How I'd Learn Music Theory (If I Had To Start Over)

Watching someones POV drawing with their left hand is a bit disorienting

First time on this channel; first exposure to music theory.
I love your presentation. I was smiling and laughing throughout.

Content: Sounds like good advice ... but ... how would I know?

You Wizard 🧙 u lol

I know it's been two years so you may not see this but thank you for this video. I'm (finally) seriously learning guitar and I just got to my first pentatonic scale and I'm like "Oh, cool! Let's google 'music theory'...oh god....oh...oh no..." but this helps me get a good starting point. I have no idea where my journey will take me or what I'll really be able to absorb and use (especially at my point in life) but if nothing else I'm finally learning something I've enjoyed my entire life. Anyway, thanks!

I was in choirs from middle school up through college, but I always skipped learning music theory in favor of learning pieces by rote. Now that I'm in grad school doing game design and trying to experiment with sound and music from a production standpoint, I severely regret my prior choices.
That said, your videos have been immensely helpful so far, and this one is no exception.

all jokes aside mans actually a decent artist

Finding this video has revealed to me a world I always convinced myself was not comprehensible to the ones that have not been into it since they were young, I am really hoping to get better in music, and I want to mark this as the start of this journey, will see how this goes down the road.
Thank you for making this video!!

The process is always messy. Its only when we look back we can connect the dots and make sense. Embrace the messy process.

He’s a lefty.

Thanks for this

If I could do it all over again I’d order a copy of Vienese Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux’ Gradus ad Parnassum publish’d in Latin in 1725 ‘at Royal Expense’ and procure Alfred Mann’s useful English translation of p. 40 through p. 217a (Mann unfortunately omits pp 1 - 39 and 217b - 279–but it would be a great start

I would photocopy each page and set the Latin text out in a notebook on the left hand side & Mann’s modern type-set translation on the right hand side (involves a lot of cutting & pasting but well-worth it)

Now that the tercentenary of Fux’ Gradus is coming around in 2025, we should see some very helpful footnoted commentaries…and with any luck a COMPLEAT translation of text & musical examples in clear & simple modern English & modern musical notation !

Waste of time.

Good information, but super fast. A transcript would help tremendously. Thank you.

My professor played this in class! Great video :-)

My biggest struggle is applying anything at all I have learned to an actual instrument.

I absolutely love the way you draw what you speak... I'm not exactly troubled, but i have bad memory and bad focus, so the ability to look at the screen whilst you write and correlate words to drawings, then being able to quite literally look back and SEE what you said before when my mind blanked is just... amazing... like- awesome, thank you so much!

Music theory claims to be the study of the practices and possibilities of music, but I think it’s safe to say that what we in the West think of as “music theory” has always been taught through the lens of the methods used by white European musicians from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods when they created THEIR music.

If you ask me, music theory should be taught as the wider study of musical cultures, techniques and histories made by people who aren’t white, European, and who lived hundreds of years ago. (ESPECIALLY with the many new techniques used to create the music of today.)

Vihart for music

So.... if you were to start over learning music theory, you'd begin with an already comprehensive understand of how to read sheet music and how to analyse it? Man I don't even know what d minor is and everyone acts like things like that are common knowledge :(

I self taught myself how to draw, and I really like to do it and I know a lot about visual stuff and how they work. Even though I'm still a freaking 15 /yo teenager, That has been something that really grabbed my attention and I consider I do pretty well, I've even created my own original characters and stuff.

But music is something I really like too, and I wanna learn how to compose music, I just don't know where to start learning, or even how to learn it. I mean, I can kind of analyze songs, and focus on each element of the composition of the song and isolate it, I can even transcript it in a MIDI at least. But I just have no idea on how I can start getting a grip on creating music, I don't even know if I even have the imagination to create a melody or something. I really love music, and I wanna compose, but Idk where I can start. Sometimes I even feel like I'm too much of a visual person, and music is just not my thing.

I was hoping I could get some advise from anyone on that. Thanks for reading.

What is the little mouse guy

The word analysis literally means ‘to reduce something to its component parts’ which you have identified as a vital part of your journey. The whole process though requires that you take those parts and develop an understanding of how they fit together, so that you can communicate this to your audience in a way that they can relate to, using analogy and broader concepts etc. that they are familiar with. This is the core of synthesis, which is, in a sense, the opposite side of analysis. So thanks for the summation and synthesis.

I don't even know how to read music or any of the music grammar!

What are some good music theory journals to follow?

I'd love to learn theory but I simply don't get it. I keep getting lost and confused which leaves me feeling like an utter imbecile.

I'm very music theory beginner I've don't choir for years but never really understood anything so last year when i started learning the piano that i had to actually learn and now my interest is definitely awakened

Doesn't Eddie's solo in "I'm The One" violate almost all rules of music theory, and still sound better than most of all other guitar solos? why is that?

oh... i thought this was for beginners 😭😭😭😭

it is criminal no one mentioned the parker square

I disagree, yes production is awesome wizardy, but it truly starts with an instrument.

Currently learning music production and I compose my own music.

Quite frankly, in my experience you won't make any good compositions if you don't play an instrument, they go hand in hand. The more techniques you learn on your instrument the more you can apply them to composing and to your productions.

parker square

Guys firstly hello and thanks for the video. I am an traditional Turkish ensturmant player it's name is Kanun it is a great ensturmant and I learned it by ear and I am trying to learn music theory to improve my playing I hope I can make it and if you can can you give more tips for music theory and I would like to discuss more topics thanks.
Loves Ali Ulvi.

As someone new to learning music this video basically made no sense at all lol it just sounds like people over thinking things

woahh :0 i already analyize songs just not as deep and have quite a large taste in music, i'm interested in learning notes as that is smth i struggle with alot- but ty for the pointers, i'll try my best with this new knowledge :D<

Loved the Parker Square in the middle of the video 😂

The drawing from right to left made me nervous

"and for some reason me" you're awesome my guy don't sell yourself short.

You said “a satisfying way to fill a gap” 😅

I’m trying to teach myself how to play guitar and thought understanding music theory would help 😂 idk now but I am gonna go to that website and look I think I’ll figure it out………..Eventually

Wtf is a 5 to 1 resolution? I keep looking for "beginner" music stuff, but everything so far has simply made me feel inept. I can sing, play guitar, and am decent an drums, but the instant someone starts explaining music to me in numbers and letter and augmented and diminished or dorian, my brain goes completely blank. It's like there's a lexicon of information that one must know before one looks at beginner music theory. How do 5 yr olds learn? I'm at a loss for words. I have written and performed but if you put a gun to my head and asked me to play a 3rd of a anything and I wouldn't know wtf you wanted from me? A 3rd of what? Where does one truly start with music theory. Is my brain broken?

I’m trying to be an upcoming artist and I want to mix and produce everything myself, I wanna do it all, so I thought I’d learn some music theory… but everything you’re describing rn, I’ve already been doing on a daily basis and i dont know, that just puts a smile.. seems like I’ve got ahold of things

It’s like learning a language you have heard over and over again. It is familiar and yet so foreign. When you’re learning it, you keep thinking you understand. When you get it, you realize that there is nothing to understand anymore and that it is just an art like painting and drawing and there is ten thousand ways to do the same thing.

Eminem lite,if you want to listen Eminems slower version without music listen him

Why am I watching doodles again?

"Not how music behaves in the wild", he says. Lol awesome.