Are there any sites or youtube channels that teach good theory? I want to be able to create better chord progressions and be able to put key changes into relative minors / majors into my tracks to make them more interesting but I've no idea how to go about that. Can anyone help me out?

The following posts might be useful:
An Introduction to Music Theory
Sharps, Flats and how to work out Keys
An introduction to modulation (changing key)

Thanks guys! I'll check these out later in the week when I am home much appreciated!

"better" theory can be got working with someone that has the experience in its application, as opposed to information in the abstract got on the internet. "music theory" is abstracted from music practice and it is "better" to get it in the context of actual application, the meaning of the terms out of the music practice it was observed as working in.

Basicly I agree with jancivil. But the best way to learn depends also 1) on your starting point, basic knowledge/practical skillsof thea area (e.g. do you play some instrument) and 2) on your personal preferencies and "laarning profile", i.e. some poeple are better in the abstract, theory based visualization, some people need more "hands-on" approach. Without anchoring the theory into practice, all reading things is of course just an intellectual exercise. If you can afford hiring a teacher,this may be the most effective way.
Good news is that music theory is very logical, it's like basic (read: simple) mathematics (in fact, Greek mathematician Pythagoras was one of the first western music theoriest) . (This is paradox because what come out is/or can be very emotinal, artistic - but this is how the human brain works).
The logical nature means that when you know just some basic theory, you can "derive" many things from you basic knowledge, e.g. just the chord theory. H.
Last edited by Harry_HH on Wed Feb 13, 2013 5:17 am; edited 1 time in total

There is no "better theory" there are only choices in direction. If anything experience is the better teacher because it gives you muscle memory.

I think you got this wrong. 29chrispy asked how to learn better (=more effectively) music theory, not "better" theory. And of course there are
people who know the music theory better than the other. Then we can
discuss if you need theory to make good/better music, but that's an other discourse. H.

I got lucky, I had a great teacher at community college. I had some experience in music before that and a good ear for parts out of picking things off records as thoroughly as I could manage.

I wouldn't know how to generalize but I remember my homie at CCM had great "muscle" and evidently 'muscle memory' as far as getting around on a guitar but his knowledge as far as what happened in a piece of music, harmonically or what-not was pretty thin to non-existent. I don't want to draw a dicohotomy but the musical mind does not necessarily grow from the hands and I have noticed some over-reliance on facility in the classical as well as the jazz realm like that.

I do agree that approach from the vantage point of an instrument in your hands is primary.

nah, he just wants to learn more music theory.

people have different 'profiles' as Harry referred to.

My experience was not that I found more interest in 'chord changes' per se in music theory first year, or such as has been pointed to here. The teacher at CPCC would have us write four part harmony to some roman numeral chord changes he'd put on the blackboard and then play everybody's result. My results sounded like full-on music, which was consistently remarked on, because I had explored things on my own, absorbing the models I chose by getting my ear together by trial and error. My reason to take a course in it was to learn a methodology for writing parts such as I wanted to grasp out of JS Bach particularly.

Now, in second year, 'chromatic' harmony I encountered extensions in/of harmony such as in Richard Wagner and this certainly expanded my vocabulary. But the 'chords' in 'first year - diatonic' were not news to me, just the ways of connecting them, and the received strictures out of classical practice meant a discipline and a training ground for writing coherent and meaningful parts. I got into approaching music contrapuntally out of part writing exercise which I loved.

I take the OP to be looking for more vocabulary. I tend to say that learning what happened in songs, directly, by your ear is more meaningful than looking at words and symbols. or perhaps better put, the cart isn't going to pull the horse. if you're looking for recipes, you want to have eaten some things first. EG: I had the dominant 7/13th effect out of "Because", Beatles Abbey Road side two some years before a class in such things. McCartney didn't get that in class either, he sang parts following things he found working in something he heard before. I think the 'eureka' moments come with as much context as you can bring. If you know what relative minor is vis a vis major progressions, you likely have a notion of what the sound is; find a model of that and the words will be richer. The result of this or that 'music theory' online may be an effect that isn't what you're after.

Eermm, Because is a John L song.

This has been my experience.

Those links are fantastic. Thanks to all who helped out. Much appreciated

There is no better theory because there is no better music. Any opinion about what makes one form of music better then another is just an opinion.


There are only choices with consequences. Music isn't about everything all at once.