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Why is music theory so hard?

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Why Music Theory is So Complicated

Why is Music Theory so Complicated ?

Music theory is difficult to grasp because it uses visual methods to describe what we hear. That's a big problem for music theorists because our brains interpret music hundreds of times faster than it takes to explain it. This is why music is powerful. It's also why music theory seems SO COMPLICATED and SO BORING and UNNECESSARILY WORDY. As a songwriter, you don't need to know all theory. The trick to music theory is to only learn what you need for your next project. Otherwise, you'll quickly become bored and feel overwhelmed. Theory can be simplified into four terms. Pitch, Time, Loudness, Timbre. When you start out, nearly all your difficulties will arise in pitch and time. When you start performing in front of audiences, you will find loundness and timbre become more problematic.

I've written another article with more explaination about these terms.

What is a Melody ?

Melody is the main tune. The trouble is that some of the notes used in the melody will also be used in the harmony. There's always overlap. Overlap is everywhere in music, it's one of the biggest causes for confusion. There's always two or three ways of doing or describing the same thing. And often the same term is used to describe several completely different things. So the melody uses the same notes but is not classed as part of the harmony because it's, sort of, superior.

Why and how is the melody superior ?

Because it's what you're singing, and so should be more interesting, busier, and louder, and usually higher in pitch. You might also play the melody on a lead guitar. It's still the melody. Melody can become lost if there is too much going on in the harmony.

What is Harmony?

When you have more than one note sounding at the same time.

Your melody will likely have a harmony played as an instrumental accompaniment. When you play guitar under your singing, your guitar should be harmonising with your melody. If not, it will sound a bit weird. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it means it's not what people expect. This illustrates another cause for confusion. There's no right or wrong, even with music theory - only what your audience expects. Just remember that the melody is more important, so don't confuse it with harmony.

Why do Some Harmonies Sound Better Than Others?

It's because, in a microsecond, the sound waves hit our ear drum at different times. Some combinations we like, some we don't, and some are sort of in between. Also, we have been conditioned to accept certain relationships because western musicians have been using those same relationships for centuries. Scales and harmonic relationships are the first stepping stone to understanding music theory. Once you grasp the fundamentals of this, the rest will be dead easy. They are complicated because they try to explain the entire pitch range of human hearing and the relationship between the pitches with a few words and symbols. Words and and symbols which have evolved from different countries and different centuries. The good news is that you only need a piece of string and all will become clear. The bad news is, if you can't get it, you're probably screwed, for ever.

What are Scales and Harmonic Relationships ?

They are the most important bit of music theory because to make nice music, you need more than just a melody. Centuries ago, musicians decided that nice sounding harmonic relationships can be sorted into collections called Scales . There were, and still are lots of scales. The one we use the most in all western styles of music is called the 'Diatonic Scale'. It comes from Greek and roughly translates as 'through strength' or 'around strength.' Tonic is the strong part, it's also called the root and is always the first note of a scale or octave. A Diatonic Scale contains eight notes and that's why it's called an Octave. The harmonic relationship between these notes is mostly good and all the notes in the scale of 'A' will look to 'A' as their leader.

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Why are There Twelve Piano Keys in an Octave ?

That's really complicated and is a sticking point for many people.

For this you need to know how long a piece of string is ?

Sorry, I'm not trying to be awkward. If you take a piece of string ( like a guitar string ) and halve it, the tone or note you get with half a string is an octave higher than the original. That's you're octave. The relationship between these two notes is really strong, so strong, they're almost inseparable. In reality, there are an infinite number of points along the string where you can divide it to produce a tone. And there are any number on a cello or trombone ( string - tube, makes no difference). To arrest any outbreaks of insanity among musicians, most instruments like pianos and guitars limit the division to twelve. Which also, as it happens, means that each of those twelve divisions can be at a half-note interval. That's dead handy for practical purposes because it allows all the diatonic scales and octaves to be played on one instrument. Hence why piano and guitar are the two most useful instruments.

So why don't we play all twelve notes as a scale, why only eight ?

Because if we divide our scales perfectly equally as they are when split into twelve, it just sounds weird. Harmonic relationships which are perfectly equal are just not interesting enough for our minds. That's why a diatonic scale has whole-note and half-note jumps. Clumpy and lumpy works better for our ears.

What would you call it if you played all the twelve notes ?

That would be Chromatic Scale and explains why guitar and piano are called Chromatic Instruments. Not all instruments can do that.

What are major and minor scales ?

They are yet another complication.

Major and minor are two variations of a diatonic scale. They're what we use all the time and when you have a diatonic scale it's always one or the other. There's only a slight difference between the two, although they do sound different and the minor scale has to be fiddled around with when it's descending in pitch. So you could argue that there are actually three diatonic scales.

How many types of musical scale are there?

Lots. It's a real can of worms. Far too many to go into, but here's a list.

Wikipedia's List of Musical Scales.

So, is a scale the same as a key ?

Well, nearly, kind of, sort of ! A scale is all the eight notes of the octave played in a descending or ascending order. It's a sequence of notes. By contrast a key is literally that, a mechanical or intellectual device for making stuff happen. Those same notes are what the key of 'A' is made of, but there is no sequence and I haven't played any of them. Because I know the key, I know what they are and could play em if I needed to. What's more I could play them in any order I choose, it does not have to be the set sequence of a scale. So yes, the scale of 'A' would comprise the all the notes in the key of 'A.' In both cases, the 'A' is the leader, the tonic and the root. Don't confuse the theoretical key with the piano key that you press with your finger. They're two different things which just happen to be called keys. ( I know - It's ridiculous !)

Why do we have alphabet letters for notes and keys ?

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Because we need a way to identify, for example: the 5th note of the scale. If we just had numbers it would probably be called '8'. That would be even more confusing than it already is. And when we start discussing chords, it would be unmanageable. So we use letters and there are bonus points for spotting the obvious problems with using letters.

What's a chord in music, is it more like a key or a scale ?

A chord is any two or more notes played together, at the same time. It's not like a key, because it's not a device. It will however use some of the notes in the key. A chord is more like a scale. But the chord of 'A' can't use all the notes of the scale of 'A' because that would be too many notes at the same time and our brains wouldn't like it. But we can use anywhere between two and four notes for a chord, our brains would like that very much. Any 'A' chord can be major or minor or ambiguous. Like in the scale, the 'A' note is always called the 'root' or the 'tonic.' The notes in the chord are separated by something called an interval.

What's an interval ?

Intervals are so important in music pitch theory, so I wrote another article about them. In any chord, the distance between the notes are called intervals. Intervals are really, really important for musicians in understanding how harmonies and chords are built. One example of an interval the Octave. The really important thing to remember about intervals is that we always count both the top and bottom notes. So for example: in an octave, we count A=1st, B=2nd, C=3rd, D=4th, E=5th, F=6th, G=7th, A=8th or ( 8ave or octave). But wait: music theory being what it is, intervals are not as simple as that. That's because we haven't yet taken into account all the sharps and flats. The above scale has no sharps or flats, so it will sound like a scale, but it won't sound like a diatonic scale.

Why do we need to complicate things with sharps and flats ?

If you remember from previous questions, there are twelve black and white notes in between octaves on a piano, each a half-note distance from it's neighbour. And for our diatonic scale of 'A' like the one above, we only need eight notes from those twelve and we can't just take every other note and hope for the best. You'll also remember that equally space notes don't make nice scales, nor do they make nice chords, nor nice music. Intervals need to be a bit irregular to make well rooted and nice, stable music. So if we were to look at the 'A' octave like the one above and put in the sharps we would get the following. A=1, B=2, C=3.5, D=4, E=5, F=6.5, G=7.5, A=8 You guessed it, for the 'A' scale to sound like a nice, stable, western, diatonic scale, the C, F, and G, need to be sharp. That's why we need sharps and flats. Flats are used in other keys, but we won't go there for now. That would just complicate matters ! And here's your bonus point. Because we're using letters, we can't have something called D & half D, like we could 4.5 if we used numbers. So we have d# instead. That's quite a complication which may seem ridiculous, but that's how it's done and why.

A brief Summary.

completesongwriter.com - Why Music Theory is So Complicated - Complete Songwriter

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