I honestly don't know if there's any appropriate place for that question here, but it seems the
most appropriate, at least.
Anyway, music theory, hooo boy. Music theory is a beast. I've started studying informally like two years ago, less informally about half a year ago, and will start formally this coming school year. And I feel like I've made only a pebble throw distance. I'm finally getting somewhere interesting with my less informal lessons, today in fact.
Though don't let that discourage you. I've picked up a lot of revelations and tiny eurekas on my own when I was informally studying. In fact, I think I picked up as much as I could alone until I realized I needed a teacher to help organize what I knew into actual formal learning. I felt roadblocked and needed guidance to get through.
But you should know that you yourself can definitely pick up enough to analyze music. What you learn from analyzing, you try to apply to your own language. Pretty fun stuff. Not that I've gotten anywhere near that less informally though. Informally, I experimented around a lot.
Music theory has been around for waaay longer than the internet has, you'll find a lot more books on the matter than anything you'll find online. The 'learn music theory online' all cover the same basic stuff, just find one you can easily follow along with and you've seen them all. Personally I liked
this video series. These basic stuff are really mind-numbing grueling work about terminology and identification, what not. If you feel you don't need it, I don't blame you. I assume you know how to read music at least.
As far as I've looked, no one has the time to teach anyone anything beyond these basic ideas. And they simply present this information without really teaching you to apply them or check that you really know them. That video series assigns homework, some of which I've done, helpful. To be honest, I don't know what lies beyond this basic music theory. Terms like voice-leading, 3-4 part harmony, counterpoint rise up but elude me. This is around the point where I got stuck because the books I've read about these 3 subject matters where definitely geared more towards composition rather than analysis, and I needed help applying them. I think I'm just about to get into those.
Analysis wise, there's this thing called
SHMRG, which is an acronym for
Sound
Harmony
Melody
Rhythm
Growth. It seems to be a common thing taught, and does seem useful to keep in mind when thinking about a certain piece of music. Personally, I find the growth element the most fascinating part of music, how ideas take form and develop over the course of the music. Again, this eludes me but I find it alluring.
If you want to analyse stuff, I think harmony is the most important for pop stuff and also anything [not atonal] from the past 2 centuries or so. I think the best part of music theory is trying to figure out why a certain part of the music makes you feel a certain way. Because realize this: it's not an accident. This is the same as color theory explaining why blues and oranges contrast well. The songwriter/composer may have stumbled upon this evocative mood by accident but the sound world it generates is most definitely not an accident. You have to try and unlock this secret. Most of the time, I find the answer lies in the harmony. Some harmonies sound poignant and others sound unexpected and you have to try and figure out why it's poignant or why it sounds unexpected. The music arriving at a major chord over a series of minor harmonies and minor scale melodies will sound unexpectedly rich and lush. Try to become fluent at determining the harmony of the music and you'll be able to see a basic blueprint of the score. An emotional map, you could say. Cadences also play a big part in this.
Analyzing game music or pop songs will probably give you a very good intro course of determining what the harmony for passages are. Touhou music, for example, almost invariably follows some kind of 6-7-1-7 progression to introduce the main theme. And the bass note is the root of the chord, so it's that much easier. It'll help you see which are the chordal and which are the non-chordal tones. Books will very much help you here, as they often contain analyses of compositions by past composers, giving you an idea of how to analyze music yourself.
I've also just now found
this internet archive which I myself will have to peruse with a comb later. Probably a little too advanced to start with, or even for me probably, but even big things can give you big ideas.
Well hope that gave you some ideas of how to start.
tldr: learning how to identify the harmonies of the music will help you the most immediately
Edit: I also found
this blog by a classical guitarist and composer that I'm really enjoying going through. Try look through it for some neat ideas.
