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If you have some kind of piano and keyboard around, try to memorize and play different scales (start with major/minor/pentatonic blues, later try modal scales as well), try to find out which chords can be created from their tonal material (apart from the blues scale where the chords are not necessarily formed from just the tonal material of the scale), and just improvise a little. You will be able to learn a lot by yourself.

If you do not have any kind of piano or keyboard around, get one.

I think this combined chart of the circle of fifths and the relative major/minor keys is great, Patrick!

Although I've seen other such charts, I've never seen specifically this one.

Patrick, can you refer me to the URL where you got this from? I'm assuming that there may be other music resources there that I may personally be interested in.

Thanks!

Good to hear from you again in this thread, pauldrach. We last encountered each other in the John Cage 4'33 thread -- remember?

I think pauldrach's advice about using the keyboard to learn music theory as he's explained it in his post is an absolutely great idea. Now that I think back to my days in elementary and junior high school, this is how I learned a lot about chords and harmony. (I also had my parents buy me a book which detailed each kind of chord in every key -- and I learned virtually all of them.)

It was also during those years that I started to play my favorite songs -- and TV and movie themes, too -- playing the chords I learned with my left hand, and the melody I picked up by ear with my right hand

As far as getting your own keyboard if you don't have one, these days, buying a piano -- even a used one -- can be an economic challenge. However, there is a page that I helped set up as an Amazon.com affiliate which provides a few different links for economical electronic keyboards, ranging in price from about $100 to about $200.

I think those are pretty good prices for what you get, so if you're interested here's the link: http://bit.ly/amazon_keyboards

Sure I remember. It's also good to see you're still around.


It's not just efficient but also fun, you learn to connect the actual sound of the musical figures to your theoretical knowledge about them and might learn a little piano playing/improvising along the way. It's pretty much the best thing you can do with your time.

This would be one of those topics that I'd go way overboard on and walk people through three years of college level music theory courses-- if I didn't, you know, have a wife, kids, school and stuff. But it's seriously tempting!

it came from this gentleman's website which seems fairly specific to guitar

http://gorehound1313.wordpress.com/

if there are any specific resources you're looking for i'm pretty good about finding them on the internet. music theory information, especially primers in different subjects, can be impossible to find online

I agree with pauldrach. The keyboard is a great tool for learning music theory, chords and harmony. One of the reasons is that it's so easy to visualize the concepts on the white and black keys. And it is also fun, for the reasons stated by pauldrach.

As I previously wrote, it was the primary way I used to learn about music theory, chords and harmony when I was in elementary school -- and later, in high school and then as a music major in college. In the process, I did learn more about piano playing (we couldn't afford for me to have many lessons when I was younger), and began to experiment with improvising and also with jazz and modern harmonies.

I understand exactly where you're coming from, John17. Yes, it is seriously tempting to want to share the stuff you know, and get other people excited and knowledgeable about music theory, harmony, etc.

My experience is that there are many pianists I've known over the years who had years of lessons when they were young (compared to my sporadic six months worth) who have little to no knowledge of theory, harmony -- some don't even know key signatures.

But yes, now there are other responsibilities in our lives, and it's hard to fit everything in.

Only recently in the last couple of years have I gotten back to really playing keyboard again. But still, I can't devote the many hours that I want in order to get really good.

Such is life, huh?