Hi folks, I wanted to ask you something I have been dealing with for as long as I have learned music theory: when is the point that you simply learn stuff by heart?
For example: I could not imagine writing out all keys in order to learn which notes a contained in them. But I learned all notes in all diatonic 7th chords by simply using flashcards. How am I to „practices“ my way into knowing what notes makes up a Dminor7?
Whats your experience with that? Where do you draw the line?
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As you improve in music theory, more and more information will become internalized, just as someone learns words instead of seeing the individual letters that form those words. A dm7 becomes a “word” that you can use in a sentence (i.e. a phrase or chord progression). Ultimately, you have to become more fluent with the basics (e.g. intervals, keys, all the chords, and so forth) before you can use them poetically, from a music theoretical perspective (that is, one in which you know why certain things are working).
I think it’s wise to try and remember as much as you possibly can. The piano will help. The more you remember, and the more you understand, the easier it becomes.
Source: I have a Ph.D in music theory and work as a prof of music theory.
I mostly use a piano to learn my chords. I’m not sure if you have a piano, but since you mentioned practice, I’m going to asume that you do.
I first started learning about chords when my piano teacher taught me what they were and what’s a major and a minor. They taught me the intervals, but I wasn’t too sure what they meant at the time.Then they told me to go find the chords of some songs and to play along.
After that I kinda understood what the intervals in the chords meant, so I looked up what were the intervals of some other chords. I learned by heart what they were so that I could play them on the piano.
The catch is I’m not able to tell what notes are in a chord without a piano though. I can try to visualise it in my head, but I wouldn’t be able to say immediatly what notes are there without playing it.
Since I mostly compose with a piano, or at least had a keyboard on screen, I never really had to think about it, so yeah that’s about it for me.
As for the diatonic chords, the way I would do it is to learn and remember what types of 7th chords are in a major and minor scale so that I could find them in these types of scales.
TLDR: I would just remember the typical structures of diatonic chords in major and minor scales and find the notes once I play them on piano.
