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Awesome Music Theory: books, links, videos, research, visuals, composition
- ksaj 3y agoIt is an awesome list you've created. I'd consider adding the title "Awesome Music Theory" to the top of the README, and add your url to the Awesome List of Lists for more reach.
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoThank you for the suggestions! I'll think whether I actually conform to the Awesome manifesto. Also, I've always thought that Awesome links should be on a single page and not in the way I splitted them into subpages
- ksaj 3y agoYours is the way I usually see them. You don't have to change anything about your layout. Just add the title, add to an Awesome List of Lists, and you're gold.
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoAuthor here. I'd love to hear from HN which resources to study music (theory) might I overlooked so far. Everything counts: from books and papers on theory to ear training exercises to YouTube videos. The higher is rarity*value, the better.
- ace2358 3y agoThank you very much for your work. As someone who constantly struggle to get music theory as an adult (mostly lack of practice I know, but sometimes life takes over) having as many different resources as possible really helps.
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoI feel you. I started learning piano at 25, and even though I messed with guitar during the middle school, I feel like everything takes ages to learn and master. I thought music as a set of languages is way easier than it happened to be. A CS degree and passion for linguistics doesn't convert into fluency as fast as I wished, and now I see why I'd need 4 years of music college + 4 years of an actual degree.
- mfragin 3y agoMy linguistics professor in college warned all students on day one: "if you are an English teacher, you may struggle in this class. If you are a computer programmer, however, you may do quite well." I love comparing the differences between piano and guitar as instruments for learning music. They have such different strengths and weaknesses. Changing keys with a capo is like using the "pitch shift" button on an electronic keyboard. Since music is only a strong hobby of mine, I have never come to any conclusion on those matters. I learned a LOT when I received a free high-quality piano (that had been in storage) and decided to tune it myself. That's a rabbit hole I am still amazed by. I got a lot of use out of http://piano-tuner.org/ http://piano-tuner.org/ Piano tuning is such a complex art and science.
- medler 3y agoFor Common Practice theory, Dr. Christopher Brellochs’ lectures are very very good: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw9t0oA3fHkxx1PgYpiXrMUPXaOiwh6KU https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw9t0oA3fHkxx1PgYpiXrMUPX...
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoThank you! Just added: https://github.com/vpavlenko/study-music/blob/main/parts/classical.md#video-courses https://github.com/vpavlenko/study-music/blob/main/parts/cla... Actually, I never bothered googling video courses on undergrad music theory and relied on books instead
- DavidPiper 3y agoGreat to see 12tone and 8-bit Music Theory in the YouTube and Podcasts section! I'd also recommend: - Nahre Sol - https://www.youtube.com/@NahreSol https://www.youtube.com/@NahreSol (Composition, reinvention, exercises, more theory recently) - David Bruce - https://www.youtube.com/@DBruce https://www.youtube.com/@DBruce (Composition techniques) - Sideways - https://www.youtube.com/@Sideways440 https://www.youtube.com/@Sideways440 (Film and musical soundtrack analysis/rants) - Tantacrul - https://www.youtube.com/@Tantacrul/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Tantacrul/videos (Maybe. "Music meets sociology"?) Those 6 channels plus r/musictheory (pre-2018) are basically my entire Music Theory / composition education. A quick note that r/musictheory is not the same thing as it was back then. IIRC there was a big switch/restart some years back, not sure what happened. Still a good Q&A forum today.
- maroonblazer 3y agoI'd add MusicMatters - https://www.youtube.com/@MusicMattersGB https://www.youtube.com/@MusicMattersGB to the list. Great analyses and teardowns of all kinds of classical music. I'm especially fond of his Bach chorale analysis.
- DavidPiper 3y agoOh yes! Firmly seconded, I've been a subscriber in the past.
- quadrangle 3y agoJust Intonation and everything from https://en.xen.wiki/ https://en.xen.wiki/ and related, maybe some of the YouTube stuff from "Hear Between the Lines" is a good start for new accessible stuff. Music cognition such as Sweet Anticipation by David Huron and everything like that… especially note Music and Memory by Bob Snyder which expresses everything except harmony in a style that avoids traditional notation, and Sounds of Music: Perception and Notation (out of print) by Gerald Eskalin who also wrote Lies My Music Teacher Told Me For the most part, "music theory" amounts to music-notation-and-style-grammar because very little of it is actual theory (i.e. explanation) until you add real science which means music psychology (because notation patterns and physics patterns are not music, music is a mental experience).
- mkl 3y agoLooks like it's "Eskelin".
- giraffe_lady 3y agoMathieu's Harmonic Experience. Definitive book on reconciling just & equal temperament and how to develop embodied understanding of the relationships between notes.
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoWow, that's quite a unique book, I'd say. Have you gone through its exercises? How's your experience with it, over time?
- giraffe_lady 3y agoYeah it really is excellent for learning how to feel the different intervals, and how to reason about intervals as a representation of a more fundamental harmonic relationship. It's the best model I've ever seen for understanding and using the knowledge of how 12-tet notes "stand for" many different just temperament notes in different scales. I've also used the approach in the first few chapters to teach people with no music experience to sing the "ison" drone of byzantine chant. In my experience it's a dead simple and reliable way to introduce people to their latent musicality.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoBecause of the organization and the fact that I don't want to clone it right now, searching it hard .. but I think you're missing Ian Ring's amazing comprehensive study of all possible scales within 12TET: https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/ https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/ This is not particularly useful to most musicians, but from a music theory perspective, it's one of the best introductions to set theory (the musical version) around.
- clouddrover 3y agoWhy does it need to be rare? How about Music Theory for Dummies: https://www.dummies.com/book/academics-the-arts/music/music-theory/music-theory-for-dummies-4th-edition-282411/ https://www.dummies.com/book/academics-the-arts/music/music-...
- williamcotton 3y agoIn my early years as a musician I focused too much on theory. I didn’t really start to grow until I started to learn as many covers as I could and how to improvise a solo over the changes. The theory part helps only in that I know how a dim7 chord looks, sounds and feels but most importantly how it is used by composers. That being said, Mark Levine’s Jazz Theory book is excellent. And get a copy of a Real Book and watch YouTube videos on the voicings used by players and you’ll expand your harmonic palette immensely!
- adzm 3y agohttps://learningmusic.ableton.com/ https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ Ableton created a really wonderful resource here even for those who are already familiar with music. Pleased to see it linked right at the beginning.
- ohld 3y agoRequesting a list of AI tools for musicians.
- chris_st 3y agoLevi Clay has done a bunch of ear training content which is fantastic, but it's only available via his Patreon page. Notably, he's going for hearing intervals first (that is, hearing it internally before playing the interval), then playing them/singing them/etc. Made a huge difference for me. [1] This short video is awesome for ear-training for anyone -- it's presented for guitar, but it's general, with some fantastic exercises. Pretty audacious claim at the end, which I intend to test over the next few weeks :-) [2] 1: https://www.patreon.com/m/578011/posts?filters[tag]=Ear%20Training&sort=published_at https://www.patreon.com/m/578011/posts?filters[tag]=Ear%20Tr... 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX61J18YcHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX61J18YcHk
- spurgu 3y ago> Pretty audacious claim at the end, which I intend to test over the next few weeks :-) Well not any, like that, but at least any simple melodies should be easy peasy. Larger interval jumps are harder to hear/identify and moreso if they're fast. In any case learning to sing what you play is really really useful ear training!
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoThank you for mentioning this resource. Btw I really think that the world's obsession with learning to hear intervals before hearing harmony qualities (minor triad, major triad, dominant seventh, diminished), and before hearing harmonies within a key (I or i, V, pre-dominants, VI or vi, V/V) is a wrong order to master things. I still can't solidly tell apart a minor sixth from a major sixth, but so what? The more important skill to me is to focus on a chord that currently sounds, so that I can interact with the real tonal language (homophony) of the last 2.5 centuries. This way I can eg. play by ear the melodies with chords that stuck in my head (including from way in the past). We switched from polyphony and intervals on top of each other to chord progressions around Bach's time, and since then intervals aren't the main thing, I'd say.
- zupatol 3y agoWhich one of your resources would be most relevant if I would like to start as you recommend by learning to hear harmony qualities and then to hear them within a key?
- adius 3y agoSimilar, but with a focus on music production: https://github.com/ad-si/awesome-music-production https://github.com/ad-si/awesome-music-production
- simpleladle 3y agoFundamentals of Music Theory course from University of Edinburgh[1] and its accompanying textbook[2]. It's a centered around western music but certainly a good resource. 1: https://www.coursera.org/learn/edinburgh-music-theory https://www.coursera.org/learn/edinburgh-music-theory 2: https://books.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-diamond/catalog/book/ed-9781912669226 https://books.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-diamond/catalog/book/ed-978...
- mfragin 3y agoI clicked on this to see if by any chance you included Toby Rush's "Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People." I see it's recommended in the "Where To Start" section, but then you say to intensify a fear for classical music theory... and I'm not sure what you are implying there. I remember coming across that document many years ago when messing around with music composition. The funny thing is, I went to college with Toby Rush and worked with him at the college library. He was an incredible source of information and I'd pick his brain trying to understand various concepts. I was several pages into his guide before I made the connection that I knew the author. His wobsite and blag are here https://tobyrush.com/ https://tobyrush.com/
- vitaly-pavlenko 3y agoThank you! I messed the wording, and now I thought twice on what's best to say at that bullet, and I decided to rephrase it completely: 4. Skim through [Toby W. Rush's overview](https://tobyrush.com/theorypages/pdf/en-us/the-whole-enchilada-set.pdf https://tobyrush.com/theorypages/pdf/en-us/the-whole-enchila...) to see how many moving parts does a classical theory have His guide is great!
- mfragin 3y agoMuch better. Thanks for clarifying that, and thanks for what you have done!