What's the best logical progression of learning music theory?

I learn things best from a logical standpoint - if I know the bare basics, then I can expand on that easily on my own.

For example, learning something like geometry, you start with the properties of a line and from that derive the properties of a triangle.

I already know scales (though I need practice on implementation , but where would be a good place to start? The circle of 5ths? Somewhere before that?

Thanks

Learning how chords are built on each note of the scale and how the different chord types are constructed seems like a good place to start................

Is there anything about why they are constructed the way they are? I do have to work on the how of these things too (that's what implementation is), but I feel it'd help me understand it more if there was a reason a major scale is built 1-1-1/2-1-1-1-1/2. (And why, the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes in the scale make up a basic major chord)

Actually, that's all a matter of convention. It comes from the greeks, that have calculated the way scales and mode ought to be. We stick to 12 notes per octave, but some countries have 18/20 etc... notes per octave. Their music sounds weird to us, but it's the same thing the other way around.

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And the notes were set with the harmonics (see the 12th 5th and 7th fret) of a resonating body, brought back to an octave. There were lots of problem, since some of those notes aren't quite 'equal', so to build some instruments, like the guitar, you have to have some 'off' notes.

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"The Overtone Series" plays a big part in developing western music theory. There is a special way of doing it on the piano (I forget) where if you play a note you can hear the harmonic of a perfect 5th ringing above it, then an octave above that, then a 3rd etc, etc..Peter Bernstien did a 3 part lecture series on it that was quite fascinating (its on video)some libraries have it.

if you like math you'll enjoy these links about the overtone series:
http://graham.main.nc.us/~bhammel/MUSIC/ovrtns.html
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/overtone.html
http://www.2.smu.edu/totw/overtone.htm

[Edited by chris mood on 10-23-2002 at 10:37 AM]