Been wanting to learn some music theory. Any tips as to where to start?

[Rambozo96]

Guess title sums it up. I have been playing guitar for 11 years and know almost zero theory. I know chords and all that but if you asked me what key I was in I’d have no clue.

 

[walrus]

I found the first 25 pages or so of this book to be excellent, after that it lost me, or more likely I had enough. It took a while to digest those first 25 pages, but they were very nicely done!

https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Theory-Straight-Talking-Guitarists/dp/1093508302

walrus

 

[Stuball48]

I am with you Rambo but growing up in a country church and singing from the church hymnals, I noticed something and it has improved my odds when I am playing the guitar and looking at a song book written for a piano. This is what I noticed. "When the little teardrop shaped notes with their little tails go upward on the music sheet, your voice goes higher and when they go downward on the music your voice goes down." The rest is trial and error and ear training.
And my response may be of no value to what you want.

 

[GAD]

I thought about writing a book about it but every time I felt like I knew what was going on I’d get exposed to another level that further blew my mind.

For guitarists: learn the notes on the fretboard, learn the modes, and you’ll be ahead of 90% of players out there. Learn to read music and you’ll be at 95%.

 

[fronobulax]

Reading music can't hurt.

Knowing how to build and name chords - Can you tell me what notes are in a Cmaj7? What is the V chord in the key of C major? Play a I, IV, V progression in the key of A major. What changes if you play in A minor? What don't you understand in those questions?

Music theory can be complex but you can probably start out with any beginner tutorial and eventually decide there are things you will never use. Lead guitarists and bassists need to know more about scales than folks who only play rhythm, for example

I'd also go with whatever @AcornHouse recommends. Teaching at a college level and being the good player we have heard gives him a lot of credibility IMO.

 

[Opsimath]

I thought about writing a book about it but every time I felt like I knew what was going on I’d get exposed to another level that further blew my mind.

For guitarists: learn the notes on the fretboard, learn the modes, and you’ll be ahead of 90% of players out there. Learn to read music and you’ll be at 95%.

Learn the modes? What are modes?

 

[Opsimath]

Reading music can't hurt.

Knowing how to build and name chords - Can you tell me what notes are in a Cmaj7? What is the V chord in the key of C major? Play a I, IV, V progression in the key of A major. What changes if you play in A minor? What don't you understand in those questions?

Music theory can be complex but you can probably start out with any beginner tutorial and eventually decide there are things you will never use. Lead guitarists and bassists need to know more about scales than folks who only play rhythm, for example

I'd also go with whatever @AcornHouse recommends. Teaching at a college level and being the good player we have heard gives him a lot of credibility IMO.

What don't I understand in those questions? Just about everything except the I, IV, V progession in A major, but only because my uncle, a classical guitarist, explained it to me a couple of years ago.

Looking forward to AcornHouse's recommendations. I started a book on theory a while back but it didn't keep my attention. It could be time to try again since it feels like I've been stuck at the same place for years.

 

[Brad Little]

I've had this on my bookshelf for a while, haven't done much with it (like a ton of others, I'm a compulsive collector). The table of contents looks like it would be useful to a novice in theory, most are concepts I'm familiar with from two years of college theory. The one thing I do like is that it is aimed at guitarists, rather than the usual keyboard orientation in theory books.

Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist

The Ultimate Guide to Music for Blues, Rock, and Jazz Guitarists. By Guy Capuzzo. Guitar Book. This is the ultimate guide to theory for blues, rock and jazz guitarists. You will start with the basics and move up to advanced concepts with this easy, step-by-step approach. There are 28 different...

www.alfred.com

 

[gilded]

Only half in jest, friends. Buy a Piano? That's what I learned on in music school in the mid 70's.

 

[GAD]

Learn the modes? What are modes?

Do you know what a major scale is? If so, the Dorian mode is the same scale but starts on the second note instead of the first. Imagine a C-major scale because it has no flats or sharps:

C-D-E-F-G-A-B

Now, instead of starting on C, start on D:

D-E-F-G-A-B-C

It's the same notes in the same order, but since the root note is now D, it's the D Dorian scale. Why isn't it D major? Because D major looks like this:

D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#

Why is it different? Because major scales have intervals (do you know intervals?) that look like this:

whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half

Ans the dorian scale looks like this:

whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half-whole

If you don't know what an interval is, look at the fretboard. Each single fret is a half step. Two frets is a whole step. To further complicate things, a single step is also called a minor second and a whole step is called a major second. Why? Well...

This is where I found music to be utterly confounding until one day it clicked. Music majors speak in the language of music and may go back and forth between half step and minor second depending on the context. The reason i thought about writing a book is because I never found anything that explained all of this simply, and that tends to be something I'm good at.

Oh, and the piano mentioned earlier? It makes perfect sense when you look at it with the concept of intervals. The black keys are spaced the way they are because that's how musical scales work:

From Wikipedia:

 

[Uke]

What gilded said. I'm a guitarist, but took just enough piano as a child to help me make sense of some of the theory. I wish I could "see" theory on a guitar fretboard, but the reality is I always have to visualize it on a keyboard first, then translate (very slowly!) back onto a fretboard. I hated piano lessons, but am really glad I took them just for basics of theory. To the point: notice that GAD's post used a keyboard visual rather than a fretboard.

 

[walrus]

This is where I found music to be utterly confounding until one day it clicked. Music majors speak in the language of music and may go back and forth between half step and minor second depending on the context. The reason i thought about writing a book is because I never found anything that explained all of this simply, and that tends to be something I'm good at.

No "click" for me. i know can find specific notes on the fretboard, I know the major pentatonic and blues pentatonic scales, etc. I can make the guitar sound good. I know lots and lots of chords, including some jazz stuff, but not each note in every one. I know a lot of songs and can play them well.

I would look forward to a well explained book, I hope you write it someday, GAD! I have looked at many - at some point they all assume a lot and make a big leap, some of them very early. The one I recommended above is the one I got the furthest in without my eyes glazing over, and wondering why I wasn't playing an enjoyable song instead. Rambozo (the OP) might go further than me with it.

The same for youtube videos on theory - I've looked at a lot - they all seem to make a leap at some point and lose me. Must be me. And/or my lack of desire for the suffering as I get older. I wish I learned theory in my younger days through a course or lessons or something as some of you have posted. But personally, right now - and for quite a while - I decided I'd much rather play something enjoyable and relieve any stress vs create stress while my brain explodes over theory.

And of course, many of my musical heroes don't know a thing about theory, but quite a bit about what sounds good. I can live with that.

walrus

 

[fronobulax]

Learn the modes? What are modes?

Basically types of scales. Lydian and Dorian are two modes whose names I remember but I can't define them without help

 

[Coop47]

I could read music from playing sax in high school band, but knw nothing about music theory for years. I found Desi Serna's stuff, particularly his podcasts, very helpful (a lot of it is free): https://www.guitarmusictheory.com/

I learned a lot from this as well.

Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist

The Ultimate Guide to Music for Blues, Rock, and Jazz Guitarists. By Guy Capuzzo. Guitar Book. This is the ultimate guide to theory for blues, rock and jazz guitarists. You will start with the basics and move up to advanced concepts with this easy, step-by-step approach. There are 28 different...

www.alfred.com

The combination of podcasts and book learning worked well for me. I hardly ever read music anymore, but having a basic understanding of music has made everything a lot more fun and interesting. Also makes it a lot easier to communicate with other musicians.

 

[fronobulax]

Also makes it a lot easier to communicate with other musicians.

This is why you learn theory and the associated vocabulary.

 

[crank]

I know and play in a bunch of modes but I never quite know which one I am playing. lol

 

[ruedi]

Paul Davids did a great series about music theory on youtube. Good for a start.

Here is the first episode, he did seven in total I think - you will find the rest directly on yt.

 

[JohnW63]

The Skeptical Guitarist books!

Skeptical Guitarist

www.skepticalguitarist.com

Fun delivery. Big text and diagrams. Spiral bound so it lays flat on the music stand. Click on each book to see what's inside. The Guitar from Scratch books have theory mixed in. The Music Principals series is just that. The Jazz book is more on Jazz basics, which has plenty of theory content.

 

[dreadnut]

Being self-taught and not a music reader I have come to depend on knowing certain scales but more importantly understanding the structure of and relationships between chords, which allows me to pretty much transpose on the fly. Sometimes I transpose to the natural chords and sometimes to the barres, or a combination thereof. Works OK for me. I'm just not a book learner when it comes to music.

 

[walrus]

This is why you learn theory and the associated vocabulary.

I agree, that was very obvious when I played in a little R&B combo at the college I work at. I did learn some stuff, but luckily, our teacher/band leader dumbed it down for us!

The key is to happiness is to only play with non-theorists!

walrus