Discouraged

[Nana_Ama]

Hi.

I've been taking piano lessons for about 2 years and although I have made decent progress I feel that my lessons are incomplete.  Every time I come back from a lesson I don't feel like I have really learned very much.  My teacher likes to focus on musicality, tone and phrasing.  I realize, musicality is an essential part of music, but I feel like this my lack of knowledge of music theory is stunting my progress.  When I play a piece I am really curious to see what puzzles lie inside the music (how it is structured and little details of music...) but I do not appreciate the music as much since I do not know the little details behind the music.  I don't know if this is making any sense but any comments would be greatly appreciated.

[canardroti]

Hi there, I believe i'm at the same point as  you are right now, I've also been taking lessons for about 2 years. I am just starting to learn music theory because I wanted to know what was really going on in a piece rather than just hearing the nice consonant notes being played. I also thought it could greatly increase my technique,so far it hasn't ,yet i'm just begining.  My teacher is also focusing more on phrasing , tonality and the consitancy of the pieces . I believe it's not her main concern , she probably thinks that I should be more confortable on the keyboard before focusing on the theory behind the music. I understand the frustration when after I've finished playing a piece I really like and think to myself" HEY, that piece is nice however I Have no idea what was going on!". Are you curently taking theory classes? If not , i recommend you this book " Tonal Harmony" by Stefan kotska, Dorothy Payne. It's pretty helpful I believe.

I'm not sure if I helped you in any  way ( I hope so though) . Take care.

[jazzyprof]

Nana Ama, don't be discouraged...be ENcouraged by the fact that once you learn a bit of theory, music will make so much more sense, you will learn pieces faster, and you will actually play better because you understand where the music is going.  You need to learn about intervals, how to name them, how to invert them, and what they sound like.  You need to learn about major and minor scales and how they are constructed; chords and their inversions; progressions, i.e. how a chord in a passage is related to the one before it and the one after it; cadences.  You should learn the Circle of Fourths (or Circle of Fifths) so you can predict how the music will progress harmonically.  You need to know why a piece may modulate to a new key that is up a fifth from the old key. 

You could take a music theory class at school, at your local community college,...or you could ask your piano teacher to incorporate theory lessons.  But you can also teach yourself by studying from books such as the one recommended or you can try one of the many free online theory courses.  A particularly thorough one is this course:
https://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory1.htm
You might feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of stuff there, but take heart, you don't have to know it all.  A nice feature about this course is you can actually hear the examples through your soundcard.      

By the way how did Traumerei go?  You were working on it recently.  (And your name...are you Ghanaian?)

[Nana_Ama]

 

You could take a music theory class at school, at your local community college,...or you could ask your piano teacher to incorporate theory lessons.  But you can also teach yourself by studying from books such as the one recommended or you can try one of the many free online theory courses.  A particularly thorough one is this course:
https://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory1.htm
You might feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of stuff there, but take heart, you don't have to know it all.  A nice feature about this course is you can actually hear the examples through your soundcard.      

maybe I will take a music theory class over the summer. Thanks for the suggestions!

By the way how did Traumerei go?  You were working on it recently.  (And your name...are you Ghanaian?)

Traumerei went well.  And yes, I am Ghanian.  How did you know?  Are you Ghanian too?