Theory made easy

By Darrin Koltow

Now stop climbing all over each other, trying to read this article: I know how much you love reading about theory.

Seriously, if you don't have a lot of time to learn theory but still *want* to learn, where can you go? Or, if you're like me and have trouble concentrating on a particular topic, what do you do?

You surf over to Music Theory .Net (http://www.musictheory.net)

Music Theory .Net (MTN) bends over backwards to help you understand what can be a difficult subject: music theory. Webmaster Ricci Adams breaks complex theory topics down into bite-sized chunks that make it easy for you to digest and comprehend the notes, intervals, key sigs, and rules and regulations of music theory.

What you can learn at MTN

What specific theory topics can you learn at Music Theory .Net? For one thing, learn how to read standard notation.

There are interactive, Shockwave enhanced tutorials that explain the music staves, clef and ledger lines, note durations, and time signatures. Also, you can learn to "calculate" key signatures: Ricci shows an easy way of figuring out a key based on the number of accidentals in the signature.

Other theory topics you can learn easily at MTN:

- Harmony: intervals, basic progressions, inversions, triads and seventh chords: - Ear training, to help your ear identify chords, intervals and scales. - Note identification on piano, guitar and brass instruments

It's likely that most, if not all, of the fundamental theory concepts you'd want to learn are covered in this site. And they're explained with fun, interactive, multimedia quizzes and presentations. This makes learning theory a breeze and a pleasure.

More advanced topics are here for you, too: Composing with minor scales, intro to analysis, info on tone rows, and explanations of terms related to extended chord tones or "nonharmonic" tones.

Understand Chords

You can learn the fundamentals of chord progressions in the Common Chord Progressions topic. You'll learn which chords move smoothest to the tonic (I) chord, where you can go from the I, and other important ingredients of chord movement.

What you *won't* learn in the Chord Progressions topic are progressions for jazz, rock, Blues or pop. When you learn these progressions, you *know* you're making music -- even if you know only a few chords. You can learn these progressions by reading Guitar Chords, which is at http://www.maximummusician.com/Chordbook.htm .

Also, check out the Chord Exploring series of articles here.

Learn the fretboard

Want to learn the notes on the guitar but can't get to your guitar at the moment? The guitar instrument trainer quizzes you on the fretboard notes. You even have control over how much of the fretboard you want to be quizzed on. The only drawback is that there's no sound connected to the notes: it's all visual.

You can even download a free, personal copy of the guitar trainer and other trainers, for both Windows and Mac OS. The download also includes the Pop-up Piano and other goodies from the Utilities section. (More on that in a bit.)

If you're interested in learning to play another instrument, there are keyboard and brass trainers, too. For the brass trainers, you'll be quizzed on which valves produce which notes. In fact, there are separate trainers to learn trumpet, French horn and other brass instruments.

I've been surfing for music lessons on the Net for some time now, and I've never seen an app that trains you to play brass instruments. Pretty cool.

Figure out chords (maybe)

You can find the specific notes that make up the I, ii, iii and other diatonic chords, using the Chord Calculator in the Utilities section. You can do this for any key.

But the Chord Calculator is one of the few confusing presentations in MTN. It showed chord symbols I didn't recognize, and there was no Help button to help me sort them out.

Also, the triads are laid out in a haphazard, confusing way. Diatonic triads are grouped with non-diatonic triads. They seem to have no connection to each other. You find yourself thinking that this info is somehow useful, but you're not sure how it's useful.

Other lessons on MTN give you a clearer picture of triads: Triad Inversion, Diatonic Triads, and other lessons. Also, if you want to play all triad inversions on the guitar in a musical, Bluesey way, see the Blues Triad Mastery lesson, at http://www.maximummusician.com/btm.htm .

Print staff paper

Music Theory .Net has a nifty utility called the Staff Paper Generator to print blank staff paper with. This is under the Utilities subheading, along with its brothers and sisters Chord Calculator, and Pop-up Piano. We guitarists dig the free staff paper, but tablature paper would be even more useful.

The Pop-up piano is useful for newbies to experiment with. You can even play chords by holding down the shift key. It would be cool if you could play notes by using the computer keyboard also, but this feature is absent.

Summary

If there is such a thing as "one-stop" shopping for free, easy and enjoyable music theory lessons, Music Theory is it, whether you're new to learning theory, or are looking for advanced lessons.

Also, you might find MTN useful as a reference source, to return to again and again. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't see any awards listed on the site. You'd think that some kind of praise from music educators and others would be visible on the home page.

If you're short on time and attention, but want to understand music theory in a fun, interactive way, check out Music Theory .Net.

By Darrin Koltow

Learn more chord theory from Guitar Chords. Substitute and combine chords; play Jazz, Rock and Blues progressions; transpose songs; put chords to a melody; apply fingerpicking, alternating bass, arpeggios, and much more.