What would you consider a medium level in music theory?

[Pablo De Miguel]

This is my last highschool year and that means that the next year I must look for a college, academy or whatever to keep studing, what I want to do is study music in one of those institutions but to be acepted in one of those I must have a good practice level and a medium level on musical languaje knowledge and harmony knowledge(I guess that the both together compose the music theory), I think that I wont have problems to pass the practical tests but I don´t have a good theorical level and I need you to tell me what concepts you think that I should know to prepare myself for the theorical test(I would apreciate if you make a list of every single concept that you consier important)

 

[idssdi]

Basically, the three core things of music are rhythm, melody and harmony so if you understand those you should be good!
Rhythm basically means knowing what the length of the notes are when written in classical notation.
Melody is a whole different concept and really depends on which genre you’re looking for to give you a good explanation on that one.
The core of harmony is really just cadences.

 

[Pablo De Miguel]

About melody I Would like to know about blues and jazz…and metal of courseXD
Could you tell me a good place to start studing these three concepst?, and if you know any source of information on internet(either a youtube chanel or a web page or whatever) I would love to know it too

 

[idssdi]

I’m kinda drunk right now so not sure(I’m leaving the e-mail notification open so I can reply when I wake up) but for harmony the most important thing is to know perfect and plagal cadences. I don’t know any other source of information so try to read Syn’s tips in all the lessons, they are honestly absolutely awesome and maybe the best source of theory besides the theory book I own!

 

[Rute Rodrigues]

Hm, I agree with ids. In melody and harmony I would say: Chords, how to build them, triads, know the basic stuff to play in key, like scales (how to find a scale, what scales do you play over a chord progession). Also modes and arpeggios. One day I saw a video by Rick Beato, where he teaches the music theory that every one of us should know. Thats it: https://youtu.be/T5SmcH11kUk I think this video can help you. I think his channel is very good to learn theory. At least, it works with me. Hope it helps! Good luck!





This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Rute Rodrigues.

 

[Pablo De Miguel]

Ok, thank you, ids and Rute.

 

[idssdi]

Tbh melodies work weird for me, I usually base them around arpeggios but it’s also whatever is playing in my head so from a theoretical basis I would say know how to build chords and know which notes will work over what chords and which scale works over which chord so you know in which ballpark you have to be to come up with the melody.
Harmony is about finding the tone centre and then know the degrees of the scale. Basically start with the major scale and build chords from the notes that are in the scale. Then you have all the chords I, ii, III, IV, V, vi, Vii°. Then have ony is basically how they relate to each other and thats basically based on cadences. The two most important once are plagal(IV-I) and perfect(V-I) cadences because they kinda imply the ending of a piece. Try to analyze some songs you like to practice it.
Learning rhythm is basically learning classical notation and know how many notes go into a measure when you have whole, halve, 4th, 8th, 16th, 32nd notes and how to write them down. Also know how tuplets work.