Reddit reviews The Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis (Second Edition) (The Musician's Guide Series)

Your best bet is to get a decent theory textbook. It might not always be material that you think is applicable to what you do, but it will set the groundwork for more specialized study.

Clendinning/Marvin

Laitz

Some of the material in the above is also found in Seth Monahan’s YouTube, www.musictheory.net, and www.openmusictheory.com.

I also suggest Understanding Rock to get an idea of what analysis of rock music can look like, though you’ll probably need a grasp on a good chunk of textbook theory before you get there. (Same as for this article, and the knowledge requirement is probably even higher for that one.)

So many people seem to have this idea that they're just going to "learn theory." Like that's it.

Like there will be this AHA I NOW KNOW THE MUSICAL THEORY I CAN NOW WRITE THE MUSIC.

But in all seriousness. Yeah you will learn theory. If music is going to be a life long pursuit you will never STOP learning theory. Unless you're not serious about it. Then you might just learn what I IV V means write some pop songs and stop there. I digress..

First thing. Learn to read music. DO NOT READ TAB. Learn all the notes on the fret board. Not like you can count up to it and realize that something is a C. Like you KNOW IT. Point to it and you know what note it is. Start reading music here.

Another good way to learn the notes on the fretboard is to pick 4 triads of different qualities. One major, one minor, one diminished, and one augmented triad and play them in all inversions in all positions on the neck while saying the note names. And then pick 4 new triads the next day. Do not just learn the shapes. This will probably take you 2 hours on your first day if you're as thorough as you should be.

If you don't know what any of that means that's fine for now. Those are some pretty basic concepts that you'll learn pretty soon if you're serious about this.

This guy knows his shit. Learn from him. Take it slow. Don't just watch the video and go "Yeah that makes sense." You need to KNOW IT. Drill the concepts a few hours a day.

You could buy a music text book.

Or get an actual guitar teacher. I'd recommend learning jazz because unlike a lot of rock or pop players they actual know their shit about theory and their instrument. You kinda have to know your shit to play jazz. Either that or classical. But jazz theory is more in line with modern music.

Segway: Buy a Real Book

Start off in there with Autumn Leaves or something else easy.

If you're really beginner-y start here.

While that guy's course is good it really focuses on technique. You learn basically no theory from that guy. Just shapes and tabs. Doesn't even use standard notation. His jazz course is ok. It's on his side bar.

This guy's stuff is good for a beginner in jazz. But a beginner in jazz is not exactly beginner level for some other genres. I think you need a pretty solid level of understanding to understand what he's talking about.

That should get you started..

[Edit] Some people have this disconnect. They think that learning theory is somehow separate from song writing. Learning theory will open so many doors to you and show you why and how things work. So that you can actually understand what you're doing.

If I wanted to build a house I could just jump in and start building a house. I'd probably come across a lot of problems. My first house might suck and have a leaky roof or bad plumbing or something. But I could probably learn a long the way. Maybe after I build a ton of crappy houses I could figure out for myself why things work.

Or.. I could look through the writings of the millions of house builders that came before me and see what they found out works and what doesn't. Then maybe my first house will have some issues and it might not be so easy to pull off but I'd be better off learning from the people who came before me than trying to figure it out myself. By doing this I have just saved myself the time of trying to rediscover the wheel so to speak.

That's what learning theory will do for you.

Most college music theory texts have a companion workbook filled with quizzes and practice problems/questions. Where I went to undergrad we used Tonal Harmony and the school I'm going to now uses The Musician's Guide to Theory and Analysis. Not sure if that qualifies as being "accessible," but it's good material if you're willing to part with all those dollars. Text books sure are expensive.

At my school everybody takes classical theory for at least 2 years.

We used this book

Here's the work book

You'll probably need the answers too since you're teaching yourself

Really what I got out of it was being able to just instantly know chord spelling. I don't really have to think about a lot of things any more. It's just second nature. You don't really use classical counterpoint rules unless you plan on composing classical music. But it's a good vehicle for learning theory since it's rather specific and you have to consider a lot of things at once.

We use this book in our jazz theory class

But mainly I learned most from the lectures since our professor is really good. We also have to write a jazz tune every week and learn and improvise on it. As well as the ear training.

I wouldn't really even say that theory is "extremely challenging." You just have to spend a lot of time on it. There was a lot of assignments from the work book every week during classical theory. Probably spent like 6+ hours a week just on the homework for those classes. And that's not even including ear training. With any of this stuff you just have to be consistent, I don't think it's really that hard to understand and I started playing music much later than a lot of my peers.

But if you're trying to understand jazz before understanding really basic concepts like knowing your key signatures, how to spell basic triads, the chords in a given key, simple time vs compound time, etc, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Everything builds on to itself so you really have to understand the basics first which might be a little boring but you have to do it.

P.S. Amazon will rent you the book for the semester. $22 USD
http://www.amazon.com/Musicians-Guide-Theory-Analysis-Second/dp/0393930815/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409269943&sr=1-1&keywords=musician%27s+guide+to+theory+and+analysis

If you tell them pretty much everything you wrote above, that's probably enough for them to go on.

Maybe try to find a teacher who has a good amount of experience teaching people who aren't starting from scratch, who is happy to focus on technique and filling in the gaps in your music knowledge (e.g. scales, chord theory, etc.). Someone who is willing to point out your bad habits every time and give you tips on focused practice to help break them.

The teaching won't be the challenging part, though. What's going to be hard is forcing yourself to break the physical and mental bad habits you've developed over years of playing without guidance. Practising scales, finger exercises, sight reading etc. is boring but will help a lot in deepening your understanding of technique and simple music theory.

You've probably passively picked up quite a lot about chord theory and stuff like that just from playing music, but don't yet have the basis in music theory to convert what you've learned into concrete knowledge.

I'd really recommend studying music theory in your spare time to help round out your knowledge - maybe consider getting a hold of something like this - you'll know a lot of the basic stuff already but it'll help fill in the gaps and explain in technical terms what you may only know as abstract ideas right now.

Best of luck!

I took theory classes 15 years ago, and don't remember what text I used, but it was pretty generic as I recall. I'm thinking of any sort of classical music theory introductory text intended for use in a university course, since they will all probably begin with the same sort of progression of things which logically arises when describing how diatonic music works.


I did a quick search, and this is the sort of text I have in mind:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393930815/


That one looks very good, and, looking at the table of contents, I'd say the Part I: Elements of Music is the essential part to familiarize with for the basics and then Part II: Diatonic Harmony and Tonicization would expand those ideas in the first part to show how those basics are applied in diatonic music harmonization (basically how to create nice-sounding chord progressions based on diatonic scales).


I would avoid books that are targeted to a specific instrument, or a more modern type of music - like guitar theory, jazz theory, blues piano theory, etc. Not that these books aren't good too, but I've seen plenty of guitar theory books that describe the basics in wacky ways, or in ways that are not really universally applied to all music. Classical theory books will mostly all be the same, and be a solid introduction to these very basics. If you see one that is 20 years old for two bucks at a yard sale it would likely be fine.


In my opinion starting to learn theory from this standpoint of classical music is a great way to start. There are a million ways to learn theory, and this might not be the preferred route for everyone, but it's so good in my opinion because Classical, Baroque, etc. - these early music forms were all about consonance, about how to make harmonic progressions and melodies, and so on, that were pleasing to the ear. They developed these stringent rules to describe methods for arranging sounds to make very pleasing compositions, rules which are very effective at what they are intended for. Once you learn these rules, it makes everything else so much clearer as to why other types of music that break every one of these rules are so effective.


It's maybe like learning to draw a face - you would probably start with learning to draw a face you are looking at, and making your drawing copy it as closely as you can. It's not easy to draw a realistic-looking face, and takes some practice to get it right, to make it look pleasing to people who spend their lives looking at faces and learning their intricacies. If you jump right into trying to do a stylized, artsy rendering of a face, it probably won't be very convincing, since you never learned how to draw a pleasing face to begin with! It would look like a child's drawing, certainly not realistic, but also not very interesting because it's not very sophisticated in how it goes about presenting that face.

I feel you. Counterpoint would certainly be a good starting point, but it almost certainly isn't going to be useful to you except as a bridge upon which you might arrive at 4-voice-land.

Bach is an incredible study in counterpoint, but you'll likely not understand how to write simply by analyzing his counterpoint (unless you're peculiarly keen on intervalic analysis and pick up on nuances like a lack of parallel 5ths and 8ves, contrary, parallel, similar or oblique motion between voices, etc).

I'm not aware of any online resources with which one can learn counterpoint (someone else might be able to direct you there).

This is the book we've used in all of my theory classes, I through IV so far It's not a particularly cheep cheap (god it's late)* book, but it's been worth it for the wealth of knowledge. It does a really good job of taking theory step by step from the smallest of pieces (notes on a staff) to crazy complex serial compositions and other awful stuff like that ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuWMSMvvsa0

​

Dude, your hooktheory book is a complete garbage, I'm not surprised that you learned everything wrong. I even told you the name of the youtube channel... how ignorant can a person be on reddit?

Check any real music theory books

https://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Stefan-Kostka/dp/125944709X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538029216&sr=1-1&keywords=tonal+harmony+kostka&dpID=41v9WBjdbJL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Musician-Integrated-Approach-Listening/dp/0199347093/ref=pd_sim_14_16?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0199347093&pd_rd_r=4a1cee19-c21d-11e8-bcaa-d5dbd61d2792&pd_rd_w=N7ADP&pd_rd_wg=8dbTF&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=56838e6b-66d4-41e0-a762-743f1a1a628a&pf_rd_r=3YXER0X7XFGE6FM96NJ8&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=3YXER0X7XFGE6FM96NJ8

https://www.amazon.com/Musicians-Guide-Theory-Analysis-Second/dp/0393930815/ref=pd_sim_14_32?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0393930815&pd_rd_r=4a1cee19-c21d-11e8-bcaa-d5dbd61d2792&pd_rd_w=N7ADP&pd_rd_wg=8dbTF&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=56838e6b-66d4-41e0-a762-743f1a1a628a&pf_rd_r=3YXER0X7XFGE6FM96NJ8&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=3YXER0X7XFGE6FM96NJ8

​

to see what people in England and USA use (Germany and North/East Europe use slightly different system).

​

Also, there doesn't exist such thing as progression without a tonic, that's why your progression is wrong when you try to analyse the key. One of your chords is I or i (Im in another notation system). And progressions in minor use flexible scale degrees, that's why such tables can't be made or they will have to include several different chords.

Check the sidebar under theory apps and books. I haven't finished a single book yet so can't really comment on what's best, but there are some listed there. I've ordered " The Musician’s Guide to Theory & Analysis", you can find that on google books I think and browse it.

Since some time has now passed and there haven't been too many answers, I want to add something that I think is the most important answer: you can make up your own chorale preludes by getting better at improvising.

An easy way to start improvising is by playing just the harmonization in your hymn book, but rather than playing the top three voices at the same time, you can play them in an arpeggiated way. Some notes will have to be added or taken away in some situations, such as when two voices merge onto the same note. Here is a very quick recording that I made to demonstrate this principle.

Over time, you'll want to add basic harmonic ideas to your musical vocabulary. A few things I'd note:

• It's OK to change the notes of the hymn tune slightly to accommodate the harmonies you want. But it's important to keep the rhythm of important motives the same, especially if you're changing the notes
  
• It's useful to learn the hymn you're improvising on in multiple keys so that you can switch keys in your improvisation
  
• Steal textures from written-out preludes/meditations/etc. on hymns. One texture you can use is the triplet texture I mentioned above.
  
  If you keep working on this, you'll get better and better. My favourite improviser who lives in my area sounds like this (the recording is terrible, but good enough that you can get the idea). A feature of his improvisations that I really like is modulations to far-away keys; when I hear him play, it feels like I'm being thrown into something vast and mysterious.
  
  A resource I recommend for liturgical musicians' improvisation is this book by Gerre Hancock. It's intended for organists, but is still extremely useful for pianists. I also find Improv Planet on Patreon very useful. It's run by a piano professor who specializes in improvisation in the style of Bach and Handel.
  
  If you haven't already studied harmony, I also highly, highly recommend it (I'd call study of harmony a prerequisite for Improv Planet). Good resources for self-study of harmony include the textbooks by Laitz and by Clendinning & Marvin.