Learn music theory in half an hour.
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as a concise, approachable starting point for anyone asking how to learn music theory.
What it is
Andrew Huang teaches the basics of music theory in about half an hour, covering intervals, chords and patterns. He stresses understanding how music works over memorizing terminology.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2019 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec rdlw · 2020-02 · on “Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits”
I found this video to be an extremely helpful and concise explanation of music theory basics: [this video] "Learn music theory in half an hour" is obviously an exaggeration, but it really comes astoundingly close to fulfilling that promise. It contains a lot of information and each part builds on the previous parts, so it requires focus and maybe a few repetitions to 'get it', but I think the approach is fantastic for showing how many ideas of music theory are deeply connected. Not a book as you requested, but hopefully you'll find the other reply useful. As for some of your specific questions: Frequency is the same concept as radio frequency, but in this case refers to something we can directly
Strong rec foopod · 2021-07 · on “Ask HN: What is a cool technology to learn?”
Probably right on the edge of what you would define as technology.... Music! I am 30 and have spent my whole life not learning any music or instruments because it is 'too hard'. But now I am getting into music theory and wow it is really interesting and awesome. Highly recommend. I found this video really helpful - [this video] .
Recommends tarsinge · 2019-12 · on “Ask HN: How Can I Learn Music Theory?”
It really depends on your objectives. If you want to compose pop music (including rock and electronic music) the risk is to lose yourself in complicated harmony "rules" that are mostly irrelevant to the style you want to play (on top of my mind parallel fifths prohibited in classical theory but they are commonplace in rock/metal) and only useful to analyze classical pieces. Personally as a guitarist I kind of hacked my way into music theory to being able to improvise over and compose pop/rock/electronic by only using intervals and scale degrees. I can hear chords progressions, I know why a V I cadence works, can identify and play in modes (dorian, lydian...), but I can't name the notes so tr
Recommends karmakaze · 2023-01 · on “Interactive Music Theory Cheat Sheet”
This is fantastic. I didn't grow up learning music and found so much of it seeming arbitrary and incomprehensible. This really pairs well with a 30min video[0] I watched taking away so much mystery and showing 'patterns in the madness'. It would be good if there were some keybindings to play notes (e.g. digits for I, II, or letters for notes ignoring #/b, or "r t y u i o p ["). A toggle to label the notes that are part of the selected key could help a beginner like myself. [0] [this video]