From time time, there has been the argument that to play the piano, you don’t really need to learn to read the music and you certainly don’t need to understand music theory. To a certain extent this argument is actually valid but my question would be “Why would you not want to understand what is happening in the music that you are playing?”
I think that learning some theory of music is really important for everyone who plays a musical instrument. I think its particularly important for piano players to learn theory of music because unlike a lot of other musical instruments, it is possible to play multiple notes at the one time.
I would also argue that is interesting to learn theory of music because you are learning on a technical level, what works and what doesn’t work and why. I know that when I was a kid I was never enthralled about doing theory and to be honest, I have never had a young student that was excited about doing theory. I think most kids learning theory do it because they have to as part of their music lessons. If you had piano lessons for a few years when you were young, I’d like to bet that you do have some vague memories of learning theory.
As I said before, I didn’t enjoy learning about music theory, I just did it (in some ways its almost like doing another subject like in school). When I got to the age of about 14 and I had already had eight years worth of piano lessons (which also means I did some theory over those eight years as well). One day my teacher handed me a new piece of music to learn and it was by J.S.Bach. My teacher played it to me and I wasn’t particularly excited to be learning it. To me it sounded all over the place and it didn’t really have any element that captured my attention – the melody was rather ordinary and the rhythmic elements were ho-hum. Most of the music I learned, was music that I enjoyed the process of learning and then enjoyed playing, but periodically I was told to learn a piece of music that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about.
I went home and dutifully practised the section my teacher had asked. I didn’t enjoy it. When I came back the next week, I showed her that I had practised effectively and had learned the section she had asked for. After I finished playing, I made a comment that I didn’t really like the piece. I didn’t say it as a complaint but more like I was thinking aloud. I didn’t expect any answer and I certainly wasn’t asking for her to let me off the hook and not have to learn this piece.
Her answer at first surprised me. She asked me to look at the music and then preceded to show me these amazing, intricate and very clever patterns. She took about 5-10 minutes going through the piece explaining what was happening in the piece and why the composer wrote what he did. By the time she was done, I could now see the beauty in this piece of music and I was now motivated to learn the entire piece.
My teacher’s explanation also achieved something else that day. I finally discovered why I was made to learn theory of music and suddenly all of the knowledge that I had learned became useful to me. I was now motivated to learn more.
Ever since that day when my piano teacher explained that piece of music , I have enjoyed learning more theory and then teaching theory. I find it interesting. It can explain the why’s. It explains why certain clusters of notes called chords sound really nice, or mournful or sound like they need another chord after it. It can explain why some melodies work better than others and it can also explain why some rhythms sound so different.
As an adult, you have the choice as to whether or not you learn much theory of music, but I would encourage you to learn as much as possible because it will help your piano playing. This is because you have an understanding on a technical level about what is going on. You will also learn to recognize patterns in your pieces of music which will then make it easier for you to play.
In having a greater understanding of the various structures in music, this will also massively help you with reading musical notation. As a direct consequence, you can then have the opportunity of picking up pieces of sheet music and have the confidence to discover and explore some wonderful music that you never even knew existed.