Music Theory – Piano Lessons in Troy

Why music theory? Can’t we just play the piano?

Well, try to read a novel without knowing letters, while raised since birth in a vacuum without any communication with a human being. How much would you understand from that novel, even if you somehow managed to learn letters (notes/keys in our case).

Talk to any professional: a doctor, a teacher, a computer programmer, an accountant–and ask them if the skills that they use on a regular basis are the only skills that they learned while studying in school. Oh, no!–they will tell you. There is a huge amount of information that they learned as well, and even though that knowledge is seemingly not utilized on a daily basis, it allows them to be comfortable and confident in their workplace while performing their daily duties.

Music theory helps people to understand and perform music. It helps them to uncover that emotional message that the composer created for upcoming generations. It helps them to immerse into the ocean of the composer’s thoughts, feelings and actions as if they were their own. And it all comes with a simple understanding of intervals, and Circle of Fifths, and one-and-two-and, and flats and sharps, and–you name it!

“Music Theory Links” will take you straight to a great website, musictheory.net, that I assign to students to study on a regular basis.

Lessons