recommend any good music theory books for beginners

undergroundvibe

HI,


can anyone recommend any good music theory bookings for beginners, just looking to learn the basics to improve my dance music productions. ive had a look around on google seen a few options, has anyone read one before and found it good, i have no real music knowledge at all

Paulj

I'm not an authority on the subject but i found this site pretty helpful:
http://www.musictheory.net/
Especially the bit on chord progressions...

Kenny DNK

The dance music manual from Rick Snowman is an excellent read.. you'd want to know a small bit about your DAW (ableton/logic) first though before going near it, like building a drum track etc..

It goes very in depth from compression, to synthesis, to programming, to mixing, to mastering and to promotion..

I think you can get a preview on scribd.com..

Sky King

It can be hard reading about music theory from a book, expecially since you can't hear anything. And it's a yawn fest and they'll start rambling on about written music, and befor long you'll have a major pain in your crotchet and be longing for a rest. (see what I did there eh eh?)

My suggestion to you is to get a good music teacher to explain it to you while sitting at a piano. Time signatures (though generally 4/4 is all you'd need concern yourself with for the time being) key signatures, and modes.

Buy a sh!tty casio keyboard and learn all the major scales and melodic and harmonic minors. Even just learning the majors will do because every major has a relavive minor so you'd be learning them by default. It will take you a few weeks but once you have that done you'll understand a lot more from a teacher.

There's some great 'origins of music' documentaries on youtube. Try this one, you'll learn a lot about music from it cause you can hear the stuff explained

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnbOWi6f_IM

There are 12 notes in music. That's all. It is their relationship with each other which gives the music the character, this is why intervals and chords are so important.

rcaz

kilkenny flyer wrote: »

There are 12 notes in music.

There are normally 12 notes in the Western tonal system. There's microtonal music, there's notation for quarter tones, there are plenty of atonal works where instruments glissando between notes. There are plenty of musical systems from other parts of the world. It's not nearly that simple

I'd recommend part one of The AB Guide to Music Theory by Eric Taylor if you're looking to learn theory. That's the book I learned from, and I thought it was really good. Covers everything easily without being patronising. Part two is good too, but only if you're looking to get up to a good standard in theory in relation to classical schools. I only read the bits about modes in part two, and I didn't need everything covered in part one.