Is there a method like, uhh, the Suzuki Method for kids that will help me learn music theory in a very short period of time?
I’m dying to play the keyboard or piano, and even the violin, but I want to understand the fundamentals of music first.
Any help in this regard woul be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
~Libre
Oh my gawd… help me!
http://www.free-ed.net/free-ed/arts/music01/lessonmain.asp
There must be an easier way 
~Libre
I don’t know how good they are, but there’s Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory out there, along with Music Theory for Dummies, with the first having slightly better reviews at Amazon.com (4.5/5). Personally, I would not go with learning theory first. I’d either learn it concurrently while learning an instrument, or after you have the fundamentals down. Even though I’m pretty good at theory, I don’t think it’s that important. Most of the basics (scales, key signatures, time signatures and the like), you will learn as you learn your instrument, anyway (if you are learning it in a formalized manner). And, depending on how you go about learning, you’ll probably pick up chord progressions and the like along the way.
What were you expecting? Yes, there’s a lot to learn, but you don’t need to know all of it to play an instrument.
If you really want to learn some theory before beginning to play, I would recommend learning how to count and then applying that knowledge to some familiar music. If you are into the European tradition you could start by learning about a particular style or genre, such as the Baroque suite, in which each movement is usually a stylized dance instrumental. Each of these dance pieces was almost always either in an even meter such as 4/4 (e.g. allemands and bourrees), or an odd meter such as 3/8 (gigues, courantes, and minuets). They are not always entirely consistent; I’ve come across one gigue in 4/4, and others may be in 12/8. If you learn to count, especially, the slow movements like sarabandes, you’'ll learn how to feel the pulse of even pieces that don’t have an obvious “beat”. By “counting”, at this stage, I mean simply being able to count to yourself “one, two, three” or “one, two, three, four”, while you listen to a recording, and not necessarily being able to read the score and sound out each note in your head.
While doing this, start learning about keys, intervals, and scales. It does get complicated, but it’s not hard ot learn the fundamentals.
It’s strange you would ask this just now. I just started taking a guitar class. I was in the orchestra in high school, so I’ve known some of it for a long time, but in class there are people who have never played music before. It has made me think about how to explain things that are almost second nature to me.
The absolute bare bones are:
Time: Western music typically follows some simple, repeating pattern. Here’s the Liberty Bell March (perhaps best known as the theme to Monty Python’s Flying Circus). Ignore the melody and listen to the drums. It’s a march, so you should almost be able to feel your feet going “left-right-left-right” etc. A musician would count that as “one-two-one-two”. That’s two beats to the measure, about the simplest pattern there is.
Now watch this scene from Stripes, where they’re marching to “Doo Wah Diddy”. Even though they’re marching, it sounds more like four beats to the measure. The melody usually emphasizes the first beat of each measure. “ONE-two-three-four-ONE-two-three-four” becomes “THERE she was just a WALKin’ next to me singin’ DOO wah diddy diddy DUM diddy doo”
Waltz time is three beats to the measure. After the two-minute-long intro, you should be able to hear a “one-two-three-one-two-three” pattern in the Blue Danube. Try to listen under the melody for the sound of plucked strings on beats two and three. (The lower pitched instruments, like basses and drums, carry the beat a lot more strongly than the higher instruments, like the violin. I played viola. Waltzes were so boring, it was just “rest-pluck-pluck” for almost the whole damn song.
Notes: Look at this picture of a piano keyboard. A piano has 88 keys, but it’s a repeating pattern, so we only need to talk about 12 notes. (The same names and rules apply no matter where you are on the keyboard. Just look at the pattern for now.) The notes on the white keys are all named for letters. A - B - C - D - E - F - G (and then the next white key is A again). In between A and B is a note that has two names; it’s either A-sharp (A♯) or B-flat (B♭) (which name you use kind of depends on context). There’s no B♯, because there’s no black key between B and C. One instance of the pattern (from A to A, or from D♯ to D♯, or whatever) is called an octave. (There’s a mathematical relationship that defines an octave, but we can skip that for now.)
Keys: (Not to be confused with the keys on a piano keyboard.) There are twelve notes to an octave (thirteen if you count the one at the end of the pattern, too), but some of them sound really sucky if they’re played together, so any given piece of music typically only uses about seven. Which seven it uses is called the key. If you start on C and play just the white keys “C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C”, it sounds like do re mi fa so la ti do. If you’re using those notes, the song is in the key of C-major. (Most songs don’t stay within a single octave, but you play the same letters no matter how high or low you go.) The intervals are the important thing. From C to D skips over C♯, that’s called “whole step”. From E to F (and from B to C) is a “half step”. A major key is Do (whole step) Re (whole step) Mi (half step) Fa, etc. You can start on any note and get the same intervals. If you start on G, you play G - A - B - C - D - E - F♯ - G. From E to F♯ is a whole step, F♯ to G is a half step. That’s the key of G-major, and it still has that same do-re-mi sound. (Remember that F♯ can also be called G♭, but we call it F♯ in this case because it’s convenient to use each letter once.)
There are exceptions to all of this. A friend of mine used to listen to a composer who built all his own instruments so he could write music with 43 notes to the octave. Breaking the rules is why this is an art and not a science.
Now, go write a symphony.
(For a different take on “Do Re Mi” go here. This post was worth it just because it led me to that video.)
Robot Arm, thanks for sharing that link! I LOVE (lovelovelove) flash mobs, and so wish they’d organize one here…
Libre - Music theory is a tough beast, no doubt about it, but like all other subjects, once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how you ever thought it was hard. So approach it not with a “I have to slog through all of this” mindset, but more of a “Let’s see how much I can get right off the bat today!”. The more positive reinforcement you have, the better.
What Robot mentioned, the “do re mi”, refers to a specific set of musical skills called tonic sol-fa, or solfege, which is still being taught today. I personally find that using solfege to train your ear is possibly one of the best things you can do, since you devote more areas of your brain to the task of “decoding” music - namely, the tactile* movements of forming hand signals, and the formation of the correct syllables, along with singing the correct pitch.
I’m a solfege buff, I do it in the shower, I do it in the car, I do it everywhere I can, to everyone’s chagrin ;)… but for every one of me, there are usually more who dispise solfege for the exact same reason. Such a powerful system requires a heavy investment of time and practice, and people usually have some sort of aversion to hard work.
As for theory: When I applied to music school and needed to complement the swiss-cheese like theory training I had, I relied on Barbara Wharram’s Elementary Rudiments of Music. I find she does a good job of simplifying the concepts enough to explain to those who are absolutely new to theory.
And lastly… don’t be distracted! Possibly the number one reason (in my experience) for a student to fail at theory is due to being distracted by something else. Plenty of students have found the Wharram books difficult, but they’re actually very easy if you set some time aside, remove all of the distractions, and just read it like a book that’s not out to get you.
Come to think of it, that works for every kind of study subject.
I think it’s possible to learn a bunch of music theory quickly, but it will be difficult to apply it, unless you have a real knack for it. The music theory that is the bedrock of good playing is something that must be not just learned, but second nature, and that takes time. But that’s not to say you can’t get up and runnning on an instrument quickly. It just takes a while to master it.
I realize what you’re saying here, but this could get confusing when Libre actually encounters a B#. There is a B#, it just doesn’t get a black key.
Libre, this is a tiny bit more advanced, but you’ll need to learn it anyway, so here we go. Generally speaking, sharp (#) means “go up a half step from the regular note”. Flat (the little italic “b” looking things) means go down a half step. On a piano, generally that means go from a white key to the adjacent black key. However, as Robot Arm said, there are a couple of places on the piano where there is no black key. This is because there is only a half-step gap between the adjacent white keys. C is right next to B with no black key in between. But you can still have a B#, it’s just that it happens to be the same note as C (assuming equal temperament, which is something you don’t have to worry about now). There are various complicated theoretical reasons why you would need to actually call it B# and not C that you’ll learn later. C-flat, on the other hand, is also B. E and F work the same way: E# is F, and F-flat is E.
Well, what are you waiting for? Start organizing one.
I like the teacher in my guitar class, but there are times when I can see people are confused and I want to speak up with the one ultra-basic idea that he left out. We’ve been practicing fingering by playing every fret. It’s not obvious to a beginner that most songs never use some of the notes. But it’s worth saying just to get everybody on the same page.
That’s what I was after; that stuff that’s so basic that people forget to put it into words.
I realized after typing my post that not only is it an introduction to music theory, it nearly exhausts my knowlege of the subject. The fact that two people have replied and not burst out laughing makes my day. I’ve heard of solfege, but I couldn’t have defined it, and I don’t know enough to endorse it or not; I just used it as an example of something the OP might recognize and that I could link to.
Yep.
You really don’t need to learn theory -before- learning to play. Sure, it helps a bit, but unless someone has a real knack (as someone else said), it’s easier to learn theory as you’re learning to play. That way you’ll have some practical ways to apply theory and your knowledge will grow as you gain more experience and proficiency on your instrument.
All that said, it can’t -hurt- to put a little study time in beforehand, but I wouldn’t let it be a gate to starting lessons or picking up an instrument.
I’m actually really glad you started this thread; I’ve been thinking about this lately too. I took piano lessons for about 10 years then gave it up over 20 years ago. Now I find myself with a gifted used piano, and two kids who love music, and I’d really like to get back into it. But in all those years of lessons, I was never taught the theory behind what I was doing. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized what I was missing was the theory, and I think it would have helped me appreciate so much more what I was learning and playing.
I want to teach myself to play again, and also play some guitar, and feel that having an education in the theory will help me shake the rust off and get back faster to where I used to be.
But I don’t understand this statement from Casserole: “I’m a solfege buff, I do it in the shower, I do it in the car, I do it everywhere I can…” - do what? I guess I still don’t understand what is meant by solfege.
Ah, I’m sorry. Let me explain.
Instead of singing pitches or playing an instrument, I sing the solfege equivalent. For example, if you were humming the melody to “Mary had a Little Lamb”, I would chime in with the appropriate solfege syllables that match the melody, namely:
“Mi re do re mi mi mi, re re re, mi sol sol. Mi re do re mi mi mi mi re re mi re do.”
There are also hand signals that follow along with each pitch. Think of it as the scene in The Sound of Music, where Maria begins to teach the children to sing.
Do - a deer, a female deer
Re - a drop of golden sun…
The entire thing sounds preposterous (and a wee bit childish), doesn’t it? But here’s where the benefits come into play. Because while you are singing the note in question, you are also verbally pronouncing a syllable and forming a sign with your hands. Your brain will immediately intervene if you accidentally mix them up for whatever reason. This layer of redundancy is excellent for training your ear and extending pitch memory, once you get more proficient at it.
With enough diligent practice, solfege works to maintain your pitch accuracy as well. It’s easy for the human voice to falter and flatten, especially at the high range, but with the extra “layer” of solfege underneath, your brain will instinctively realize that you aren’t singing quite the right pitch, and compensate for it.
There is so much more I could ramble on about, but suffice it to say, when I say “I solfege”, I mean to say “I practice singing”, but with these special syllables - Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti. 
Addendum:
Because Solfege is more of a skill as opposed to “knowledge”, it is much much easier for young children to learn it. This is why the Kodaly method focuses on solfege as a means to teach children the basics of music. After a month, a child will be so proficient that you need only raise your hand in a sign, and they will sing the appropriate pitch, once given a tonic.
Not to say that there’s no point now that we’re older! I began learning solfege when I was 20, and after one year, I was proficient enough to hear, sing, and interpret solfege on the fly.
So, Casserole, what happens if you want a kid to sing something in a minor key? Does solfege go out the window? I know it’s simple to drop mi and la half a step but a kid isn’t going to think of that or understand the reasoning. Do they teach a major version alone or with a natural, harmonic, and melodic minor version as well?
Just buy a used copy of this book. You can run through it in about four hours, and when you finish it you will understand how to read a piece of sheet music. Pretend that Robot Arm’s post is a short 80-page book, and that’s essentially what this is. It’s actually quite simple. You should have the whole thing down in two days, tops.
The chromatic solfege syllables ascending: Do di re ri mi fa fi sol si la li ti do.
Descending: Do ti tey la ley sol say fa mi mey re rah do.
So essentially, if you raise a note, you would add a “-i” inflection to the end (rhyming with tea or tee). When lowering a note, the “-ay” suffix is used (rhyming with bay or yay).
So a harmonic minor scale would be pronounced: Do re mey fa sol lay ti do.
Also note how there is no half-step between “mi-fa” and “ti-do”, which follow the whole and half steps of the scale
There’s a choral arrangement of “Do-Re-Mi” in solfege, with a lot of fast counterpoint among the sections, and a few ascending and descending chromatic scales. My chorus has performed it twice, and it’s a real bitch to learn.
Just to clear up any potential misunderstandings, I can say as a Suzuki veteran that the Suzuki method teaches no music theory. It’s all about listening, copying, and memorization. As a result, I sight read for crap.
Generally, minor scales in solfege start on la: la-ti-do-re-mi-fa-sol-la. Of course that only works for natural minor; melodic and harmonic minor still require chromatic solfege.
If you aim at playing the violin and have other people around you enjoy it, then:
This is a little less true for piano. However, you can also acquire basic skill at playing the piano with very little theory. In other words, whatever skill you reach will cost you x hours at practicing the instrument and just a fraction of x at learning theory. And you can multiply x by a large number if the instrument is a violin.
I don’t want to drag you away from learning theory which in the long term will be usefull, nor from learning to play an instrument. Being able to play nicely is a blessing ! Well, technically it is a hardly learned skill, but once you have it, it is certainly as valuable as a blessing. Just be advised that you will need a lot of practice, and that you must think about the long term.
