Ok so first I'm a bit sorry for this post. It's been a long time comming and I'm finally swallowing my pride and asking for advice. I'm willing to admit that maybe I should even start at the most basic level if that's what it takes. Anyway, I was hoping to get some advice from some knowledgeable people, as I'm not sure where I should go next. To preface, I've learned practically all my music theory through experimentation. I started learning songs through tabs on guitar, eventually learned how to transfer those songs to piano, and then learned some basic music theory by playing transferred chords and learning about major scales and jamming along to chords from my favorite songs.
The problem I feel like I have now is I don't understand music as well as I'd like to. I don't understand what to play for certain emotions, or even how to change keys, or heck even change chord patterns mid song. I'll usually keep the same 3-4 chords for an entire song, and I have no idea how to go about knowing when I should change my chord pattern, or what chord pattern I should change to. I generally keep to pretty basic chord patterns(cannon chords were my favorite for a long time.) The only time I make a song where I change keys is when I take the chords from a song I like. I also have found that I can't usually jam with other people, especially if I don't know the chord pattern they are using. I main piano and it's incredibly weird for me not to know/play the chord pattern w/ my left hand and jam melodies with my right. When on guitar, I find it a little easier to funk out some melodies but its still subpar and I generally resort to a repeating riff.
I'm not trying to self promote here, I'm genuinely looking for advice but to give you an idea, this is one of my proudest songs. I made the main piano on an actual piano, the rest I did digitally and with help from a friend who enjoys the genre. But I'm looking to improve my jam/music understanding. This one is more true to my usual tastes and I jammed out the guitar section on guitar, the rest was digitally inputted.
My goal tho, is to end up in a place where this song makes sense to me. I wish to be able to do jam / make a song like this. This is the most moving song I've heard. It always has a hint of happiness/hopefulness that gets turned away, and usually within the same measure. I have no idea how to go about anything like that and I'd like it to change. Also, what is that when the initial chord pattern goes C, D, Em, Em with F# ending note and how do you utilize it?
Sorry for the wall of text. Like I said, I've kept this to myself for a long time and not really knowing music theory and trying to explain where my downfalls are is a little overwhelming. I'll try to TL;DR it for people
TL;DR. I only understand basic music theory through experimentation and I don't really understand it like I'd like to. All my songs use a 3-4 chord pattern throughout the entire song. I'd like to learn how to utilize chord pattern changes and also tone changes within the same chord pattern(as my example shows, it uses 3 main chords in the beginning while still somehow conveying happiness and sadness in the same pattern. Plus wtf is it when it goes from a usual Em to a Em with an F# for an end(mid?) note instead of a G??? That is so beyond me.) Anyway, where should I start learning? Any recommendations?
I know this isn't the most clear post here so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Submitted October 03, 2019 at 08:27AM by LimpNoodle69 https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/dcpjid/where_to_go_in_music_theory_with_my_level_of/?utm_source=ifttt