https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/ link takes you to the homeworks/assignments and everything else for a self-study/auto-didact to follow along. Neat!
Am I the only one who thinks that the classic music notation is 3x harder to learn than the basic music theory (without the rules of notation)?
I think that you can learn music theory (to play an instrument or to compose music e.g. in a "piano roll tool" / MIDI editor) much faster if you skip the classic notation. And I think that it is even better to learn the notation AFTER you understand the music theory.
This is a bit off topic, but since you mentioned your guide:
I hope this doesn't come off as hostile, but the guide you linked contains a number of inaccuracies and oversimplifications - it's kind of naive in an endearing way, but also leaves the reader with the impression that it covers all there is to music. I guess what I'm saying is it's fine to restrict yourself in what you include in the guide, or even simplify things, but it should be clear that the topic (i.e. music) is far richer and more complex.
love that video, it made me lol so hard the first time I saw it :D
Classical composer and software engineer here. One of my goals is to help update score notation. I use something called "harmonic coloring" which is like a reduced MIDI notation: You color a note by its functional role (harmonic value) rather than an arbitrary hue in 0-11.
What this view shares with MIDI: Long rectangles representing the applied durations.
How it is different: Occupies a minimal amount vertical space.
The color palette I'm using is intended to support people with colorblindness. The shades/hues of a color encodes the functional harmony. The root key signature (origin) is always the same color; and chords some distance r away on the circle of fifths is the shade/hue at that offset r.
There is a similar concept described in the Tantacruel video towards the end.
You can explore it here on Monic Theory.
(mobile view should be fixed within 48 hours)
I suppose it makes historical sense, and even ingeniously designed.
But it, and the piano black keys with it, are definitely not optimal. It makes playing in C easy, and playing in anything else hard. I've picked up a new instrument since ~2 months, and 1 month in I could already play all scales by by deliberately staying away from music notation, learning the raw distances/steps that make up a scale and how to play them, rather than the 'delta from C', which is how classical training taught me to think. (Same story for chords etc)
I feel that quote more likely is pointed at "music appreciation" as a written work, versus understanding the theory. I know a few musicians who are happy to use terminology from theory, "I love to write songs with diminished and sustained chords".
This seems like a great resource to me, a classically trained pianist who is now playing different types of music.
by Robert Hutchinson
I think that you can learn music theory (to play an instrument or to compose music e.g. in a "piano roll tool" / MIDI editor) much faster if you skip the classic notation. And I think that it is even better to learn the notation AFTER you understand the music theory.
I even made my own guide to music :D https://www.jampea.com/learn
> Only a limited set of frequencies is used in music. All these frequencies (that exist in music) can be played by a piano.
The parts that are really weird (like the C clef) have mostly been obsoleted, unless you play the viola I guess.
Classical composer and software engineer here. One of my goals is to help update score notation. I use something called "harmonic coloring" which is like a reduced MIDI notation: You color a note by its functional role (harmonic value) rather than an arbitrary hue in 0-11.
What this view shares with MIDI: Long rectangles representing the applied durations. How it is different: Occupies a minimal amount vertical space.
The color palette I'm using is intended to support people with colorblindness. The shades/hues of a color encodes the functional harmony. The root key signature (origin) is always the same color; and chords some distance r away on the circle of fifths is the shade/hue at that offset r.
There is a similar concept described in the Tantacruel video towards the end.
You can explore it here on Monic Theory. (mobile view should be fixed within 48 hours)
https://monictheory.com/project-templates
But it, and the piano black keys with it, are definitely not optimal. It makes playing in C easy, and playing in anything else hard. I've picked up a new instrument since ~2 months, and 1 month in I could already play all scales by by deliberately staying away from music notation, learning the raw distances/steps that make up a scale and how to play them, rather than the 'delta from C', which is how classical training taught me to think. (Same story for chords etc)
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
This seems like a great resource to me, a classically trained pianist who is now playing different types of music.