Learning Theory?

I am trying to get a grasp on theory and everyone tells me having a piano is key to learn theory well. Unfortunately all i have is my 25key Midi Controller, in everyone's opinion do you think that is good enough for a learning aid? Thanks for any replies, much appreciated!

Sure. After all, theory is, well, theoretical. You don't need an instrument for it. A piano helps to try out stuff and get a more "plastic" feeling for what you're learning, but a midi controller serves the job well enough.

Cool to hear. My goal is to start learning how to compose, but first things first :)

I'd even say, compose first. Its a kind of punk ethos, but this sort of explains how I feel:

How to play Guitar

by David Fair

I taught myself to play guitar. It’s incredibly easy when you understand the science of it. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds. If you put your finger on the string father out by the tuning end it makes a lower sound. If you want to play fast move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower. That’s all there is to it. You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that’s pretty limiting. Even if you took a few years and learned all the chords you’d still have a limited number of options. If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day.

Traditionally, guitars have a fat string on the top and they get skinnier and skinnier as they go down. But he thing to remember is it’s your guitar and you can put whatever you want on it. I like to put six different sized strings on it because that gives the most variety, but my brother used to put all of the same thickness on so he wouldn’t have so much to worry about. What ever string he hit had to be the right one because they were all the same.

Tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion. If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong. But that absurd. How could it be wrong? It’s your guitar and you’re the one playing it. It’s completely up to you to decide hoe it should sound. In fact I don’t tune by the sound at all. I wind the strings until they’re all about the same tightness. I highly recommend electric guitars for a couple of reasons. First of all they don’t depend on body resonating for the sound so it doesn’t matter if you paint them. As also, if you put all the knobs on your amplifier on 10 you can get a much higher reaction to effort ratio with an electric guitar than you can with an acoustic. Just a tiny tap on the strings can rattle your windows, and when you slam the strings, with your amp on 10, you can strip the paint off the walls.

The first guitar I bought was a Silvertone. Later I bought a Fender Telecaster, but it really doesn’t matter what kind you buy as long as the tuning pegs are on the end of the neck where they belong. A few years back someone came out with a guitar that tunes at the other end. I’ve never tried one. I guess they sound alright but they look ridiculous and I imagine you’d feel pretty foolish holding one. That would affect your playing. The idea isn’t to feel foolish. The idea is to put a pick in one hand and a guitar in the other and with a tiny movement rule the world. -- from Untitled Document

Whatever, it gets lame in the end. It's not mine, I just liked the first part. But the thought is true - theory is just an amalgamation, categorization, and essentialization of all the possible pieces in the world. While learning a ton of chords and theory can undoubtedly help you, you can sit there and come up with true music without knowing one bit of theory.

Hahaha that blurb is awesome!

come to think of it now, you dont really need a piano to learn theory. a piano just helps you visualize the music, and shows the relationships between notes/chords in a clear way. you can also experiment with the piano.

Learn the piano. I wish I had when I started learning theory. And I wish it's not too late now.