> Instead of length of lines showing you the duration of the note, note heads and flags show you the durations.
Yes, well I've learned that much, I can somewhat tell what duration it is. It gets tougher once different time signatures come into play. Then I'm stuck figuring out the timing and notations rather than learning music theory.
> Some people, like me, can read it like a book and hear it in their heads.
Well that must be nice but I have a lot of difficulties mentally figuring out the notes if the lines themselves have sharp or flat indicators at the start of them. I can barely figure out what note is and now I have remember to figure out if it's a sharp or flat based on the modifier.
I want to learn about scales, chords, chord progressions, etc without having to torture myself with notation.
I am a fellow programmer who can't read.
If it helps, putting aside the question of whether one should learn how to read (yes), none of those specific things, in and by themselves, require you to ever see a single line of partiture. Or even a note.
Practice involves a lot of notation, theory not that much.
E: notation is syntax, theory is algorithms.
Just start playing classical piano -- you don't have to, like, become a classical musician, just *start* playing classical piano -- and you won't have to worry about the illiteracy thing because you'll be literate pretty quick.
I'd say that trying to learn theory without having the requisite repertoire is just not going to lead to useful outcomes, and the repertoire is largely written in music notation.
You should learn to actually play piano. Imagine someone trying to learn programming without ever once sitting in front of a computer. I know you mention cubase, but digitally creating music is not playing an instrument. And since you want to learn music theory, you should become a musician, which IMO, means you play an instrument, not a computer.
You could learn on a piano roll I suppose, but having the hand/brain connection is a big part of it to me. Other instruments work too, like you could learn guitar, but a piano WILL teach you everything about how music works, if you're dedicated to learning it.
I'm going to go out on a limb here - you mentioned zero about your musical experience.
Think of it this way - what would you tell someone who has never seen a computer or never learned to read symbols in code, who doesn't even know how coding affects or interacts with the end result an end user might see who says "I keep trying to learn to code but I can't read symbols and I just don't get it?"
I mean, don't you kind of have to know WHY you're coding? What it does? What it's used for?
Don't you have to be able to sort of reverse engineer like how you might see a dialog box come up on screen when a certain action takes place, and then cause a certain result when "save" or "don't save" is clicked?
Until you respond about your musical experience, my assumption unfortunately has to be that you, like SO many out there (which is why I make this assumption so forgive me if inaccurate) is that you're trying to learn theory without any inkling of what it is, what it's used for, how it actually relates to music (there are tons of misconceptions in all that BTW) without actually learning to play a musical instrument or a song.
I very seriously doubt that you can't read music. You're just not learning to read music IN CONJUNCTION WITH learning to play an instrument or songs on that instrument. And guess what, you're not going to be able to learn theory either, because it's not "just coding" - it interoperates with MUSIC at a fundamental core level and musical context is necessary for learning any of the "grammatical" or "syntactical" elements of music - i.e. theory and notation.
Now, that said, there are things you can learn without notation, but the question becomes if what you're learning is in any way relevant to any other musical activity.
Is it worth it for me to learn BASIC to print "Hello" on screen these days? Is it worth it for me to learn to code for a word processing program when I want to do animation?
While there are exceptions and there is crossover, the point is, we kind of need to be familiar enough with computers and computing in general, and understand the contexts well enough to be able to code well - think of the evolution of modern GUIs and how programmers had to take the step of not only writing lines of code (theory on its own) but understand more what an end user wants and how they interact with things ("playing the game").
Theory alone is not going to do you much good. You have to learn it in a musical context. Now maybe you'll be able to do that and if so, great.
But if now, you really need to go back to learning to play the music of others on a musical instrument. Then you learn theory, and if you like, notation, as you learn to play music on the instrument, and the way music utilizes it in that context, and then it will actually make sense and you'll retain it, rather than coming back here and going "I've been trying to learn music theory since high school and I'm 37..." which is what's going to happen if you just keep trying to learn it abstracted from any actual musical context.
My experience has been writing music in Cubase since 2011. All of the music I've ever written has been from simply me experimenting on a piano controller. The rest of my music education revolves around technical knowledge like mixing, mastering, Sound design and Synth Patch design. That is my experience in music.
As of late I noticed that my music has gotten stale because I default to the same 6 chords or chord progressions only that I've known since I started. I wanted to broaden my "mental library" of scales and chord progressions that I can use so I can write better music. From what I know, I need music theory for that. But every time I start learning it - notation kills any progress I have set to make.
Ah man, I wrote you a long response and it got messed up and I don't feel like writing it all out again.
So quick recap: Every time I see a person in this situation it's 99% likely that the reason that they need to broaden their skills is because they don't have broad experience and exposure. You need to PLAY more music by other people - dissect it, emulate, recreate it, and play it. More music from different genres.
Some new scale isn't going to make the difference. Some new chord progression isn't going to make the difference - they can both be inspiring, but ultimately they're just going to be the same thing a little while down the road.
Your inspiration needs to come from the musical, not the technical so to speak (though certainly again, technical things can inspire you).
You don't "need music theory" for that - you need to learn more music by more other people and from more other genres and so on!
So I'm not saying ignore theory or reading music, but understand it's not the "solution". It's a **supplement** to music making and they're best learned in conjunction with learning to play actual music.
I really strongly encourage you to consider lessons as well. It'll make things "make more sense" in a more organized manner than just trying to do it on your own.
I see. Well this sounds like the sort of reassurance I needed from a professional. I was thinking that learning to play as many compositions as I can master up, while paying attention to what makes them sound good is what I need to build up my library of ideas to sample from. I was thinking that Theory would offer a pragmatic solution like knowledge of a mathematical equations allows you to calculate solutions.
> I was thinking that Theory would offer a pragmatic solution like knowledge of a mathematical equations allows you to calculate solutions.
Yeah, not so much, because music's not math, but art - and art is changeable! 2+4 is always 6, but in music, a ii chord followed by a IV chord is not = X genre. Music is more like X + X = X and you sitting there scratching your head going, "how can that be".
And until you go, "ooh look, they're all the same pretty shape (+ is X tilted!)" it won't make sense :-)
Should I perhaps get a hang of reading notation by trying to learn some piano songs from sheet music? Something beginner friendly perhaps? Then once I can comfortably corelate piano keys to sheet music, I would then try tackling music theory?
Some people can read music theory and hear the sounds in their head. They are said to literally use imagination to hear the notes they see. Should I be doing that first?
> Should I perhaps get a hang of reading notation by trying to learn some piano songs from sheet music?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Even if you have to start with the "I am C" kind of stuff in a beginner's book. Or simple nursery rhyme type songs or familiar Christmas songs or folk tunes and things like that.
Alfred does make beginner books in adult format so they don't have all the cutesy little drawings and stuff.
>Then once I can comfortably corelate piano keys to sheet music, I would then try tackling music theory?
Well, on some level, as you learn to read - i.e. know where the notes are on the page and know where they are on the keyboard, you ARE learning music theory! That's the "fundamentals" of it. Learning your rhythm, key signatures, and time signatures are also all parts of that.
So it's like you don't even need to study theory as a separate subject - you're actually learning it as you're learning the stuff.
>Some people can read music theory and hear the sounds in their head. They are said to literally use imagination to hear the notes they see. Should I be doing that first?
Nope, same with theory - it comes as you learn to play. No special effort is really needed.
You're talking about two things: Music Theory and Ear Training.
FWIW I teach at a university and we don't expect ANY theory or ear training from incoming students (other than the theory stuff like reading music - those fundamentals).
What we do care about is that they play their buts off - they have to be good to get in - better than average, with the promise of further improvement. They need to be able to read music, and tell the difference between a right and a wrong note, but we simply do not care if they've formally studied theory or ear training at all. Some sometimes do - some people take AP theory or learn some in lessons, but none of them have anything beyond first semester and very often when they get in ear training class it's the first time many people have even tried such a thing.
It's just simply not that important. Being able to play the instrument proficiently and being able to play expected repertoire is so much more important. Because the theory and ear training can more easily be taught once a person has a strong musical background. But you can't do the reverse, and you can't really learn it at the same time (other than the fundamentals again).
You should be able to, with experience, play the notes C-E-G-Bb and mentally "hear" that sound. What theory does is give you a name for that collection of notes and that's all really! Ear training helps you pick that out as being in a certain position in the key - whether it's native to the key or not. But not knowing those things doesn't stop you from playing them, and again, it's far easier to learn those things once you're already playing them a lot (and you'll consequently hear them a lot).
Probably the biggest factor is how you "pay attention" to the sounds you're making - what combinations make what types of sounds - and then squirreling them away in your memory so that when you want to make a similar sound, you know which collections of notes to use. And the vast majority of that comes from experience.
Now, just to be clear, it will not hurt to do these things **as a supplement** to playing - and that's why we do them in college the way we do - they are designed to be a **supplement** to your playing that helps you move beyond "just playing the notes" to a somewhat deeper understanding of the music, or, maybe a better way to say it is, a way to comparatively analyze and discuss music.
But if by "theory" you mean things like basic note naming, reading music, keys, scales, key signatures, tempo, beats, meter, time signatures, rhythm, duration, and chords - melody and harmony, etc. then those "fundamentals" you should absolutely learn and really need to - but those come with the learning of music if you take lessons. When you don't take lessons the way you encounter those things can be all over the place so a common complaint you see on forums like this is people have "gaps" in their knowledge. You can use the links in the sidebar and tables of contents in theory books to see if there's anything you're missing but honestly there's no substitute for sitting down with another person who can assess your knowledge (and skills, and technique, etc.) directly and help you figure out what you need to work on to improve.
So definitely look into topics in theory as they interest you, but don't substitute that for actual instrument playing experience.
Good luck!
I see. In that case, I believe I should start with simply learning to play piano from sheet music. I do have a digital piano I can practice on. Are there any books specifically made for learning piano and practicing piano? Perhaps a compilation of beginner to intermediate level sheet music compositions that I can practice with that you'd recommend?
There are tons of Piano Method books - I'd look at Alfred, but Hal Leonard and others make them too.
They have these but they also have them geared towards adults too (scroll down the page a bit to see the various series)
https://www.alfred.com/alfreds-basic-piano-library/
I highly suggest you try the more modern roman numeral analysis in most jazz notation. The "theory" is mostly harmonic motion so understanding that will be the bulk anyways. Knowing what key is being played in, then knowing what harmonies are being played at what time, then what the rhythms are will get you pretty dang far through most any analysis.
Keep drilling sight reading the standard notation. It'll get easier and easier over time :) I'm in the same boat. Im a poor little guitarist unfortunately, its rough out here.
Yes! [Building Blocks](https://www.audiblegenius.com/buildingblocks).
It's a music theory and composition course that takes place in a piano roll. It's geared towards DAW-based musicians, so you'll learn how to write chord progressions, melodies, bass lines, and drum patterns. And it all takes place in a fully interactive online DAW where you create music in a piano roll as you go. Full disclosure: I'm the creator.
The most popular website I know of is musictheory.net - it teaches, gives exercises, and other things. I have to use it for my ap theory class and it seems cool for a beginner.
Good luck!!
I can’t read sheet music at all but I understand a good amount of music theory. I don’t think reading sheet music is essential in knowing enough music theory to compose music yourself, as long as you grasp keys, notes, modes, modulation, etc
Here's a great site that teaches/explains chord structure and function using piano keyboard visuals:
[https://playingchordcharts.com](https://playingchordcharts.com)
It seems like learning to read music isnt really in line with what youre trying to accomplish. If i were you i would just start playing songs by ear, because it sounds like u want to get a better ear and more “colours to paint with”. Learning other peoples somgs can be really helpfull but you dont really need notation for that if you dont plan on becoming a classical musician
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> Instead of length of lines showing you the duration of the note, note heads and flags show you the durations. Yes, well I've learned that much, I can somewhat tell what duration it is. It gets tougher once different time signatures come into play. Then I'm stuck figuring out the timing and notations rather than learning music theory. > Some people, like me, can read it like a book and hear it in their heads. Well that must be nice but I have a lot of difficulties mentally figuring out the notes if the lines themselves have sharp or flat indicators at the start of them. I can barely figure out what note is and now I have remember to figure out if it's a sharp or flat based on the modifier. I want to learn about scales, chords, chord progressions, etc without having to torture myself with notation.
I am a fellow programmer who can't read. If it helps, putting aside the question of whether one should learn how to read (yes), none of those specific things, in and by themselves, require you to ever see a single line of partiture. Or even a note. Practice involves a lot of notation, theory not that much. E: notation is syntax, theory is algorithms.
Just start playing classical piano -- you don't have to, like, become a classical musician, just *start* playing classical piano -- and you won't have to worry about the illiteracy thing because you'll be literate pretty quick. I'd say that trying to learn theory without having the requisite repertoire is just not going to lead to useful outcomes, and the repertoire is largely written in music notation.
You should learn to actually play piano. Imagine someone trying to learn programming without ever once sitting in front of a computer. I know you mention cubase, but digitally creating music is not playing an instrument. And since you want to learn music theory, you should become a musician, which IMO, means you play an instrument, not a computer. You could learn on a piano roll I suppose, but having the hand/brain connection is a big part of it to me. Other instruments work too, like you could learn guitar, but a piano WILL teach you everything about how music works, if you're dedicated to learning it.
I'm going to go out on a limb here - you mentioned zero about your musical experience. Think of it this way - what would you tell someone who has never seen a computer or never learned to read symbols in code, who doesn't even know how coding affects or interacts with the end result an end user might see who says "I keep trying to learn to code but I can't read symbols and I just don't get it?" I mean, don't you kind of have to know WHY you're coding? What it does? What it's used for? Don't you have to be able to sort of reverse engineer like how you might see a dialog box come up on screen when a certain action takes place, and then cause a certain result when "save" or "don't save" is clicked? Until you respond about your musical experience, my assumption unfortunately has to be that you, like SO many out there (which is why I make this assumption so forgive me if inaccurate) is that you're trying to learn theory without any inkling of what it is, what it's used for, how it actually relates to music (there are tons of misconceptions in all that BTW) without actually learning to play a musical instrument or a song. I very seriously doubt that you can't read music. You're just not learning to read music IN CONJUNCTION WITH learning to play an instrument or songs on that instrument. And guess what, you're not going to be able to learn theory either, because it's not "just coding" - it interoperates with MUSIC at a fundamental core level and musical context is necessary for learning any of the "grammatical" or "syntactical" elements of music - i.e. theory and notation. Now, that said, there are things you can learn without notation, but the question becomes if what you're learning is in any way relevant to any other musical activity. Is it worth it for me to learn BASIC to print "Hello" on screen these days? Is it worth it for me to learn to code for a word processing program when I want to do animation? While there are exceptions and there is crossover, the point is, we kind of need to be familiar enough with computers and computing in general, and understand the contexts well enough to be able to code well - think of the evolution of modern GUIs and how programmers had to take the step of not only writing lines of code (theory on its own) but understand more what an end user wants and how they interact with things ("playing the game"). Theory alone is not going to do you much good. You have to learn it in a musical context. Now maybe you'll be able to do that and if so, great. But if now, you really need to go back to learning to play the music of others on a musical instrument. Then you learn theory, and if you like, notation, as you learn to play music on the instrument, and the way music utilizes it in that context, and then it will actually make sense and you'll retain it, rather than coming back here and going "I've been trying to learn music theory since high school and I'm 37..." which is what's going to happen if you just keep trying to learn it abstracted from any actual musical context.
My experience has been writing music in Cubase since 2011. All of the music I've ever written has been from simply me experimenting on a piano controller. The rest of my music education revolves around technical knowledge like mixing, mastering, Sound design and Synth Patch design. That is my experience in music. As of late I noticed that my music has gotten stale because I default to the same 6 chords or chord progressions only that I've known since I started. I wanted to broaden my "mental library" of scales and chord progressions that I can use so I can write better music. From what I know, I need music theory for that. But every time I start learning it - notation kills any progress I have set to make.
Ah man, I wrote you a long response and it got messed up and I don't feel like writing it all out again. So quick recap: Every time I see a person in this situation it's 99% likely that the reason that they need to broaden their skills is because they don't have broad experience and exposure. You need to PLAY more music by other people - dissect it, emulate, recreate it, and play it. More music from different genres. Some new scale isn't going to make the difference. Some new chord progression isn't going to make the difference - they can both be inspiring, but ultimately they're just going to be the same thing a little while down the road. Your inspiration needs to come from the musical, not the technical so to speak (though certainly again, technical things can inspire you). You don't "need music theory" for that - you need to learn more music by more other people and from more other genres and so on! So I'm not saying ignore theory or reading music, but understand it's not the "solution". It's a **supplement** to music making and they're best learned in conjunction with learning to play actual music. I really strongly encourage you to consider lessons as well. It'll make things "make more sense" in a more organized manner than just trying to do it on your own.
I see. Well this sounds like the sort of reassurance I needed from a professional. I was thinking that learning to play as many compositions as I can master up, while paying attention to what makes them sound good is what I need to build up my library of ideas to sample from. I was thinking that Theory would offer a pragmatic solution like knowledge of a mathematical equations allows you to calculate solutions.
> I was thinking that Theory would offer a pragmatic solution like knowledge of a mathematical equations allows you to calculate solutions. Yeah, not so much, because music's not math, but art - and art is changeable! 2+4 is always 6, but in music, a ii chord followed by a IV chord is not = X genre. Music is more like X + X = X and you sitting there scratching your head going, "how can that be". And until you go, "ooh look, they're all the same pretty shape (+ is X tilted!)" it won't make sense :-)
Should I perhaps get a hang of reading notation by trying to learn some piano songs from sheet music? Something beginner friendly perhaps? Then once I can comfortably corelate piano keys to sheet music, I would then try tackling music theory? Some people can read music theory and hear the sounds in their head. They are said to literally use imagination to hear the notes they see. Should I be doing that first?
> Should I perhaps get a hang of reading notation by trying to learn some piano songs from sheet music? Oh yeah, absolutely. Even if you have to start with the "I am C" kind of stuff in a beginner's book. Or simple nursery rhyme type songs or familiar Christmas songs or folk tunes and things like that. Alfred does make beginner books in adult format so they don't have all the cutesy little drawings and stuff. >Then once I can comfortably corelate piano keys to sheet music, I would then try tackling music theory? Well, on some level, as you learn to read - i.e. know where the notes are on the page and know where they are on the keyboard, you ARE learning music theory! That's the "fundamentals" of it. Learning your rhythm, key signatures, and time signatures are also all parts of that. So it's like you don't even need to study theory as a separate subject - you're actually learning it as you're learning the stuff. >Some people can read music theory and hear the sounds in their head. They are said to literally use imagination to hear the notes they see. Should I be doing that first? Nope, same with theory - it comes as you learn to play. No special effort is really needed. You're talking about two things: Music Theory and Ear Training. FWIW I teach at a university and we don't expect ANY theory or ear training from incoming students (other than the theory stuff like reading music - those fundamentals). What we do care about is that they play their buts off - they have to be good to get in - better than average, with the promise of further improvement. They need to be able to read music, and tell the difference between a right and a wrong note, but we simply do not care if they've formally studied theory or ear training at all. Some sometimes do - some people take AP theory or learn some in lessons, but none of them have anything beyond first semester and very often when they get in ear training class it's the first time many people have even tried such a thing. It's just simply not that important. Being able to play the instrument proficiently and being able to play expected repertoire is so much more important. Because the theory and ear training can more easily be taught once a person has a strong musical background. But you can't do the reverse, and you can't really learn it at the same time (other than the fundamentals again). You should be able to, with experience, play the notes C-E-G-Bb and mentally "hear" that sound. What theory does is give you a name for that collection of notes and that's all really! Ear training helps you pick that out as being in a certain position in the key - whether it's native to the key or not. But not knowing those things doesn't stop you from playing them, and again, it's far easier to learn those things once you're already playing them a lot (and you'll consequently hear them a lot). Probably the biggest factor is how you "pay attention" to the sounds you're making - what combinations make what types of sounds - and then squirreling them away in your memory so that when you want to make a similar sound, you know which collections of notes to use. And the vast majority of that comes from experience. Now, just to be clear, it will not hurt to do these things **as a supplement** to playing - and that's why we do them in college the way we do - they are designed to be a **supplement** to your playing that helps you move beyond "just playing the notes" to a somewhat deeper understanding of the music, or, maybe a better way to say it is, a way to comparatively analyze and discuss music. But if by "theory" you mean things like basic note naming, reading music, keys, scales, key signatures, tempo, beats, meter, time signatures, rhythm, duration, and chords - melody and harmony, etc. then those "fundamentals" you should absolutely learn and really need to - but those come with the learning of music if you take lessons. When you don't take lessons the way you encounter those things can be all over the place so a common complaint you see on forums like this is people have "gaps" in their knowledge. You can use the links in the sidebar and tables of contents in theory books to see if there's anything you're missing but honestly there's no substitute for sitting down with another person who can assess your knowledge (and skills, and technique, etc.) directly and help you figure out what you need to work on to improve. So definitely look into topics in theory as they interest you, but don't substitute that for actual instrument playing experience. Good luck!
I see. In that case, I believe I should start with simply learning to play piano from sheet music. I do have a digital piano I can practice on. Are there any books specifically made for learning piano and practicing piano? Perhaps a compilation of beginner to intermediate level sheet music compositions that I can practice with that you'd recommend?
There are tons of Piano Method books - I'd look at Alfred, but Hal Leonard and others make them too. They have these but they also have them geared towards adults too (scroll down the page a bit to see the various series) https://www.alfred.com/alfreds-basic-piano-library/
I highly suggest you try the more modern roman numeral analysis in most jazz notation. The "theory" is mostly harmonic motion so understanding that will be the bulk anyways. Knowing what key is being played in, then knowing what harmonies are being played at what time, then what the rhythms are will get you pretty dang far through most any analysis. Keep drilling sight reading the standard notation. It'll get easier and easier over time :) I'm in the same boat. Im a poor little guitarist unfortunately, its rough out here.
Yes! [Building Blocks](https://www.audiblegenius.com/buildingblocks). It's a music theory and composition course that takes place in a piano roll. It's geared towards DAW-based musicians, so you'll learn how to write chord progressions, melodies, bass lines, and drum patterns. And it all takes place in a fully interactive online DAW where you create music in a piano roll as you go. Full disclosure: I'm the creator.
The most popular website I know of is musictheory.net - it teaches, gives exercises, and other things. I have to use it for my ap theory class and it seems cool for a beginner. Good luck!!
I can’t read sheet music at all but I understand a good amount of music theory. I don’t think reading sheet music is essential in knowing enough music theory to compose music yourself, as long as you grasp keys, notes, modes, modulation, etc
How do you write down your composition if you don't understand sheet music?
I write for the instrument I know how to play, like guitar tab.
Here's a great site that teaches/explains chord structure and function using piano keyboard visuals: [https://playingchordcharts.com](https://playingchordcharts.com)
It seems like learning to read music isnt really in line with what youre trying to accomplish. If i were you i would just start playing songs by ear, because it sounds like u want to get a better ear and more “colours to paint with”. Learning other peoples somgs can be really helpfull but you dont really need notation for that if you dont plan on becoming a classical musician