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Published:
July 11, 2019

Music Theory For Dummies

Overview

Tune in to how music really works 

Whether you’re a student, a performer, or simply a fan, this book makes music theory easy, providing you with a friendly guide to the concepts, artistry, and technical mastery that underlie the production of great music. You’ll quickly become fluent in the fundamentals of knocking out beats, reading scores, and anticipating where a piece should go, giving you a deeper perspective on the works of others — and bringing an extra dimension to your own. 

Tracking to a typical college-level course, Music Theory For Dummies breaks difficult concepts down to manageable chunks and takes into account every aspect of musical production and appreciation — from the fundamentals of notes and scales to the complexities of expression and instrument tone color. It also examines the latest teaching techniques — all the more important as the study of music, now shown to provide cognitive and learning benefits for both children and adults, becomes more prevalent at all levels.

  • Master major and minor scales, intervals, pitches, and clefs
  • Understand basic notation, time signals, tempo, dynamics, and navigation
  • Employ melodies, chords, progressions, and phrases to form music
  • Compose harmonies and accompanying melodies for voice and instruments

Wherever you want to go musically — as a writer or performer, or just as someone who wants to enjoy music to its fullest — this approachable guide gives you everything you need to hear!

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About The Author

Michael Pilhofer, MM, holds a Master's in Music Education with a Jazz Emphasis from the Eastman School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Performance from the University of Miami.

Holly Day's work has appeared in Guitar One Magazine, Music Alive!, culturefront Magazine, and Brutarian Magazine.

Sample Chapters

music theory for dummies

CHEAT SHEET

If you're trying to learn how to play music, read music, or brush up on improvising and performing with other musicians, music theory is important. However, you don't need to know every last tidbit that the many theorists around the world have written down. You just need to become familiar with some of the basics.

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Articles from
the book

The difficulty in putting together a Top Ten list of revolutionary music or musical movements is that so much of what modern Western civilization knows of revolutionary music is very limited. History is full of people like the Spanish priest Diego de Landa, who dedicated his life to destroying Mayan literature and history, or Emperor Jovian, who destroyed all non-Christian texts and musical scores in the Library of Antioch, or Genghis Khan, who famously sacked and destroyed the libraries of Iran and Iraq.
If you're trying to learn how to play music, read music, or brush up on improvising and performing with other musicians, music theory is important. However, you don't need to know every last tidbit that the many theorists around the world have written down. You just need to become familiar with some of the basics.
Simple time signatures are the easiest to count, because a one-two pulse in a piece of music feels the most natural to a listener and a performer. The following four requirements indicate that a time signature is a simple one: Each beat is divided into two equal components. If a single beat has more than one note, those notes are always grouped together to equal one beat.
Discussing form when talking about popular music is tricky because the term is often misused. Think of form as being the specific way a piece of music is constructed, with governing rules to that type of music’s construction. Genre, on the other hand, refers to a song’s style, such as the instrumentation used, overall tone of the music, and so on.
Notes and rests in music are written on what musicians call a musical staff (or staves, if you’re talking about two). A staff is made of five parallel horizontal lines, containing four spaces between them, as shown. The two primary staves: the treble clef staff (left) and the bass clef staff (right).Notes and rests are written on the lines and spaces of the staff.
One of the most important things to remember about music theory is that music came first. Music existed for thousands of years before theory came along to explain what people were trying to accomplish when pounding on their drums.So, don’t ever think that you can’t be a good musician just because you’ve never taken a theory class.
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Frequently Asked Questions

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