vapviking
Old & In the Way
Ouch! Please reconsider your direction. Music theory can be difficult and easy at the same time. You can take the time to learn to play, say, only 7 particular notes and (almost) never the other five, eh? Or, how about only white keys, never black, for example? Not soooo difficult) There are only 12 in the whole of western music (let's not talk micro-tonal quite yet) and a keyboard lays them out in the most orderly/analog fashion of almost any traditional instrument.
The 7 form a scale, the same notes are the notes in that key, the root of the scale. They are a family that goes places together. Stick to the white keys and you are (essentially) always playing in the key of C.
(side note; play on only the 5 black keys and you automatically are playing in what is called a pentatonic scale, one that has very wide application)
Next you can apply a little magic that today's keys allow; transposing to different keys. This just shifts all the notes over by 'X' number of steps, so that when you play your C major scale the notes played come out in another key, allowing you to play in a lot of keys now.
Irving Berlin famously had an analog version of a transposing piano. He apparently liked to play on the black keys.
Irving Berlin's Transposing Upright Piano
This transposing upright piano was made by Weser Brothers in New York, New York in 1940. According to the inscription on the case, it was made “expressly for Irving Berlin.” The transposing mechanism moves the action and keyboard so that the player can play in any key. Irving Berlin was a...
music.si.edu
I'm being very simplistic with all this, I know it is more complicated. My point is that I believe it would be more rewarding for you to go through a building process that leads to a more full understanding of what's going on, as opposed to taking time to learn to follow some blinking lites - and then trying to understand why they are blinking?
Later you can absorb that there are countless variants on major scales, forming new scales and modalities. I am not anywhere near understanding that stuff, myself.
My first music lessons were 3 different short runs at piano from the age 7-12. I just hated structured practice. But we always had a piano and organ in the house, and I would fool around because I loved the sounds (and I love to sing as well). My dad took several runs at explaining the magic of the Circle of 5ths but my eyes would glaze over.
At 18 I started in with guitar, playing only by ear and by rote learning from friends. Been at it for over fifty years, and I only got more into piano again in the last 10 or 15, finally looking back to some things I'm now ready and willing to absorb about theory.
But through all my years, if I ever do contemplate theory, it involves a mental image of a piano keyboard - not a guitar. I find it much easier to understand the theory, etc, and if I want to I can then go and apply that to the guitar fret board.
Hey, sorry to get a little preachy and a little chatty this morning.
vaporising marijuana cigarettes?
That oxymoron aside, you just might be surprised by some of your 'highbrow' associates...but we can understand why you might not want an employer to know!
As an example, I still cant keep in my head the notes on the fretboard or the keyboard, after 30 years, I still have to count thru the alphabet from C on the keyboard. I have to do everything by ear instead.
