Music theory you actually need, none of the sh*t you don’t
Music theory - how the hell do you know what you actually NEED to know?
If you’re doing the Beginner to Badass course, you could totally skip this lesson cuz I’ll teach you all the right theory at the perfect time. 
But if you’re curious about what comes next, and some of the reasoning behind what theory I teach, watch on!
What’s the one thing about music theory you wish someone had told you sooner?
A: That it’s not bullshit and knowing it makes music easier to learn and play.
How - despite what most people would think - chords in a jazz (or, dare I say, fusion) tune are NOT randomly put together, but instead there is rhyme and reason behind this apparent “madness”. I would have loved for someone to show me that rhyme and reason many, many years ago.
I love how you barely could keep that face at the end 
Level 5 is my ultimate ambition as it a) contains so much cool stuff, and b) aligns with my musical goals! Did someone say “chromatic mediants”?? 
This^^^
All of it. 1000%
I realize most couldn’t care less about level 5, but goals are personal.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. As Josh also made quite clear - not everyone needs level 5 or 4 (or 3), but at least some knowledge of level 3 can make learning songs so much easier 
Yep, 
Here’s an interesting bit of theory trivia. I apologize to the person I “stole” this from, because I can’t remember where or when.
“My cheat to determine the (major) key signatures quickly is to take the last written sharp and move it up a half step (so if there are three sharps, move G# up a half step, song is in A major, two sharps, move C# up a half step, D major etc). For all flat key signatures, except F major, I just look at the second to last flat and that’s the major key signature. So in Ab major, the second to last flat in the key signature is Ab, the second to last flat in Eb major (Bb, Eb, Ab) is Eb.”
Mode and scale in songs. That would have got me hook on theories very early on. Although discovering that in the real world is priceless and long lasting.
Coming across things on your own can be long-lasting, but it can very often also be late-in-coming. For me, it’s better to know things sooner than later. 
Yeah I can’t wait to get pass level 1. 
Yeah, right. 
^^^^
THIS!!
we are teaching our freshman art & design students Color Theory right now and i think its a very similar paralell — you don’t have to know it, but knowing it does make working with color in art/design a lot easier, a lot more consistent, much easier to figure out why something is maybe not working and how to fix it — and i would argue will help you be a lot more creative.
additionally, it gives a very well-understood, universally “accepted” language and vocabulary to talk about and analyze color, which helps when working with other artists/designers as well as production places like printers, etc…
i think this is the same thing with music theory. excellent video!
I have a love hate relationship with theory. Everyone talks about how hard Billie Jean is, but the section on theory just following it is what crashed me out of the course. It just makes no sense to me, and I’ve tried.
I’m going to ask a tangential question - why do people resist learning to read music so strongly? I learned taking piano lessons when I was like 7 so I don’t remember a time I couldn’t read music, and it’s hard to figure out the problem people have with it.
To me notes on a staff look like gibberish, they make no sense
If one doesn’t know how to speak or read a given language, for example, it stands to reason that its words will sound/look like gibberish.
Learning to read music is easier for young people who are open to anything because everything is new. But there are many more…experienced…humans who learn to read music at an advanced age. Our own dear Pam was a prime example, but there are multitudes more in the world.
I’m not trying to convince anyone to do anything that seems of little no value. And in the context of @JoshFossgreen’s video, there are many who don’t need or care to read music or learn theory, and that’s great for them. But knowing how/why music is made, and how to read it, can expand a musician’s abilities exponentially.
I’m not a musician,…… I’m a bass player…
I have two answers to this question.
One, when I first started with music, I was in elementary school. On the accordion, at Milton Mann Accordion Studios. Reading music was taught pretty early on, and I think I still have my Milton Mann note flash cards somewhere. But what was taught first was “this is the key you start on, and when you see ‘1’, push the key under your thumb; when you see ‘2’, push the key under your first finger, and so on, and so forth”. So, effectively, “accordion tablature” was taught first, and the linkage between that tab and the notes on the staff didn’t really become a big part of the lessons until after I stopped taking them.
Two, on bass, far and away tablature is taught and/or learned very much first. Tab is more common, from what I’ve seen as long as I’ve been involved with bass, than is standard sheet music. And tab is getting much more involved with note length and other more “standard reading music” stuff, so if you start with tab, and you get to a point where you’re a functional bassist without reading music and tab is working for you, why learn it unless and until you want to continue on down your musical theory journey?
I guess the short answer is “tab has made it easy to play instruments without learning to read music, and it’s getting better”.
Anyway, that’s just my $.02.
Basically everything in this video… LOL.
We need to get you a time-travelling DeLorean … and get you back 25 yrs… and share this with the world 
1.21 gigawatts! Great Scott!!