The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory, Second Edition
What You Need to Use This Book
Any practicing or aspiring musician can learn basic music theory from The
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory, Second Edition.You don’t need any initial
knowledge to get started; you can use this book even if you don’t know how to
read music or play an instrument.
However, it will help if you have access to some sort of keyboard instrument.
That can be a piano or organ, or some sort of inexpensive synthesizer or
consumer-grade music keyboard. It doesn’t have to be a great keyboard or a big
one; you’ll use it mainly to perform some of the examples and exercises in the
book. (You can use this book without having a keyboard, but then you’ll have to
envision some of the examples in your head.)
Most of the examples and exercises can be performed on any instrument—
piano, guitar, trumpet, or whatever. If you don’t play an instrument, you can
sing most of the exercises. If you can’t play or sing, I suggest you go the cheap
keyboard route, so that you have some way of hearing the theory presented.
It will also help if you have some blank music paper at your disposal. And, of
course, a CD player—so you can listen to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music
Thoery, Second Edition, Ear Training Courseon the accompanying audio CD.How to Get the Most out of This Book
To get the most out of this book, you should know how it is designed. I’ve tried
to put things together in such a way to make learning music theory both reward-
ing and fun.
Each chapter presents a basic concept of music theory, and progresses through
that concept using a combination of text and musical examples. In some chap-
ters you’ll find pages of reference material—scale listings, chord charts, and the
like—that you can turn back to whenever necessary.
At the end of each chapter are exercises based on the theory presented in that
chapter. Work through these exercises to test your newfound knowledge—and
find out what areas you need to work on a little more!
(In case you’re wondering, the answers to these exercises are in the back of the
book, in Appendix C.)
Throughout the entire book you’ll see a number of little boxes (what we in the
publishing profession call margin notes) that present additional advice and infor-
mation. These elements enhance your knowledge or point out important pit-
falls to avoid. Here are the types of boxes you’ll see scattered throughout the
book:xx