Music theory is, according to Wikipedia, the study of “the practices and possibilities of music.” I love how they put this! Anyway, because music theory is essentially the language and rules of music, it is vital for any musician that gives AF.
During the past couple years of playing piano, I haven’t moved much beyond the VERY basic understanding of theory I gained 23 years ago as a lackluster violin student. I mean, now I know the notes on the bass clef (mostly . . . sometimes the bass clef is super tricky), but for the most part I have the theory knowledge of an elementary school student.
Over the past couple years of my piano journey, my lack of knowledge hasn’t really bothered me that much EXCEPT when my teacher would ask me a HELLA basic question (e.g. what key is this in?) and I’d be like, “uhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . music?” SMH. ANYWAY, I decided a month or so ago that I wanted to start composing music. Spoiler alert: you need to know theory to write music. I mean, obviously, you can write music without knowing theory, it’s just way harder and your song has a way higher chance of sucking. SO, I signed up for theory and composition lessons.
Now armed with this book and this book, I have started from the beginning. I thought it was going to be boring and redundant. However, as it turns out, I knew way less than I thought I did. Awesome.
The two best things about this so far are:
- I am getting way more out of playing piano now that I understand more of what is going on in a piece.
- My piano teacher’s face lit up when I told her I was taking theory lessons and that I got a book of scales, chords, and arpeggios. Seriously, she was so happy, y’all.
Here are some of the scintillating concepts I have been learning/relearning. Y’all can check my homework for this week.
Compulsive Creation 