One of the best aspects of music theory is that there’s always something new to learn.
However, this can feel overwhelming at times, which unfortunately causes a good number of people to turn away from music theory—when in reality, knowing even a little bit of theory can go a long way in improving your productions.
In the video above, we unlock the fundamentals of music theory in just 15 minutes. We start with the absolute basics, identifying the four core elements of music: melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. From there, we dive deeper into each and explore how you can immediately apply the key music theory concepts that exist within them in your music.
If you’d like to experiment in your own DAW with the MIDI files that complement the concepts explored in this video, you can download them for free here.
Ultimately, studying music theory is a lifelong pursuit, so take this as a starting point and don’t sweat it if you need to rewatch sections or explore further via other resources. Below are a few additional guides on rhythm, melody, and harmony that might be good starting points, and you can also explore even more detailed discussions and tutorial videos on our YouTube channel as well as Splice Skills.
- An introduction to rhythm: Beats, measures, and note values
- An introduction to melody: Pitch, scales, and keys
- An introduction to harmony: Triads, scale degrees, and chord progressions
What concepts from the video did you find most useful? What sorts of topics would you like to see us explore on the Splice YouTube channel in 2022? Let us know in the comments.
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January 1, 2022
