Music theory encompasses chords and how they are built and structured, understanding and building scales, building a melodic passage, learning about rhythmic meters, and studying ear training. Most music programs in a typical college level curriculum include the study of music theory. Many students presently don't want to spend the time on music theory because they feel that it doesn't relate to their instrument and does not make sense to them.
Except for people that are intellectuals, most people believe music theory is boring and needlessly complicated and music is supposed to be fun, not a mathematical exercise; and it's hard enough training the muscles of the hand and learning to sight-read without bothering with all that theory. Music theory helps tremendously with training your ear and gives you very enhanced improvisational and compositional powers and learning chords and how to play them is a very valuable tool for the pianist.
All music schools and music departments furnish a number of theory classes for students, as well as ear training. Perfect pitch is a rare gift for most musicians, but even those individuals who have perfect pitch still have to study theory so that it helps them with relative pitch and learn how melodies and harmony are constructed in works of music. Also, even if you can identify and read notes easily doesn't mean that you can compose great works of music or that you can easily understand a great piece of music.
Have you ever heard someone reading aloud with no feeling, no sense of when to emphasize, no "flow"? But they obviously knew how to speak the words and how to read to be able to read aloud. They sound so bad because they lack a depth of understanding of what they are actually reading.
Even if they know the meanings of all or most of the words, the true meaning and all of the mental and emotional subtleties contained in the content are going over their head. They would do so much better if they actually knew what they were reading about. It's the same with a musician.
Even if you have been born with perfect pitch or have the knack to perform music, with theory you will have the knowledge you need to understand why music sounds the way it does. Music theory is a basic skill that most people are required to learn in college level classes. A music major should know how music is put together in order to understand how to perform or compose music. - 15478
Except for people that are intellectuals, most people believe music theory is boring and needlessly complicated and music is supposed to be fun, not a mathematical exercise; and it's hard enough training the muscles of the hand and learning to sight-read without bothering with all that theory. Music theory helps tremendously with training your ear and gives you very enhanced improvisational and compositional powers and learning chords and how to play them is a very valuable tool for the pianist.
All music schools and music departments furnish a number of theory classes for students, as well as ear training. Perfect pitch is a rare gift for most musicians, but even those individuals who have perfect pitch still have to study theory so that it helps them with relative pitch and learn how melodies and harmony are constructed in works of music. Also, even if you can identify and read notes easily doesn't mean that you can compose great works of music or that you can easily understand a great piece of music.
Have you ever heard someone reading aloud with no feeling, no sense of when to emphasize, no "flow"? But they obviously knew how to speak the words and how to read to be able to read aloud. They sound so bad because they lack a depth of understanding of what they are actually reading.
Even if they know the meanings of all or most of the words, the true meaning and all of the mental and emotional subtleties contained in the content are going over their head. They would do so much better if they actually knew what they were reading about. It's the same with a musician.
Even if you have been born with perfect pitch or have the knack to perform music, with theory you will have the knowledge you need to understand why music sounds the way it does. Music theory is a basic skill that most people are required to learn in college level classes. A music major should know how music is put together in order to understand how to perform or compose music. - 15478
About the Author:
Georgia Reader reports on for PlayPianoGuide.com, which is a website that reports on the most recent and most effective piano courses online today. Music theory is mandatory for piano students to learn as well as learning the notes and how to play the instrument.
