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Great videos on music theory.........start to finish




Please excuse my ignorance: I only watched the first minute - did I understand it right that the only point of the circle of fifths is that it's supposedly easier or faster than remembering the patterns of whole- and half steps to build the major and minor scales? And if you can remember those patterns and don't read or use notation, it's basically useless?
 
Please excuse my ignorance: I only watched the first minute - did I understand it right that the only point of the circle of fifths is that it's supposedly easier or faster than remembering the patterns of whole- and half steps to build the major and minor scales? And if you can remember those patterns and don't read or use notation, it's basically useless?

Huh. You may wish to spend more than a minute trying to understand a core concept in the structural foundations of musical phenomenon.
 
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Well if you want to look at it very basic and pragmatically, it also tells you how close the relationship of keys with each other is.
 
Please excuse my ignorance: I only watched the first minute - did I understand it right that the only point of the circle of fifths is that it's supposedly easier or faster than remembering the patterns of whole- and half steps to build the major and minor scales? And if you can remember those patterns and don't read or use notation, it's basically useless?

Eh...no................be patient...a minute really isn't enough. There are 49 lessons...on average 45 mins each.....

all the best

ed
 

This looks really promising. Having spend the last months learning theory almost on a daily basis, it is truly astonishing how rich the internet is when it comes to education.

i'd like to mention:
8 bit theory
J Jay Berthume
Rick Beato
Music Matters
 
Many thanks @ed buller :grin:

Just watched the first lesson.

Enharmonic spelling has always done me 'ead in... Now, after forty years, I get it :eek:

How embarrassing!
 
Huh. You may wish to spend more than a minute trying to understand a core concept in the structural foundations of musical phenomenon.
Eh...no................be patient...a minute really isn't enough. There are 49 lessons...on average 45 mins each.....
When I asked I was on my way to bed because in my time zone it was ~3 a.m., plus the youtube video embed doesn't make it obvious that you actually linked a whole playlist. Thanks for the clarification.
I have watched a couple videos on the circle of fifths before, including Rick Beato's and at the end I always think "I don't get it, what's this good for for me?". I watched this video in full now, and I still don't get how this thing is supposed to help me personally. And the answers you two gave didn't either.


Well if you want to look at it very basic and pragmatically, it also tells you how close the relationship of keys with each other is.
Ok, I can see that. Thanks! But is that info more actionable during the composing process than visually seeing on the piano roll in your DAW how many notes two different scales have in common? If this is a big plus of the circle of fifths I would have enjoyed hearing an example or at least it being clearly mentioned at the start, in a birds-eye overview of "This is what this thing is good for" that imho should precede such videos. Like for example "This isn't just a glorified memory aid, it also...". I have a much easier time learning things when there is some context established before the explanation.



This looks really promising. Having spend the last months learning theory almost on a daily basis, it is truly astonishing how rich the internet is when it comes to education.

i'd like to mention:
8 bit theory
J Jay Berthume
Rick Beato
Music Matters

I'd like to add "Signals Music Studio" to that list.
 
I think I understand where you're coming from. You probably had a hard time learning maths as well because teachers rarely tell you what anything is good for after...you know...4th grade? 🤣
And I understand your complaint.

On the other hand: if you break down what it is, then yes, it is a tool for memorization. If you then continue to ask "what if I already know everything?" then why bother trying to learn different tools?

Your piano roll tells you what notes are on it, yes. It does NOT tell you, that a progression on the circle of fifths will be harmonically strong. Maybe that's a pragmatic benefit or maybe you'll again discard it because you don't see why this would be of value to you personally - I don't know.

It makes you smarter and faster when thinking and communicating about keys at least.
It's like saying "what if I already know all the letters of the alphabet and I can just look all of them up when I'm asked to spell the word 'harmony' "
Instead you already have 'harmony' memorized as a fixed set.
 
@MartinH.
If you are someone who prefers a hands-on approach: do you know about the Spectrotone tone color chart?
I know it's a completely different topic but is that something you can work with? I found it unintuitive and slow to work with at first but it really grew on me and you can approach it very playfully.
 
"I don't get it, what's this good for for me?"
It's like multiplication tables. You simply know how much 5+7 or 3x5 is. You don't have to grab your calculator or count apples. Every pupil asks: why do I have to learn that? I have a calculator! Yes, you can use that. But you are slow. And you don't internalize the principle. You have to think how much 5+7 added to 3x5 is but you are able to do because you internalized the little steps. You break it down to 12+15. Tasks like that appear when you have to modulate from one key to another. Or having to transpose from one instrument to another. You leave the borders of a DAW in that moment. That's why this is good for you.
 
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Thank you for your thoughtful replies @Denkii!
It does NOT tell you, that a progression on the circle of fifths will be harmonically strong. Maybe that's a pragmatic benefit
That does sound interesting and useful indeed, but as far as I remember none of the videos I watched on the circle of fifths went into that, or if they did, they didn't manage to do it in a way that made it stick in my brain (i.e. no examples of how it sounds because I'm fairly sure if those had been given I'd have remembered it). Do you have an example of a video that focuses on that aspect with sound examples?

If you are someone who prefers a hands-on approach: do you know about the Spectrotone tone color chart?
I know it's a completely different topic but is that something you can work with? I found it unintuitive and slow to work with at first but it really grew on me and you can approach it very playfully.
I know what it is, but I never used it. (I see a banner ad for it below this post... how fitting) It sounded somewhat unintuitive but if you say it grew on you, I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

I think I understand where you're coming from. You probably had a hard time learning maths as well because teachers rarely tell you what anything is good for after...you know...4th grade? 🤣
I didn't strugle with math or physics in general, but I had hugely varying results based on which teacher taught it. Most radical was a shift from having an absolute top notch physics teacher that had the whole class engaged, a friend and me putting in a lot of work and getting A's and B's, to a teacher who really very obviously was not meant or motivated to teach school-level physics because he had absolutely zero teaching skills, and we dropped down to D's and didn't learn half as much from his lessons. My friend started to study physics at a university after school and switched to business IT later. So it's not that there was no base interest in the subjects, the teacher just was terrible.


It's like multiplication tables. You simply know how much 5+7 or 3x5 is. You don't have to grab your calculator or count apples. Every pupil asks: why do I have to learn that? I have a calculater or can count apples in my head. Yes, you can do that. But you are slow. And you don't internalize the principle. You have to think how much 5+7 added to 3x5 is but you are able to do because you internalized the little steps. Tasks like that appear when you have to modulate from one key to another. Or having to transpose from one instrument to another. You leave the borders of a DAW in that moment. That's why this is good for you.
Thanks to you too! At my school calculators were banned for math up to a certain grade, and after that they were pretty much mandatory. I too have part of a multiplication table memorized and sure, I get some use out of that in day-to-day life. But you really get strongly diminishing returns out of memorizing that table further and further. And during math tests in school I still used the calculator for stuff that I was 99% sure to have memorized correctly, because it seemed like the safer bet to trust the calculator over my memory. And the "you won't always have a calculator with you" argument that they told us back in school turned out to be 99% incorrect if you consider that every phone has one. Sure, it takes far longer to type it in than to know it, but it's a diminishing return for sure to e.g. memorize a full 50 x 50 multiplication table over investing the same hours in other math-related skills imho.
I theoretically could memorize every note sequence of every major and minor scale, but that alone would do nothing to make me write better music. I'm 100% convinced my time would be better spent transcribing some good music by ear. You gotta keep in mind that I'm just a hobbyist and I have very limited time for engaging with music, and some of the skill investments that make perfect sense for a professional composer or musician, just don't make the same amount of sense to me personally.


Thanks for your input guys!
 
Thank you for your thoughtful replies @Denkii!

That does sound interesting and useful indeed, but as far as I remember none of the videos I watched on the circle of fifths went into that, or if they did, they didn't manage to do it in a way that made it stick in my brain (i.e. no examples of how it sounds because I'm fairly sure if those had been given I'd have remembered it). Do you have an example of a video that focuses on that aspect with sound examples?


I know what it is, but I never used it. (I see a banner ad for it below this post... how fitting) It sounded somewhat unintuitive but if you say it grew on you, I'll give it a shot. Thanks!


I didn't strugle with math or physics in general, but I had hugely varying results based on which teacher taught it. Most radical was a shift from having an absolute top notch physics teacher that had the whole class engaged, a friend and me putting in a lot of work and getting A's and B's, to a teacher who really very obviously was not meant or motivated to teach school-level physics because he had absolutely zero teaching skills, and we dropped down to D's and didn't learn half as much from his lessons. My friend started to study physics at a university after school and switched to business IT later. So it's not that there was no base interest in the subjects, the teacher just was terrible.



Thanks to you too! At my school calculators were banned for math up to a certain grade, and after that they were pretty much mandatory. I too have part of a multiplication table memorized and sure, I get some use out of that in day-to-day life. But you really get strongly diminishing returns out of memorizing that table further and further. And during math tests in school I still used the calculator for stuff that I was 99% sure to have memorized correctly, because it seemed like the safer bet to trust the calculator over my memory. And the "you won't always have a calculator with you" argument that they told us back in school turned out to be 99% incorrect if you consider that every phone has one. Sure, it takes far longer to type it in than to know it, but it's a diminishing return for sure to e.g. memorize a full 50 x 50 multiplication table over investing the same hours in other math-related skills imho.
I theoretically could memorize every note sequence of every major and minor scale, but that alone would do nothing to make me write better music. I'm 100% convinced my time would be better spent transcribing some good music by ear. You gotta keep in mind that I'm just a hobbyist and I have very limited time for engaging with music, and some of the skill investments that make perfect sense for a professional composer or musician, just don't make the same amount of sense to me personally.


Thanks for your input guys!
The circle of fifths at it's most basic level tells you what key you are in by how many sharps or flats you have, and the order that those sharps and flats are in in the diatonic scales. Maybe that helps?
 
It's already been said, but worth repeating, the Circle of Fifths is pretty much the foundation of tonal music.

Are you familiar with the idea of tonic and dominant chords? The Circle of 5ths represents all of those relationships spread out in a circular chain.

The dominant of a tonic is found by moving one step to the right on the circle. The tonic of a dominant is one step to the left. In "real" world use you can use that to create progressions or modulate to or from anywhere else.
 
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