Music Theory for the Average Musician

Learning music theory changed the way I saw music. I had been a musician for almost a decade and the thought of learning MUSIC THEORY for a degree seemed overwhelming to me. I was worried that it would take the fun out of music. Like learning how a magic trick works takes the magic away. I was completely wrong. After several years of studying to get my masters certificate in music theory from Berklee I found out several things.

First, I found out that learning how music works can only help musicians get better at expressing their music. It actually allows you to have so much more musical freedom to play the way you want because you now know why things are the way they are. Sheet Music, improv, singing, and almost everything was now easier because of learning music theory.

Second, I found that music theory is not difficult to learn. It is a part of every step of learning an instrument. It just isn’t always labeled as “music theory.”

Lastly, I found that hardly anyone teaches music theory very well. Even my college courses jumped around or taught very specific things without tying them into the big picture or showing us how we would actually use this in real life.

I decided I was going to change this. Over the years I have taught hundreds of people one on one and thousands online. No matter what I was teaching I tried to include the fundamentals of music theory. You never know if someone will decide to switch instruments or start learning something new and having the foundation of music theory allowed them to do that easily.

This book brings all that teaching together for you. I’ve found that many people learn in different ways so we also have the video links of me explaining this teaching and we have the charts at the end of the chapters.

I hope this helps you learn music faster and enjoy playing music more, which is at the heart of why any of us learn to play.