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First three things to get, about music theory
What are the three things you wished you'd realised up front, in music theory? The things you wasted so long on, that you should've got in the beginning. The three elephant traps you want to put signs up for other people.
Comments
That its descriptive first and foremost and not a substitute for good ears/taste
Don't take shortcuts. Learn the basics first
How easy it is to change keys, and add somethung hugely interesting to a piece. That simply by trying a different scale, you open yourself upto something very new, that will spark your interest. That putting down the instrument and writing away from it, you remove a huge roadblock to creativity.
Interesting question, but not really one I could begin to answer. I had (semi) formal theory training from a fairly early age along with piano lessons and then in my late teens as part of music college (a long time ago). Since then I think although it held me in good stead I had more of an urge to ignore the rules and go by ear, which leads me to now where I just follow instinct, whether that instinct is a result or earlier lessons or ear I could not say.
Essentially I agree with @db909's comment, we all know what rules are for !
I have recently been considering getting back in to the theory side but playing with gadget is much more fun.
Not related to theory but perhaps in a similar vain: I wish I'd developed better fingering technique early on. I've been playing for a long time and find when I'm trying to play something above my pay grade it's almost always a matter of forcing myself to not be an ass/lazy when it comes to fingering. I have a lot of bad habits committed to muscle memory at this point.
We have @GospelMusicians around today. Would be interested to hear his personal set of things along with things he's observed while teaching others.
The importance of intervals is something that I wish I had grasped earlier. They are the basis for harmony and melody.
To touch upon what @db909 and @funjunkie27 said...ear training.
In my semi-formative years at community college, I spent lots of time on the keys running scales and chord progressions in all 12 keys, which i don't regret even though i no longer play. But about 4 years ago i go through phases of doing David Lucas Burge relative ear training course in few month spurts, in conjunction with Tenuto, an ios ear training app.
In short, having ears is far more valuable to me than rather than muscle memory to execute things on a real instrument. Dont get me wrong, if i had the time, having both are obviously ideal. But having the ears gives me such an appreciation for music when even away from any instrument or composition tool. It's like, you can live in your own head musically. And if you are sequencing stuff, you guess and noodle a whole lot less.
You write with more purpose. At least with the way my brain is wired and tangled-up.
I love this topic. I remember being emotionally drawn to certain chord progressions as early as the age of 7, before I even knew what a "chord progression" was. When I learned chord theory in high school, it was that "eureka, light bulb over the head" moment. Like I finally had the language to put with the sounds that had always emotionally moved me. With that said, here are 3 music theory related items that I would share with any composition student.
1) Use the iii chord! Use in place of the V, or unexpectedly throw it in before you hit the IV or vi. Love it.
2) Use minor chords with the 3rd in the bass. For example, try this. Play a basic C-G-F progression. Then, try C-Em/G-Dm/F. The second progression (to my ears) is a lot more interesting and carries far more emotional impact, even though it shares much in common with the far more typical I-V-IV.
3) Understand secondary dominants. Using a chord that's out of the key to lead you to a chord that's in the key can add variety and interest to your chord progressions without getting too "out there".
Bonus: I have to constantly remind myself of this one. Most listeners aren't drawn primarily to a chord progression, or a sound. They're drawn to a MELODY. So while you may first start with a chord progression that you love, or compose a little something using a patch that you think sounds incredible, don't let the melody be an afterthought. Compose a great melody!
I only have one:
That you are filling a space with sound.
That revelation came from reading Making Music, and it's something I never really thought about before. Up to that point all music I had previously made was done on a computer and pretty narrowed in on the idea that everything was on a timeline. For whatever reason things started to make more sense after visualizing the space the sound was going into, rather than focusing on the timeline it was on.
I like that.
"If you don't start, you'll never finish" - and the fact that far too many times in my life I've used that as a consolation to avoid, y'know, accomplishment, instead of the admonition to get off one's ass it's meant to be.
Mental attainment is a double-edged sword.
For me it's tension and release. You need to balance the most harmonious notes against less harmonious ones, this is why the V is so good for leading back to I in harmony, or why the vii or the ii work so well going back to the tonic in a melody.
One thing I hear a lot is melodies that only use notes related to the chords underlying them at that point in time, and IMO this creates boring melodies because there is never any tension. With some mild dissonance between chord and melody I think you can create much greater emotion in the music. I think it's more effective to use less predictable notes which then resolve harmonically to the tonic or dominant.
That is a good one, but it also goes well with one of my favourite music-making tips/tricks, which is all too often forgotten: silence can be awesome. I obviously don't mean all silent, but letting things breathe a bit and not bombard the "space" with a never ending stream/barrage of sound, can be very effective, by just letting things have some space (silence) around them.
Learn read music scores proficiently, which implies having a good understanding of harmony, melody and counterpoint rules so you will be able to predict what's coming next in the same way you are able to predict how a word will end when turning a page, which actually is a sum of grammar, logic and common sense.
Once you'll get that, practice will be much more fun for both the listener and the player, instead of spending hours trying to memorize one full score, you read, you play bad, you go for another piece; rinse, repeat.
I'm nowhere near to mastery of music theory but as someone who likes huge chords but finds staying in key boring I learned that staying in key is more important vertically than it is horizontally and that every chord is a skeleton of a scale and that even if I like to move around from key to key it's good to know where I came from, where is home.
A good example of tension and release (IMO at least) and also of space and contrast is the riff to Seven Nation Army. The pause between the penultimate note and its resolution is what makes the riff sound so good - a classic case of tension and release.
In A minor, the riff starts on A (twice), and then jumps up to the minor third C, before coming back to A and then walking down the scale G (vii) F (vi) ----> crucial pause for tension ----> resolving on (v) E. Resolving on (v) is perfect so that we can return to the tonic at the start of the next bar, and the walk down the scale from A G F primes our ears for it, so we are really expecting it to come, but the one beat pause creates tension where the last note played is a less harmonious vi, so the resolution is really effective when it comes.
Generally I find melodies built around scalar runs to be more effective than ones strictly built upon the underlying chords. Because wandering up and down the scale allows for less harmonious notes and intervals to provide contrast with the powerful tonic and thirds and fifths.
Also rhythm plays a fundamental role in this concept of tension and release. For example in Seven Nation Army the rhythm has some really interesting contrasts. The first note is a dotted quarter, so it lasts for a quarter and a half, the second note is an off-beat eighth (falls between the kick and snare), then quarter-notes run down the scale to the (vi) which is a half-note to introduce that pregnant pause, resolving on a final half-note. The interplay between the guitar and drums really helps to create the feel, especially in the rhythmic spaces at the start and end of the riff. The reason the riff is so powerful is because it surprises us with contrasts and tension.
This has turned into a general purpose music theory thread, but I'm not complaining.
I can't answer the OP's question because I've never spent a lot time studying music theory. There are many successful musicians who've never studied music or had any formal training. However, from what I've read and heard, it is helpful to know the fundamentals.
I don't think you need to understand music theory to get a grasp on much of what has already been stated above. Look into ear training, be able to recognize melody and harmony, understand the importance of tension/release (aka point/counterpoint).
So, if I were giving advice to someone starting out making music -- regardless of interest in music theory -- these would be my top 3.
This would be my 1, 2, and 3.
This can be powerful, for sure, but it depends on the song. Personally, I'm not a fan of those awkward pauses on the dance floor that kills the groove.
It's helpful to understand structure, but don't let analysis get in the way. Invention comes when you turn off the thoughts and just let things come to you. Stay closer to feelings and intutions than rules and roadmaps.
You need to know the rules in order to develop a sense of taste and context. Theory can help you figure out how others did it. After that you need to find your own way.
No amount of training can make up for what cannot be taught. The muse is a gift. Some hear it.
Not pauses per se. Space between notes...
Rhythm is primary | Melodies make songs memorable | Harmony takes a bit longer to understand but colors and fills out the melody
Here's the big thing you learn in basic music theory: The piano looks and works the way it does so that it is easy to play melodies (use only the white notes) and harmonize them (using a simple 1,3,5 chord grip) in the key of C (major).
@richardyot, I enjoyed your analysis of Seven Nation Army. Nice explanation of the tension/release aspects of the melody along with the importance of the rhythm. One alteration I might make: I believe the three notes following the eighth note and before the first half note are actually quarter note triplets, rather than simply quarter notes. Adds some rhythmic variety and is really the only way to fit three notes evenly into two beats.
For the biggest take away is that there's no sense learning it if you're not going to practice it. Not terribly difficult to get most of the basics, but super easy to forget them too.
@Joel75 You're right, thanks for the correction
That learning tedious stuff by rote comes first,
Comprehension and understanding comes second,
Ability to understandingly generate comes third,
Dawning realisation that the tedium of step 1 is unfortunately always necessary & lengthy, comes fourth.
1) Understand the cycle of Fifths
2) Related to that learn what a 2-5-1 chord progression is and learn how to use it . Go through your favorite songs and see how many of them, especially jazz standards and have passages that go to say, d minor, g7 to C major .
3) Related to that, get chord charts if your favorite songs and study them
4) Learn diatonic harmony.. Learn that when you place a finger on D on piano and play every other note you get d minor 7. That's D, e, and a minor.
Do that on G you get a dominant 7th (a flatted seventh note etc
5)- Forget all that and put your fingers anywhere on the piano a bunch of times.
@Telstar5, I'm a big fan of #3 and 5!
I don't really know how to communicate it. I just remember having my mind blown when I finally understood how theory applied to a guitar and how simple it seemed in retrospect. The key things for me we're learning intervals first, scales second, and third how to construct chords out of them. For the most part I think your ears can guide you very well.