So. Whenever I write a character, I try my absolute hardest to educate myself enough to understand their passions/hobbies. At least enough to sound like the character actually knows what they're doing, even if I don't.

But I have such a hard time trying to understand ANYTHING about music theory. Ren needs to write minor chord progressions, goddammit, and I can't do that from his POV if I have no idea how that works. I'm kind of learning diatonic chords? Kinda???

And the annoying part is that I have a fantastic ear for music (not-so-humble brag, I'm sorry), but I don't actually know how music works. Like, you can tell me to hum middle C and I'll get it right first try, and I can always tell when something is being played/sung in a key I don't normally hear it in. But I can't actually tell you what those keys ARE. I can find harmonies pretty instinctively, but I can't tell you what I'm singing. I can sort of read music, but just a little bit. I learned the whole Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge/Every Good Boy Does Fine trick, but I have to think really hard about it and it takes me a long time. Time signatures are iffy. It's genuinely faster for me to just memorize how the song goes by hearing it.

All I know is that three notes make up a chord. And now I've just learned that dyads are two notes that can imply a chord. And I know what diatonic chords are on concept, but I can't really describe them.

I would like to write music ;-; But how can you write in a language you can't speak??? And how can you portray a character as learned in a skill you struggle to even fake?