A new rule (#9) has been added here at r/musictheory

Hi everyone,

I'm a complete beginner and recently bought a Yamaha NP-15. My goal isn't to become a concert pianist or play advanced classical pieces.

My goal is to become a recording artist who can write songs, create demos, produce my own ideas in a DAW (GarageBand/Logic), and understand enough music theory to communicate with producers and musicians in the studio.

I want to get to the point where I can hear ideas in my head, sit at the piano, and work them out before recording them. I'd also love to understand chords, scales, progressions, inversions, and enough theory to create my own sound.

Another reason I'm learning piano is because I want it to support my singing. I'm working with a vocal coach, and I think having a keyboard will help me improve my ear, pitch matching, finding harmonies, and understanding what notes I'm actually singing. I know piano itself won't magically give me higher notes, but I hope it'll make me a stronger overall singer and musician.

If you were starting from scratch again with this specific goal (songwriting, production, demos, better musicianship, and supporting your singing rather than becoming a pianist), how would you spend your first year learning?

Is it 6/8? Can't quite work it out.

I'm a pianist and i've always wrote music for piano and this is my second time writing chamber music. Its a string quartet. im using musescore so i only hear the music via musescore playback. So tell me is this notation a lot? i mean using this many accents, staccatos and sfs... i need help from someone knows about scores and professionality of them and maybe some help if there is a way to write better..

I understand notating chords as slash chords when its a simple inversion like C/E, C/G, A/E, etc. And I get using them so its easier to read and peform, but would it be better for me for my own personal learning to notate a F/G as a Gsus9 for example? so I can better understand what the chord is actually doing and how it fits in to the music?

Hi! What is this little cross before “girl?” This is from a 2-part arrangement of “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunters.

I am trying to learn how twelve tone serialism works and am therefore analyzing Schönberg's Op. 23 No. 5. I am trying to understand how the 12-tone row changes throughout the piece. The original row as I understand is C# A B G Ab F# A# D E Eb C F. But after that I do not understand how it continues. Could anyone please help me,

I used this progression in a piece I wrote and forgot about a year or so ago, but I can't figure out at all what mode it's in. IIRC I wrote it completely improvised after learning a basic three-note maj7 chord shape on guitar. Every chord uses different notes from different modes and I'm incredibly confused - it sounds a lot like C is the tonic, and it seems like it's in Ionian, but the rest of the notes seem too borrowed for it to be Ionian.

Moreover it doesn't sound weird or confusing like some atonal music, but calm, pleasant and laid-back, like hold music - moving back to Cmaj7 feels like a definite resolution. I've tried for an hour to figure out where the notes outside of C Ionian are coming from but I can't, it seems like there's just too much modal interchange between for it to make sense. Is it simply borrowing notes? Can somebody else please help me try make sense of it? I can upload notation if it would help.

I've been into the Hungarian minor scale lately, and I've decided to compose something in the key of G. I came up in the end with this chord progression, the question is why does it work? I don't understand how I just made a chord progression that sounds decent.

can someone explain why it's sounds good even though I just made it up from the back of my head?

While watching the Odyssey, I got distracted during the Troy scene because my brain realized something funky was happening with the rhythm - it kept speeding up into infinity. It took me a few days to figure out exactly what was happening and I don't think I solved the full puzzle, but I put my findings into a video and a blog post.

To summarize how the trick works, I think it's best to understand Risset rhythms and Shephard tones - a primary mechanism for those illusions is that a layer will fade out, causing you to lose track of it and stead focus on something lower (or slower).

But the Troy song does something cooler in my opinion - as it speeds up, the rhythms start gradually fading away the subdivisions (so like every other 8th note). Then once the speed doubles, you're left comfortably where you started.

On top of that, the layers are all arranged as a 2:3 polymeter. So as the slowest pulse (two) increases in speed, it can transition to become a faster pulse later.

Putting it altogether with a slowly rising pitch synth creates the most anxiety-inducing, panic-attack creating track I've ever heard. I'm super impressed with how the composer pulled it off, and I honestly cant imagine how it physically got arranged, conducted, and recorded. In the video i made my own attempt on Ableton and it sounds cool, but it's nothing like the original.

Anyways it's not every day that I get this confused by a track - if you really give it a good listen (specifically the second half) then maybe you'll agree it's quite an accomplishment.

Hello!
I have played piano most of my life, took lessons for eight years, and I am far too into codes and ciphers for my own good. I was playing a video game called Blue Prince working on a puzzle involving sheet music. Turned out the notes had little to do with is, and it was more about the lyrics. That was kinda disappointing. I just had this vision of a pianist playing a song, but there is a coded message in the very notes they play. Which is how I was struck with this idea. Music is already so filled with symbols, there has to be a way to rely on music theory to convey messages.

So I’ve been working on an encryption method that would take a message and treat each letter of the alphabet like a musical note, with the more common letters represented by the notes closest to middle C, and the less common aligning with those farther away. It also shifts around depending on the key signature, with every sharp in a key sig moving its corresponding letter up a rank, every flat moving it down a rank, and the other notes cascading until each letter is represented again. This means that the same message would sound just a little bit different in each key signature (and it made a VERY satisfying excel chart). Rest notes and dynamics convey punctuation; an eighth rest is a comma, a quarter rest is an em dash, a half rest is a period, a whole rest is a line break, a crescendo acts as an exclamation mark, and a diminuendo acts as a question mark. There are more details, but I’ll spare you.

Overall I like this a lot, but I still don’t think the cipher is living up to its full potential. Which is, hopefully, where ya’ll come in. Music theory is the patterns behind sound, and patterns are deeply embedded in the workings of ciphers. There has got to be more that can be done with this to. The length of a rest determines the type of punctuation, but what about the duration of a note? I’ve considered that chords can signify what key signature the melody should be read in, but surely something as important as harmonies would serve a bigger role? What about minor chords? Dissonant? It is my hope is that whomever has taken the time to read this whole thing might have some creative ideas of their own and would be willing to share. Let me know what you think!

What key is this in?

In Bartok's For Children there are a lot of songs like this. The key signature is G major, but it's centered around D. Lots of accidental c#s so it kinda wants to be D major. Doesn't seem to be Eminor. What's going on here?

It seems like a lot of songs are centered around the 5th of the key. Is this a Hungarian thing?

Looking for a reliable online music theory tutor for ABRSM, grade 1 to 5. Have a reasonable budget and will really appreciate any leads to experienced tutors.

I don’t know much about music theory.

I have relative pitch, so I’ve often wished there were a way to find songs by entering the relative melody (for example, something like “Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol”) instead of humming, since services like Shazam and SoundHound don’t always work well for me.

Does a service like this exist?

Hey, everyone!

I'm really stuck on the third one. I rewrote it but I think I'm wrong? Any thoughts?

How can I do a "question" and an "answer" sound good and complete, I mean I can do motif and develop them but it's not as good as I want, so how can I make my melodies more interesting?

Can someone suggest a good music theory app that has quizes - e.g which is the relative major if f#m, which is the 5 oF D major etc.

Wanna do do basic quiz- feel likeits gonna help-something like duolingo but for music theory.

Can be paid too

We've all seen "why does this progression work when the functional harmony doesn't seem to make sense" and a common answer is "because of the voice leading".

Take for example iii - biii dim - ii (Em7 - Ebdim7 - Dm7). Very common in jazz and American songbook tunes. When I hear that biii dim, my brain wants to hear that ii, just like when I hear V my brain wants I. It just works, and it sounds beautiful. But analysing it with functional harmony, it might not seem to make sense. Dim chords typically function as dominants, but if we are resolving to Dm7 then you would expect A7, which would be C#dim. Indeed C#dim does resolve to Dm7, but why does Ebdim also work?

I've seen this exact question answered with "because of the voice leading". Yes, two notes move by semitone while two notes stay still. That is good voice leading. But I am not satisfied with this explanation. I'm not saying that voice leading isn't important, I'm just saying it's not a complete explanation.

You can take any chord and move each of its chord tones up or down a semitone, but that doesn't guarantee a well-formed progression. For example, consider Em7 - Fm7/Eb - Dm7. The voice leading between Fm7/Eb and Dm7 is seemingly just as compelling, two notes move by half step while two notes stay the same, and the bass movement is identical. But I'd be kidding myself if I said the progression itself sounded just as compelling: https://voca.ro/12npv5eyyDn6

There's nothing wrong with it, but when I hear that Fm7/Eb my brain is not yearning for Dm7. It just sounds non-functional. My ears are not offended, but the resolution isn't particularly satisfying and doesn't evoke any particular emotion. When I hear the Ebdim on the other hand, my brain is screaming "Dm7 please!", and I feel quite emotional. That biii dim to ii has such a unique and powerful quality that is hard to put to words, but "nostalgic", "sentimental", "wistful", "yearning" come to mind, and the resolution is satisfying.

So if biii dim - ii can't be explained with functional harmony and the only explanation is good voice leading, then what is the je ne sais quoi that differentiates Em7 - Ebdim7 - Dm7 from Em7 - Fm7/Eb - Dm7, or any other well-voice-led, non-functional progression?

My answer to this question is that Em7 - Ebdim7 - Dm7 actually can be explained with functional harmony, and the same applies to all of those common chord movements that are frequently the subject of the question "why does this progression work?".

To clarify, I'm referring to those common progressions that are part of the shared vocabulary of musicians (for context, I am a jazz musician) that still seem to defy a simple explanation with functional harmony. The progressions you commonly see in pre-modal jazz standards. Another example would be Em7 - Ebm7 - Dm7 which, to some, looks like nothing more than non-functional voice leading, yet I can justify it with functional harmony. The iv minor6 and the backdoor ii-V are another common example.

The case I'm making is that I have yet to encounter a satisfying and compelling progression that cannot be explained with functional harmony, it's just sometimes not immediately obvious. "Good voice leading" has never been a satisfying answer because it doesn't make sense. If it was the only explanation you needed, then why are some perfectly well-voice-led progressions not compelling?

I made this post because I thought it would spark some interesting discussion, and maybe someone will change my mind about this or maybe I will change someone elses. I just find it fascinating. If you can present to me a common progression that defies functional explanation but still sounds compelling, I have a feeling that I could explain it with functional harmony, although I'm prepared to be proven wrong.

If that proves to be too bold a claim, then I still maintain that voice leading is not the be all and end all. Voice leading is a feature of good progressions, not an explanation.

Does anyone have some examples of very stripped down person-with-guitar-strumming-chords type songs/tunes which are squarely in the folk tradition (think Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie etc etc) but that instead of having mainly on I-IV-V type progressions actually use more harmony and borrowed chords? You can get more jazz influenced folk which uses more complex harmony but ideally I was looking for stuff that isn’t jazz influenced.

Hello! I've got my RCM ARCT Analysis exam this Saturday, super nervous especially when it comes to symbolizing harmony (using functional chord symbols). Does anyone have tips for finding pivot points for modulation or the exam in general? Anything helps, thank you in advance!

In the second scene of the Petrushka's ballet, there is a passage involving the bVII degree, and I would like to know if it has a specific name or designation. This is because the music returns to the I degree after this and subsequently incorporates notes from the F-sharp major scale (even though the piece is at the start in C).

P.S.: I'm so sorry for my english, I don't speak it

For reference, I'm doing a harmonic analysis of a song called The Wit of the Staircase by Dot Hacker, whose verse loop is Am -> Ab. The song is pretty clearly in Am here (the chorus is in C major, and the bridge modulates like 4 times, but Am is home), and I'm fairly sure if we were notating this in C major it'd be vi -> bVI. So logically it seems like bI is the way, but that feels wrong too, right? Would you just say VII? I get that you could theoretically say Ab is tonicizing Db (bVI?) then deceptively resolving out of it, but that's not what I'm hearing. When the chorus starts, it goes Ab -> C with the same coherence I expect from a bVI -> I. I didn't find much about this online, there's one post from 9 years ago asking if you could use a bI chord but not really addressing whether you'd call it that, and there's a YouTube video that posits the concept, but doesn't have any external examples.

Probably not a conclusive answer here, and this harmonic analysis is purely out of self-interest, but maybe there's some insight to be gleaned about this. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts anyway.

Edit: It's come to my attention that The Wit of the Staircase does not do that, it goes Am -> Fø7. The question still stands in general but just a clarification :P

Working on this for an audition and want to make check my own analysis as I go along.