We're going to start from the very beginning, assuming very little knowledge of anything related to music theory. These lessons aren't going to teach you the skills you need to play the guitar, but rather the goal is to get you the knowledge you'll need to make your own music or have a deeper understanding of other people's music.
What you need to know:
- A very basic understanding of the guitar (or whatever instrument you play):
- How to tune a 6-string guitar to standard tuning
- How to hold the instrument and properly fret and pick
What IS Music Theory?
There are a lot of confusing and contradicting notions about music theory. Some folks will tell you it’s a set of restrictive and oppressive rules, others will say, “You don’t need to know that stuff! it’ll only make you play with less FEEL! Famous guitar player X didn't know theory, so you don't need to know it either... Blah, blah, blah...”My goal is to set the record straight and shed some light on some of this confusion.
Music theory is basically two things:
- It is the spoken language of music. In other words, it’s a common set of terms and concepts that enable us as musicians to express musical ideas without necessarily having an instrument in-hand.
- It is the mechanics of music. In other words, it is the examination of the relationships between musical tones, rhythm, and intermingled moments of silence, and how these work with and against each other.
Music theory is a broad and deep topic; it's so deep that you can focus on music theory as an entire college degree focus -- all the way up to the Ph.D. level! We're not going to go nearly that deep. The goal here is to get you to a conversational level of music theory so that you can be effective at communicating with your musician peers and collaborators. Hopefully this will also help you unlock a vault of knowledge that will also help you become a better musician or songwriter.
I'll see you next week with the first lesson!
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