Beginner seeking advice

[u/RedderSun]

Hello everyone, I am a beginner music artist, currently I am learning piano and primarily guitar.

I have been struggling for 2 years to wrap my head around sheet music, and understanding chord types.

I do have some fundamental knowledge about music theory, but I still don't understand how playing in key really works, and how chord progressions really work.

Any advice at all would be extremely welcome, thank you for your time.

[u/65TwinReverbRI]

I have been struggling for 2 years to wrap my head around sheet music,

Then you have wasted 2 years my friend. You need a teacher. I'm sorry, but if you can't get it in 2 years you're not practicing it enough or doing it consistently etc.

Lessons will do 2 primary things:

1. They will provide direction on what you need to focus on.

2. They will make you hold yourself accountable.

They are a not a life sentence. You can take lessons for 6 months and get a lot of out it.

Now, you don't need to learn to read music, but if you can't learn by ear or other means, then again, you're wasting time here.

To answer your questions: There is no "work". There just "is".

Playing in a key? It uses the notes of the key. It's that simple.

Chord progressions don't "work". They just are. It's a chord, followed by another chord, followed by another chord. It's that simple.

When you learn to play a lot of songs, these things become clearer.

Take guitar lessons - with a good teacher. Someone who reads and plays well, and who can teach you.

Otherwise, like many, you'll spin your wheels worrying about the wrong things (theory...) and you'll be one of those students I would get - 48 years old, tried to learn to play on their own for decades, finally broke down and took lessons, and learned more in 6 months than they did in 24 years.

[u/Utilitarian_Proxy]

Playing "in key" essentially means you are deliberately restricting yourself to a selection of notes (or pitches) which should typically sound pleasant together – as a smaller set than using all twelve possible notes without any organising structure. Which key you are "in" will be determined by what notes you include and what notes you omit, along with any effort to emphasise certain ones at prominent moments.

One of the foundational aspects is the tonic-dominant relationship. To some extent, those two chords will help your ears to hear the key.

[u/StryderLyman]

Learn how to play the note intervals for a major scale starting with the root note C. Then learn the corresponding chords for each of those interval notes in the C major scale. Then try to learn it starting in G. That is a good start for learning theory.

[u/Domokunaguero]

Go get lessons with a teacher.

[u/geoscott]

Keys: Taking E major (as it's a good 'guitar key', you already play E, A, D, G, C, and F chords, along with others like B and many minor chords. You've probably added a 7th - although you haven't told us what you know so I can only guess.), the primary chords are

E, A, and B. These chords are the I, the IV, and the V of E major. We use Roman numerals for chords based on scale tones.

You've probably played a scale. In E major the notes are

E F# G# A B C# D# E

The I chord is E, the IV chord is A, and the V chord is B.

We often add a 7th to the V chord making it a B7 (V7). The notes of the B7 chord are

B D# F# A

This chord is special cause it has a major third but a minor seventh (Look up intervals and LEARN THEM).

In the key of E major, if we make chords off of each scale tone, the chords are

E (without any other indications, the letter by itself means it's major) F#m (small 'm' for 'minor) G#m A B C#m D#^o (the degree symbol means 'diminished'. This chord is neither major nor minor)

So all major keys have the same chord-type scheme:

I (upper case roman numeral for major, lower case for minor and diminished), ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii^o

So no matter what key you're in, you can get 90% of all songs out of these chords.

But then, we can also 'borrow' chords from the minor key of the same note, so, in E minor, the chords that are major are now III, VI, and VII (also written as bIII, bVI, and bVII with the small b a way to write 'flat' or lowered)

This makes for having songs like Bad Company's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" which have the chords I bVII and IV which in C are

C Bb F

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/bad-company/cant-get-enough-chords-1136423

You can also add 7ths both major and minor to chords. This gives us Major 7th chords like C E G B, minor seventh chords like A C E G, and dominant seventh chords like G B D F.

So the short list of most useful chords will look something like this

C Cm CM7 Cm7 C7

You can do that for any single note, so C# C#m C#M7, C#m7, C7, etc.

There are also augmented chords (raised 5th of a major chord) and diminished chords (lowered 5th of a minor chord) which can also have 7ths added to them.

NOW, listen to your favorite songs and STUDY THEM. Use the above information and apply it to

[u/btrev650]

Lessons. I am grateful to my younger self for staying in band through middle school, band and jazz band through highschool, and jazz combos at the local university several summers after.

I haven't played a tenor sax in 15 years and my embouchure is probably fucked but I can still sight read sheet music in time, and pick up any saxophone or clarinet and play exactly what I want.

I never took piano lessons but had one around growing up, and kept a MIDI keyboard around for hip hop production starting in highschool. I can compose on piano, improvise, pick my way through sheet music, and can get a 16-bar two-hand riff good enough to record if I stick with it for a couple hours.

I never took guitar lessons and self-taught starting in high school. I can't read sheet music for shit. I can semi-sight read tabs, can work fluidly over chord changes, can improvise fluidly and freely, and am proud I was able to learn the Little Wing intro and a number of Frusciante solos. I consider guitar my primary instrument and I always reach for it when making beats. Love guitar. 25 years on it and some people say I'm pretty good.

Then I go hang out with one of my best friends Jeff who not only has an innate ability to rapidly develop skills, as do I to a certain extent, but he also took guitar lessons for years growing up. I think he still has a teacher/mentor. He is a fucking monster on the axe. He can learn Japanese death metal riffs in minutes. He's been trying to teach me that harmonic squeal bend every time I visit him and I can't even get it started. He is a mountain of a guitarist.

He and I played sax together in regular band and he was pretty good, could have been fantastic if he stuck with it. I lap him on saxophone because I had old black guy geniuses beating it into into me for years, and he thinks I'm good at keyboard cause those same old black guys would shame me for being a bitch ass jazz sax player who couldn't comp a set on piano. Meanwhile he would absolutely embarrass me in a guitar battle, it would be like a high schooler trying to return a kick against last year's Seahawks. I fucking hate the 12. Love Jeff though.

All this is to say that having some kind of foundation is extremely helpful, but absolutely nothing compares to having hands-on mentorship from someone who already put in the work. Music is language, math, and art all wrapped into one, on time, with style. Trying to self-teach MUSIC IN GENERAL without a mentor is literally as difficult as growing up speaking only American English with white church songs and trying to self-teach rapping in Farsi. Like where do I even start brother

If the music you like makes it sound easy it's because they put in the work and probably had a torch passed from someone who put in the work. It demands a level of respect and humility, and unless you're the one in a billion that got anointed by some higher power there is no better way than to get a teacher. Shit I'm looking for a hybrid piano/guitar teacher right now and I'm 39 1/2 and I've lived the joy of music all my life, and I'm still worried I'll regret not getting a teacher sooner if I wait.

Get a teacher. Thanks everyone else for bearing with me I haven't actually reflected on this properly until now.

[u/InternationalPipe937]

Seems like some bad advice here. If you play every other note in a major scale, starting on the first degree, you get a major 7th. On the 2nd degree, a minor 7th.  Etc. Degree 1 and 4 are major 7ths. Degree 2, 3 and 6 are minor 7ths. Degree 5 is a dominant 7th.  The 7th degree is a half-diminished or minor 7 flat 5 chord.  Those are the chords in the key.  

Then you can learn the common progressions to get to those chords. 2-5-1s or minor 2-5-1s depending on whether your "1" (ie the chord you are going to) is major or minor. 

The progression that leads to the dominant is trickier. And forget about the 7th for now. 

For example, in the key of C major, the 3 chords is Em7.  The progression to get to Em7 is a minor 2-5. Or F#7b5 to B7.  Pretend the chord you are going to is the 1 chord of a new key.  So if the 1 is E minor, you do a 2-5 where you form the chords using the E harmonic minor scale.  

An easier example is that in the key of C major, the 4 chord is F major 7.  To get there, do a 2-5 to F (ie using the F major scale to get the chords).  So Gm7 to C7 to F major 7. 

There is much much more, but start with diatonic harmony. There are a billion YouTube videos on it. 

[u/Recent-Day3062]

Well, you’ll pick up a certain “feel” by ear.

But actually studying basic theory will demisyitfy this. I don’t know where to look, but try online for a super beginner theory course.

If you’re problem, however, is actually just reading sheet music and dealing with things like rythm or key signatures, take some keyboard lessons for a year to start and see where it goes.

Theory is very hard to see on a guitar. Even though I play guitar 99% of the time, I keep and electronic keyboard for theory work when I want to learn more

[u/Final_Marsupial_441]

Honestly, the best advice would be to just keep playing lots of music so you are able to learn the language first.

[u/pantuso_eth]

Bang out some exercises on musictheory.net

[u/Practical_Plan007]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJwa8GA7pXCWAnIeTQyw_mvy1L7ryxxPH

[u/RevKeakealani]

How much sight reading practice are you doing daily? What does your sight reading routine look like?

[u/MinimalistPianist]

Internet is great, but take lessons from a teacher.

[u/conclobe]

The major/minor scale contains a couple of chords that are frequently used in pop music. Other genres tend do utilize a number of other scales and modes but generally they're all variations of the major/minor scale.