where to start

[cedar iron]

<@&796420348849160224> if you had to explain music theory to someone who has never touched an instrument before, how would you do it?

What is sort of like the general progression of begginer music theory? Where do you start from? And where do you go from there?

I will hopefully be able to play piano again in the next few months, and i want to start learning the instrument properly this time, instead of just kind of improvising it. But i have no idea where to even begin. I know what chords are, i know a few of them, but besides that i know pretty much nothing about music theory, or sheet music. But i want that to change. Question is, what should someone like me start learning first?

[steel fjord]

Firstly, you don't need music theory to play an instrument. If all you want to do is learn the piano you should really focus on that. A lot of theoretical understanding will come naturally from just playing and having fun, which also happens to be the most important thing to do when you're starting out. Exposing yourself to music theory early on in the learning process might discourage you from learning or even confuse you more than it has to.

Secondly, learning music theory does not require an instrument, but it will help you a lot on in the process. Trying to understand music theory without putting it to practice on an instrument is like learning to draw without a pen and paper. Theory has to be practiced and realized on an instrument to be fully graspable. If you don't have an instrument available I'd recommend you to sing and use your body as much as possible.

Lastly, in your situation I would recommend you to start off by learning the fundamentals of music notation. The ability to read music will directly affect your ability to comprehend music as a theoretical concept as well as aiding you in your instrument learning. Once you've got the basics down you should look into the fundamentals of music theory. Learn your basic intervals, scales, chords, chord functions, key- and time signatures and so on. Don't worry too much about it right now though.

[tight flume]

When you do decide it's time to learn the fundamentals of music theory, I would first narrow down a kind of music you would like to learn the theory of. Learning Fuxian species counterpoint won't help you understand jazz big band soli, learning jazz licks won't help you understand rock solos, and learning rock chord progressions won't help you learn classical development. Each genre has their own dialect in the language of music, and while they can build on each other it's so incredibly important to match what you want to play and what you actually learn.

Seconding music notation as the place to start, though - if a genre of music doesn't rely on notation it is generally an oral (e.g. folk) or digital (e.g. EDM) tradition and therefore difficult to learn to an academically rigorous standard without a grounding built on top of other genres' knowledge.