How long does it take to learn basic music theory?

[jancivil]

I'd like to reinforce Herodotus' point, recommending learning to read music before getting too worried about "music theory". It has shown to be in too many cases fraught with issues, to canvass the 'net and fora and get swamped with information with nowhere to place it. I would seriously recommend obtaining familiarity with music through experience before theory concerns, additionally.

"how does one know what key a song is in?" - for instance. Well, if you learn a piece of music for real, do this a couple of times, you have 'in key' within the context of a song. Absent any such experience, "a complete beginner"? I don't know what to tell you, I have nothing to grab hold of. I don't know what kind of ear you have. One can say "look for the 'home' or 'at rest' chord first, the "One" chord and that should indicate the key... " but music is so contextual. We don't know you; some people are naturals and some are quite ill-suited for "music theory" work. What's your goal, what about it seems so necessary?

For instance I had been fooling around with music for a few yrs, written songs, become a kind of happening lead guitarist and arranged for a singer for demos for a label, and then led a prog rock band before I took any 'music theory' course. The first reason for that was I wanted to understand JS Bach and I knew I did not have the tools to. Now, the basics I picked up through reading music, and when I wasn't sure exactly how to accurately write I was doing on a score, I went to girls in school that had, you know, piano lessons and that.

So, I don't know what 'basic theory', or quite what 'theory' means to you. Some people never care about it particularly and get to be great at music.

[jancivil]

You are operating under the assumption that this person uses a physical instrument while this may not be the case.

My opinion regarding instruments is that they have a very significant influence on what you play due to the practicality of playing them.

The problem with removing human involvement in the physical performance is it removes humanity from the process which reduces composition arrangement and performance to an equation.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, it sounded like a whole load of nonsense.

I was merely pointing out the fact that the instrument a person uses may not be the instrument you think they use.

For example keyboards are quite common. Perhaps this person does not use a keyboard?

The keyboard has a massive influence on what you produce while using one. There is absolutely no doubt of that. In fact the keyboard has more influence than the performer in most cases.

Evidence: we can easily identify a keyboard performance vs. a guitar performance. It is exceedingly difficult if even possible to reproduce one with the other.

Q.E.D.

ID'ing piano vs guitar is_not evidence that working with a keyboard is, through itself "massively" deterministic as to what you write. It looks like non-sequitur there. I can write any instrument idiomatically via the keyboard. I can because of experience. It certainly is no fact that the instrument "has more influence than the performer"; "in most cases"? That's your assessment, not any fact. No, my musical personalities, my idea trumps the fact of a keyboard, I am absolutely not keyboard-idiomatic writing for sax, or whatever. Forget me, check out gregjazz's demos for his e. guitar libraries; def. a keyboardist, and I bet $ he is improvising.

No, somebody that is viably COMPOSING will be able to write convincingly and with facility in teh instrumental idioms, and it's pretty typical to do it at the keyboard. I'm not restricted that much to guitar idiom on the guitar, and that's because I was interested to get beyond idiom and worked at it.

As to QED, you have merely stated a piano obviously isn't a guitar. A real demonstration: is the high bassoon line that opens Le sacre du printemps pianoistic? Was Stravinsky's idea of the contour of the line obviated by being stuck at obvious pianoisms? Is Syrinx by Debussy limited by the fact of Debussy as a pianist, or does it totally work as a solo flute composition? Seriously.

[aciddose]

I'd like to reinforce Herodotus' point, recommending learning to read music before getting too worried about "music theory".

I'm far more appreciative of simple statements of fact such as: "you will find music theory is often discussed in a format dependent upon knowledge of staff notation."

So I'd reformat this a little by starting with such a statement, then the suggestion "learning to read music", then the reasoning such as "you will likely find great difficulty in understanding music theory without first having knowledge of staff notation as well as experience having applied it".

Assuming that was your point.

[jancivil]

Seriously, I think she's right. I don't know, maybe I'm getting too old for this... but if I wanted to learn music, the LAST place I'd go would be an internet forum.

For someone like me, whose 1st forty yrs or so were lived in a world with no internet, the dependency on it to learn a craft is kind of strange, period. Now couple that with the fact that anybody can post anything and it could be widely replicated and thereby taken as the truth by many... quite a lot of what we'll land on is going to be dodgy. Then we have a further aspect, that there are people that never did music in any way shape or form have some to expect they can now (Imma make some beatz yo) because the software does so much of the work for you.

If I became controversial owing to events in this sub-forum, that's placed with interacting with people that have the sketchiest of foundations blogging, even writing a small book, ad nauseum, and promoting themselves as expert.

Helen Mirren: "If I were to offer one piece of advice to my younger self, it would be to say the words 'f**k off' more frequently." I'm kind of too old myself for suffering fools gladly.

[jancivil]

Sorry about the sideway, but as a Hendrix fan have to say
/Voodoo Chile Slight Return on gayageum/
is great arr. I wonder if Jimi ever thought Far East flavor when he wrote the Voodoo Chile? The girl must have heard eastern influence (although there wasn't) because she choose this song and find the Hendrix song mood familiar. Is it in the melody, in the blues scale micro intervals or where. African-Far East connection...

Hendrix did state his interest in such materials. I can't say if this tune is coincidentally that or specifically his intent, or if it's part of collective consciousness... It is totally like that music. I've found a lot of that sort of 'blues' in Southeast Asian musics.

[jancivil]

[Music Theory For Computer Musicians]
Many years down the road, having read that book, I'll tell you what it didn't teach me. The goal that went un-fulfilled: Chordal familiarity/confidence, and control. When I started learning music theory, one of my goals was to eventually never have to fish around for chords & voicing. ...

I didn't get up to that up to a point. By now, I'm still not exercising the chordal toolbox in the way I'd desired - only the 'default' chords come to mind when I'm trying to compose, and I have to actively seek and figure out other options to try out. In that circumstance, there's no controlling the feel, not the way I'd wanted. I don't know what level of knowledge is required to get there... But I know there's a level of time on the keys also required. Experience in learning those chords, and subsequently putting them to use, so that it sticks, and has a permanent spot in your compositional toolbox.

From a book? then someone chimes in, 'you need the next book, HARMONY for Computer Musicians'. I remember a book from community college, 1st yr theory, or whatever the course was titled. At first the course kind of followed the book, because 1st year started from almost a beginner's standpoint. Soon enough, there is no book. I persuaded them that I could handle 2nd year at the same time, and there was no book.

We were given a melody and/or a bass line and we did 4-part writing where time would expire, and then he played the examples on the piano. So you knew from reality if your part-writing was any good. Mine were fantastic if you gotta ask. Then I went to Conservatory and behind this excellent course I was put into 'Honors' curriculum and another really excellent course. There was_no_book. There were occasionally materials, such as this guy inflicted Messiaen on us and we beat out that isorhythmic thing of his on the desks, but 90% or more of this thing was the same as the other course, you write parts and how well you're doing is evidenced by how it worked. Of course the rules of that practice had to be met strictly. But the teacher was interested in you making decent music right there in the hour allotted.

Now, it has to be noted that this experience happens amidst experience learning PIECES OF REAL MUSIC to perform. I started on 'classical guitar' at the exact same time as the community college course. A couple years of working up pieces, a growing awareness and familiarity with harmony and form through that reality, a memorized repertoire and so forth meant that you have so-called theory in practice. So later when I came to want to create my own compositions, I had knowledge, I didn't just have information to work with. In the meantime I would look at the Bill Evans songbook and that... OTOH, I did write a (Form und Analysis!) paper on what I presented to jury and here I was articulating the composition, the parts and the sum of parts synergistically, endeavoring to write critically while involved in shaping the 'interpretation'.

So that's where I'm coming from. What book? Someone above in this thread give the analogy, learning to swim from reading about it. get busy with actual music, see what the masters came up with while you're actually involved with the music. Mileage may vary, people like some Fux and what-not, but books are really dry by themselves, get in there and get wet.

[jancivil]

only the 'default' chords come to mind when I'm trying to compose

I have a general guess as to what that would be, but unless you simply have to sound normal according to an expectation, there are no default chords. Your experience had to be wildly different than my own.

Here I have to dispute myself partially as to 'no book'. I bought a book during this community college experience, "20th Century Harmony" which was basically a source for vocabulary. I was interested in the 20th century. Now, I grew up with some fairly avant-garde jazz via my father who was more curious than the average. By the time I cared to set a composition down on paper, in stone as it were, I was working with something way outside the lines of any defaults. That wasn't my outlook. I signed up for "theory" specifically because I knew I totally lacked the tools to even hope to analyze JS Bach. I never particularly wanted to write Common Practice Period material, I just thought that mechanically this was where it was at in terms of a toolbox. Later I absorbed the late romantic type of harmony, Wagner et al, that's where you get to in "Theory" in school and I dug that anyway. You get to the Tristan Chord and its resolution, it gets to resemble the jazz I was immersed in as a kid. I bet a chromatic harmony course would be a laxative for ya, though. Wagner shook some people up with Tristan. And Debussy, while we find him later rebelling agin Wagner, was deeply into him at one time

So I don't know what your process is so I'm not going to inflict a lot more on you. But you're in a box, you're wearing shoes that are awful tight. And here is where too much information may be defining a box and your whole experience is limited by a kind of obedience to the law, where there isn't any necessity for the law.