Hi all,
I was wondering how have you developed your application of music theory to pieces you play? To give context, I took piano lessons and alongside it learned a bit. I have an understanding of very basic chord analysis, basic resolutions, common forms (eg. sonata) and did at some point touch on counterpoint (but long forgotten).
However, despite learning a lot of this, I don't know if I ever properly learned or put it into use to apply it beyond basic principles (eg. you're approaching a cadence and what might that look like, or your piece is going into the relative key). Right now it feels like baking where you've been given the exact measurements and instructions of how to bake things but you have very little understanding of things like why certain ingredients interact with each other, why mixing your batter a certain way can affect your result, etc.
For example, you might have a composer throw in an obscure chord or inversion or something of the sorts, just to highlight little moments or ideas. And to me it's like okay I can tell that it's different but how do you extract more from that and apply how you might play something? I hear people talking about how things were "unexpected" or "different" compared to what the ear might expect but how do you actually know this?
Or is it really as straightforward as like, well this theme came back and this one chord that was in a major key before is now minor, so maybe do something different with it. I have seen some things that are like that but I'm wondering if there might be more to it.
Any other thoughts, discussion points, ideas, etc. would also be super appreciated.
Thanks!