Toggle sidebar

Good Tutorials for Learning Music Theory?

JK_ · 2026-08-11T00:36:48+00:00

Recently, I was going through an old flash drive I found in a box. Everything on it was from 2011 or earlier, so yeah, I'm surprised it even still worked. What shocked me even more is what I found when I started digging through it. It felt like a time capsule. Way back, I used to try to use various music trackers and MIDI sequencers to try to write my own songs for games I never finished using Allegro (lol) and C/C++. I found a backup of a decent chunk of my old MIDIs and incomplete melodies along with embarrassing source code. Since the Switch is in its ninth year and I wanted a change from spending my nights programming and debugging, I decided to see if I could clean up and do something with them. I'm not a pro. I did/do this all by ear and math pretty much. Some of these are reworked songs and melodies from when I was in my teens. Some are new. Sometimes I get bored and replace the instrument samples with NES square waves. I upload them to SoundCloud, which I was recently told was probably a mistake, with AI slopped up thumbnails to save myself time. I have a thing for evil sounding church organs. I don't know why. They literally make me tear up. Here's my main SC page: https://soundcloud.com/j-d-k-vgm These are a select few: My Grandmother really liked this one. Actually, a lot people enjoy this one. This is an old one. It's not complex or anything, but I always liked it. This one has an interesting story. I actually wrote this as music for a YouTube video. Millions of people have actually heard a stripped down version of it, but nobody knows I wrote it. The YouTuber in question claimed they'd pay me, backed out of the deal (after they had the song, of course!), and never properly credited me for it. Since I wasn't paid, it's still mine, I guess. A lot of people in the comments enjoyed it more than the video. This is my most recent, new one. I got bored with orchestras and stuff. Wanted to try something different. I'm not perfect, but a lot of people are stunned I can write this stuff at all given I'm only a self taught guitarist. I have mild hearing loss in my left ear from playing metal for so long, so sometimes I mess up velocity and volume slightly. I'm aware of that. Feel free to leave me some sweet AI generated scam scripts and messages like the rest of the bots on SC. It's my favorite way to start my days now.

Thread starter VinsCool
Start date Nov 3, 2018
Views 1,246
Replies 4

VinsCool

Silly Catgirl

Global Moderator

GBAtemp Idiot 💜

Level 34

Nov 3, 2018

Hiya.

So I was wondering. I've been "making" music for quite a while now, without even knowing what I was doing.

Does anyone know resources I could study from so I could improve?
I am a bit embarrassed to know I do stuff without any knowledge ^^

Any tip would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by VinsCool, Nov 3, 2018

Quantumcat

Dead and alive

Member

Level 21

Nov 4, 2018

Go to a music shop and pick up some piano music theory books. When I was learning, my exams all had a theory component (time signatures, key signatures, beats, things like that) and I had to study from theory books.