Music Theory 101

The basics (rhythm & meter)

Here’s a music theory lesson for you: Pretty much any song has either 4 or 3 beats in each measure.

1 2 3 4 – 1 2 3 4 – 1 2 3 4

or…

1 2 3 – 1 2 3 – 1 2 3

Listen to a song and count along. You’ll see.

It’s super-helpful to know this because it gives you a way to keep track of WHEN things happen in the song. Otherwise, it sounds random and you get lost and your playing sounds awful.

(I used that word “measure” up above. It means each one of the groups of 1 2 3 4 or 1 2 3.)

Advanced music theory

This blog post is a bit beyond Music Theory 101, but if you want the TRUTH, you might find it here: Music Analysis for Pianists. I believe in you.