Awesome Music Theory: books, links, videos, research, visuals, composition

by vitaly-pavlenko on 4/29/2023, 9:02:08 PM with 34 comments

  • by chris_st on 4/30/2023, 1:24:15 AM

    Levi 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%20Tr...

    2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX61J18YcHk

  • by vitaly-pavlenko on 4/29/2023, 10:24:04 PM

    Author 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.

  • by adzm on 4/29/2023, 10:41:16 PM

    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.

  • by mfragin on 4/30/2023, 7:03:29 PM

    I 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/

  • by simpleladle on 4/30/2023, 4:44:28 PM

    Fundamentals 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

    2: https://books.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-diamond/catalog/book/ed-978...

  • by ksaj on 4/29/2023, 9:13:15 PM

    It 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.

  • by adius on 4/30/2023, 8:06:46 AM

    Similar, but with a focus on music production: https://github.com/ad-si/awesome-music-production

  • by ohld on 4/30/2023, 12:58:24 AM

    Requesting a list of AI tools for musicians.