What was the first thing you've learned in music theory?

[rbarata]

I've been learning theory by myself, started one and a half year ago and the first thing I've learned was how to construct chords from scales.

And you? What was the first thing you've learned in music theory?

[Doug1978]

The recorder in school.



To answer seriously, chords from scales is a very good starting point - the two books that I found most helpful when starting to improve my musical skills were:

Arranging Techniques for Sythesists by Eric Turkel

Inside the Music: The Musician's Guide to Composition, Improvisation and the Mechanics of Music by Dave Stewart



And for mixing, this book is excellent:
The Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski




Also, the music theory guide by JumpingJackFlash at KVR in the Music Theory forum is a great help too.

[rbarata]

To answer seriously, chords from scales is a very good starting point

It's a good way to start learning what the scales are used for. At the beginning I always found that some chapters in theory were like a "dark art", although many people was telling it was really simple once you understand a few basic things. Learning chords from scales is one of those things.

[wrench45us]

counting major,minor thirds by steps and constructing chords from there, rather than scales

that method has its drawbacks, but it works whenever confusion about scales reigns

[jopy]

intervals through ear training. we used to do interval ear training in high school band. i must have been told some elements of music theory before this because i had been playing the piano and there was a theory workbook that came with the lessons, but i don't recall ever getting much out of those.

[Meffy]

Hard to remember that far back (the early 1960s) but probably the circle of fifths and fourths.

[dark_virus]

First thing I've learned was: there ARE rules.

[BERFAB]

Chords, scales, and the circle of fifths.

If you learn nothing else, nail these concepts.

Cheers
-B

[rbarata]

One of the things I've found harder it was the perpective to look at it, i.e., in science you study a phenomena and determine the rules from your discoveries. In Music Theory the ancient musicians established the rules without understanding why things were how they were. Only today, using science, we know why they choose the rules based in their feelings and ears.
Today I believe that a course of Music Theory is highly incomplete if you don't include music history.

[Doug1978]

One of the things I've found harder it was the perpective to look at it, i.e., in science you study a phenomena and determine the rules from your discoveries. In Music Theory the ancient musicians established the rules without understanding why things were how they were. Only today, using science, we know why they choose the rules based in their feelings and ears.
Today I believe that a course of Music Theory is highly incomplete if you don't include music history.

An interesting point of view and not one that I disagree with - it's just that you'd have to omit various stages of musical history along the way (otherwise it'd be a VERY, VERY long course).
Maybe drop the music historical chapters on dubstep and the format show dross produced by Simon Cowell for starters?

Surprised no-one's mentioned it yet but a decent understanding of African poly-rhythms, mid-song changes to time signatures, New Orleans jazz and syncopation would help people get a better understanding of what you can do with rhythm.

[Gamma-UT]

One of the things I've found harder it was the perpective to look at it, i.e., in science you study a phenomena and determine the rules from your discoveries. In Music Theory the ancient musicians established the rules without understanding why things were how they were. Only today, using science, we know why they choose the rules based in their feelings and ears.
Today I believe that a course of Music Theory is highly incomplete if you don't include music history.

I think the last sentence is true, if only because it would illustrate the problems with the first few sentences in your post. Music theory was not set in stone hundreds of years ago based on some vague feelings: quite the reverse.

The early music theories were based directly on scientific experiments - division of the monochord, for example. The problems with Western music theory started when they tried forcing the theories from those results into the idea that music was an insight into the mind of God and that common practice by those vulgar minstrels out on the streets should be barred from the spiritual music that was the target of their theoretical attention. Because the devil has the best tunes as it were, once tonal music became accepted (and given a strict set of rules borrowed from these early ideas), general practice loosened up to accommodate the spicier ideas that composers heard on the streets or developed themselves. Progressively those ideas were then forced into a tonal framework which, ulitmately, is basically just a long list of exceptions to a few very simple rules.

The result is the mess that tonal (and post-tonal) 'theory' that we now have. It kinda mostly works but it's all a bit rickety when you consider that if rule one is that everything needs to fit into the notes of a key, why is it possible with the aid of just three or four common harmonic transformations to effectively use the entire chromatic scale and still have something that seems to be in one key?

There has been some interesting work on rhythm and musical structure in recent years but that really hasn't fed back into mainstream musical theory in any sensible way, and that's just for equal temperament music let alone anything developed a little further east.

[tapper mike]

We move foreward not by being fixated with the past, but by separating ourselves from the past. I've yet to hear of a great classical blues recording because the blues is not classical. Classic blues is another matter.

[jlocri]

The first thing I learnt is that I know nothing and that I was jumping into an ocean blind. Until I realised how deep what I was surrounding myself went, I was drowning. Even now, the best I can do is paddle. There's a lot to learn, that's all I'm saying, I refuse to pretend one aspect is better for a beginner as opposed to another.

We move foreward not by being fixated with the past, but by separating ourselves from the past. I've yet to hear of a great classical blues recording because the blues is not classical.

Blues is not classical, and why not? Why can't a blues musician influence himself with the works of artists we call "classical"?
This really should extend to all other genres, why aren't you acknowledging or influencing yourself with classical music? They're definitely influences by people just like you, at one stage they might have even been you.

[dandmkirkwood]

This is the day, this is the day, that the lord has made, that the lord has made, we will rejoice, we will rejoice, and be glad in it, and be glad in it, don't know it? It's a classic! Anyway that's what started me off. G, D, G, D, G, G, D.

[thecontrolcentre]

First thing I learned was a blues scale and the chords E, A and B (those bar chords used to kill me).