hey guys! well, i was wondering if you could help me with something, to start off, i have taken piano lessons for almost 3 years now, so im at a intermediate level.. but i want to be able to just sit down at the piano and just start playing, just anything.. you know what i mean? kinda like little improve things i guess.. so i am intrested in learning about music theory and chords and things of that nature, but im not real sure how to do this.. are there certain books to get? or what? if someone could help with this id greatly appreciate it..

thanks!

That's a though one. Wanting to be able to just sit down and start improvising. That's just going to take same time and no amount of music theory is going to help in that unless you just practice how to improvise on the instrument.

This helped me a lot to understand harmony, scales and chord progressions. It's written for jazz type of music though.

http://www.amazon.com/Mod...0711908419

I suppose there are newer books on the subject as well. The are of course some online tutorials as well. Youtube's got quite a lot of videos that are worth watching. Just search for something and click on the various different clips that the service suggests you on the side panel.

novabrkr said:

That's a though one. Wanting to be able to just sit down and start improvising. That's just going to take same time and no amount of music theory is going to help in that unless you just practice how to improvise on the instrument.

This helped me a lot to understand harmony, scales and chord progressions. It's written for jazz type of music though.

http://www.amazon.com/Mod...0711908419

I suppose there are newer books on the subject as well. The are of course some online tutorials as well. Youtube's got quite a lot of videos that are worth watching. Just search for something and click on the various different clips that the service suggests you on the side panel.

thank you! ill check out the book, and youtube..thanks again!

You know what? I'd have posted this over in the Music: Non-Prince section, just to see what replies if any you get.

armpit said:

You know what? I'd have posted this over in the Music: Non-Prince section, just to see what replies if any you get.

if i reposted it there would it get locked? since i already posted this one?

dm3857 said:

armpit said:

You know what? I'd have posted this over in the Music: Non-Prince section, just to see what replies if any you get.

if i reposted it there would it get locked? since i already posted this one?

You know what? Good question, and that didn't occur to me for whatever reason.

I'd ask a mod or see about having the thread moved there at some point or something. You could leave it here first though just to see if anyone else replies, they might.

Listen to a lot of jazz, free jazz, improvised and experimental music (particularly if it involves a piano, or three ). If you're really interested in improv it can't do anything but help, even if you never end up playing that way. Studying music theory is great, I know people who have played the above types of music for 40 years and they're still learning. But if you don't know (hear) a wide variety of practical uses for the information you're trying to process and put to memory it just becomes notes, chords, figures, etc. Hearing different ways to apply that knowledge to your instrument can be very helpful.

Whoa ... where do we start? Yep, it's a long haul but it's not impossible and worth it.

1. First you have to know all major and minor scale and relative keys and all chords in every keys.

2. You must learn / play all chord inversions and the building melody techniques. A chord inversion is nothing more than, rearranging of the intervals or tones (notes) of a chord into a different order.

Just for starters. I have some of this stuff on a hardrive somewhere, (major and minor scales/relative keys and all chords) I'll find it and org ya.

I had planned to say more than what I typed above...

Here's some links to some sights about music theory.

Piano Info. com

Tables of Major Scales

http://library.thinkquest...theory.htm

music theory

http://www.gmajormusictheory.org
This has lots of sheet music organised into levels, from primer level and level 1 to level 4, intermediate and advanced. (Excellent)

http://www.teoria.com
A good theory, aural/ear training website.

In brief:

1. Music is based on harmony.
   Melody and improvisation ared based on chords and scales.
   Accompaniment is based on chords and scales.
   Chords are based on scales.
   Scales are based on physic, math principles, and music traditions

12 Major Key Chords + scale

12 Harmonic Minor Key Chords + scale

12 Melodic Minor Key Chords + scale

12 Natural Minor Key Chords + scale (scales are commonly used in classical, jazz, pop)

If you're an intermediate piano player, I'm going to surmise you are still "tooling" around the Circle of Five's and Four's: this should be understood backwards and forwards until you understand it without thinking about it.... it will help you understand scales and "jazz chords" are organized immensley. Your goal of playing musical improvisationally, I'd think is waaay in the future, you still have to learn how to walk, before you can even trot... let alone run.

How you go about breaking down, proccessing, or tackling music theory is up to you, your learning style, and what you've mastered and understand at this jucture of your playing. Needless to say, I learned music theory before, VHS, DVD's, Youtube and alike. Yeah, we has books smart asses. Truth be told I wouldn't have progressed very much on my own, using media. I flourished with hands on instruction / teaching and my teacher wrote all music assignments and transposed .... at first. :-

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[Edited 7/31/11 17:30pm]

[Edited 8/1/11 4:09am]

I guess I figured they were already somewhat knowledgeable since they said they'd been taking lessons for three years. Sooo, uhh, yeah...learn scales and chords first.

dm3857 said:

hey guys! well, i was wondering if you could help me with something, to start off, i have taken piano lessons for almost 3 years now, so im at a intermediate level.. but i want to be able to just sit down at the piano and just start playing, just anything.. you know what i mean? kinda like little improve things i guess.. so i am intrested in learning about music theory and chords and things of that nature, but im not real sure how to do this.. are there certain books to get? or what? if someone could help with this id greatly appreciate it..

thanks!

i think it helps if you have a song playing in the background and then just begin to doodle over the top with your own harmonies. sing the harmony in your head, then find it with your fingers on the piano. once you get going, throw in a chord here and there. have fun!

armpit said:

dm3857 said:

if i reposted it there would it get locked? since i already posted this one?

You know what? Good question, and that didn't occur to me for whatever reason.

I'd ask a mod or see about having the thread moved there at some point or something. You could leave it here first though just to see if anyone else replies, they might.

I agree. Ask a mod to move the thread. There's a bunch of musicians in Non Prince that could give some useful tips.

They'd probably just move it to the org Artist discussion forum that hardly anybody reads.

Has happened before.

novabrkr said:

They'd probably just move it to the org Artist discussion forum that hardly anybody reads.

Has happened before.

I'd move it to Artists: Non-Prince, but in retrospect, yeah - I can see how mods might think it belongs in the Artist section....

So let me take that back. DON'T ask for the thread to be moved .

novabrkr said:

They'd probably just move it to the org Artist discussion forum that hardly anybody reads.

Has happened before.

Oh lawd, I hope not. Guess we should leave well enough alone.