as now it is no longer abstract. The theory is just a label put in something you can already hear, that will make it easier to remember.

To begin you need to know your scales, major and harmonic minor and be able to play them. Arpeggios also major and harmonic minor, as the first three notes of an arpeggio form a 3-note chord in root position. This is very handy.

You don't need to be able to play them at superfast speeds but knowing them will help and the key signatures. Knowing your intervals, relates to being able to Identify chords by sheet music and by ear. Trying to sing each note of the chord and measuring the distance between each note will point you in the direction of what type of chord it is for theory.

This is the point where you would want to improve your level of sight reading, but if it's an issue just keep it in mind for the future. The more you improve your sight-reading the more patterns you will know, and the easier listening and playing the music will be.

Take each scale as you learn it and make triad chords beginning on each note of the scale.

So C major scale, second note is D. The Triad beginning on D in C major would be D, F, A. Beginning on E - E, G, B and so on.

Notice how the pattern is skipping a note at a time, this is what a root position triad looks like on the keyboard. Inversions of chords are where you rearrange the order, they look different to root position and weaken the effect of the chord. C, E, G or C major root position triad would become E, G, C and G, C, E. Notice how the spaces or distance between the notes has changed and the sound has altered slightly, but its the same chord.

If you build a triad chord from each note of the scale in root position you will get the following chords:

1- major (Tonic)

2- minor (Supertonic)

3- minor (Mediant)

4- major (Sub Dominant)

5- major (Dominant)

6- minor (Sub Mediant)

7- diminished (Leading tone)

Every major scale from the circle of fifths follows this pattern.

With all the major scales you have learned so far, play each chord and try to make a chord progression or harmonic progression. You will find that 5 or dominant to the tonic or 1 will give a finished sound to the progression.

Replace that with another chord to 5 or dominant and the music does not sound finished or ended. This is the idea of cadences or ending points of music.

The above suggestions will give you plenty to practice, and to listen to. Always remember music is sound, once you can isolate and hear what is going on, than putting the theory onto it makes everything so much easier. It’s not abstract anymore, and hopefully this will help you along your own musical journey.

I will see you again for my blog in September in the mean time check out my YouTube channel- click the link below in the stay connected section for music posted weekly, and everyone have a relaxed, musical month.