Musical Theory for a COMPLETE Newb

[Corrosive]

Ok, so I'm wanting to start writing my own songs and such. I'm a huge metal fan, so I want solos in my songs, but I'm sure I'll have to work up to that. If you were teaching a complete newb to musical theory, what would you start with?

[Dutch_Apples]

By looking at posts here on UG and other internet sources. I would also buy a book such as The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory considering you probably won't always have a computer around you.

At minimum you should learn:

Key signatures
Major/Minor Scales
Rhythmic Values
Time signatures
etc.

[yawn]

musictheory.net


and

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/for_beginners/learning_music_theory_the_beginning.html

[bigmanwithanaxe]

http://ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=503032

This is a good'n.

[PaperStSoapCo]

as previously stated: musictheory.net... step by f***ing step. so simple a child could do it... but not my singer...;)