Essential Music Theory for Beginners and Beyond

1. Essential Music Theory Basics for Beginners and Beyond: Hi, I'm glad you're interested in my video course on music theory, in which you'll learn the foundational concepts for your hobby, vacation, studies, school, or exam of any kind in the curriculum. This course was based on the official music theory books by Berkeley, volumes 1.2. My name is Steve. I studied music at music universities in Austria and Germany. I have up to 30 music students per week. My private teaching business has 25 plus five-star ratings on Google and other platforms. And I wrote multiple books on music theory. My compositions and arrangements have been performed in multiple countries across Europe. In this course, you will acquire the following skills, the reading of music notation in order to quickly and autonomously learn new pieces of music on your instrument of choice, you'll learn to identify it and use the basic building blocks of music like scales, chords, most end mode in order to drastically improve your site reading, songwriting, analysis, or composing skills. The project of this course will be the many PDF worksheets I've provided on every topic of which you should complete at least three assignments each, and then upload to the community area to receive feedback. Many cell phones included in the video illustrate every topic. So you can gain a comprehensive intuitive knowledge of what's what in the world of music. This course covers the following topics, chronological order, music notation, Rhythm, and time signatures, intervals, major and minor scales, seven modes called the circle of fifths, ear training and more. These topics are universal to all fields of music-making. If you play in a band or classical ensemble, music theory will enable you to communicate your ideas clearly and efficiently if your aim is to be a competent musician in the extremely competitive music business and a cognitive skills gained in this course will increase your market value by a lot. I hope you've enjoyed the course and please leave a review 2. Pitch Notation Basics: That miraculously splendid music theory show. This is white board has many sets of five lines. One such set is called The Music Staff. Many of them are referred to as staves. In these lines, we write down little black dots called notes. These notes have a certain pitch or frequency. The lower note notated. The longer it's going to sound. Higher, it's notated relative to these five nights. That higher it's going to sound. A note can be written exactly on a line in the middle or in the space between two lines. The totality of lines and spaces is called positions. In music. Does an alphabet, also referred to as the natural nodes? That's a sequence of seven letters, C, D, E, F, G, a, B. And these seven nodes are equivalent to the white keys on a piano. The sequence of nodes keeps repeating itself one octave higher. And when we play this sequence of notes up and down in order, we get the C major scale, something every piano student has to learn. The first note you should memorize instantly is the so-called Middle C. You can see for the fact that fight every C on a piano keyboard, you can use the two black keys as orientation. But how exactly do we know which node is meant when it's written somewhere? That's where the so-called clefs come in. The cleft is the symbol that goes at the beginning of every staff. The symbol is the so-called treble clef. It denotes the G, the next G above middle C, this is middle C. And the treble clef sort of has the circle in circle, a particular line, second line from hello. And on this line, since the G, G4, the G above middle C, That's why the treble clef is also called G clef. Sometimes, Let's notate some natural notes in the treble clef, starting with C4, obviously. Than the sequence repeats itself, one octave higher, C, D, E, F, G. And it keeps going on like this. As you can tell, the middle see it looks a bit different from the other ones because it has a line through it. That's the so-called ledger line. Ledger lines come into play when the note that hasn't been notated is too low or too high to fit within the five lines. It's sort of a fragment of an imaginary additional line. There can be as many ledger lines as you want, but at some point they get very ugly and hard to read. So we have different clefs for the high notes on the low notes, the next clef you should be familiar with is the so-called bass clef or F clef. Bass clef has two dots and the line that runs between, exactly between those two dots, there lies the F, it's the next F below middle C. In the bass clef, middle C is notated on the ledger line, on the first ledger line above the fire blight. This note sound identical to this node. Alright, let's notate some natural notes in the bass clef. The sequence of natural note is an ascending sequence. So when we write them in the other direction, we're going to have to front-to-back. Let's see. So the distance from one node name to the next identical note name is called an octave. This c is one octave lower than this C. This C is one octave higher than the C. E.g. octo is the Greek word for eight, and it's called octave because the distance spans eight Latin names, 12345678. There are also additional symbols that tell you to transpose a note that's written somewhere up an octave or down an octave. Eight VA, followed by a dotted bracket, tells you to play this note one octave higher than it's written. Every node under this bracket has been played one octave higher. Same goes for transposition one octave lower, which looks like this. This ABB and adopt bracket belongs to note, this should be played one octave lower, which would be this gene. When it says 15 MA, you should play the note, or notes two octaves higher. When it says 15 and B, it should be two octaves lower, depending on how low or high. Notice it gets a different label. Middle C is C4, as we said before. The next one octave higher is C5, C6, C7, and so on. The lower octaves, or C3, C2, C1, and C2. And all of the nodes in-between two C's get the same label as the first Si and the sequence of natural notes. So that would be C4, D4, E44, right up to B4, C5, D5, E5, and so on. 3. Accidentals: In part one, we mainly discussed the seven natural notes, C, D, E, F, G, a, B, and how to notate them. But the piano doesn't just have seven nodes. It has these black keys, Twins and Triplets, five per octave. So in total, we have 12 notes per octave. If we play these 12 notes up or down without skipping any, we get the so-called chromatic scale. The smallest possible step in music is the semitone, also called Halftone, or half-step on the guitar. The semitone equates to the movement from one fret to the next. On the same string, of course, neighboring keys, one semitone apart, but we also have a semitone between some white keys. E and F is a semitone because there's no black key in between. B and C is also a semitone. No black key in between the semitone can be thought of as the atom of intervals, because every larger interval is made up of a sum of semitones. So how do we notate these black keys sandwiched in-between the natural nodes? We use the so-called accidentals, which are symbols like these to the sharp and flat symbol accidentals, Altera notes pitch, it makes it one semitone higher or one semitone lower. A black key can be interpreted as a natural note that's been raised or an actual note that's been lowered by a semitone, the sharp sign raises a natural note by semitone, d becomes D-sharp. The flat sign does the opposite. D becomes a D-flat. When two notes sound the same, but they're notated differently. We call this enharmonic equivalents, e.g. a, D-sharp has the same sound as E-flat, same sound, different notation, enharmonic equivalents. Here are the five black keys notated as sharps, F-sharp, C-sharp, G-sharp, Asia. And if we use flat symbols to notate the black keys, we get B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, G-flat. As you can tell, I said these notes in a particular order, there's a logic to it. You should already commit those sharps and flats to memory in that order because it'll help you learn scales, key signatures, and the circle of fifths E and B can also get a sharp symbol. E sharp would obviously sound the same as f. B-sharp would sound the same as c. In the same way, F flat is the enharmonic equivalent of E, C, E-flat sounds the same as B. Accidentals are valid for the remainder of the measure, and the accidentals are canceled by the bar line, which means this is a C, C-sharp, C-sharp, C-sharp. And again, a C because it comes after the byline. Accidentals are only valid for the precise position they sit on. This see down there would be unaffected by the sharp sign up there. C, C-sharp, also a C, C-Sharp. C. If we want to play us a natural, see again, in this bar at that position, we need a so-called natural sign. The natural sign is also valid for the remainder of the measure, C, C-Sharp, C, C. Armed with this new knowledge, we can notate the chromatic scale in many different ways. We could notate the chromatic scale using only sharps, only flat symbols, or a mixture of the two 4. Key Signatures (Also: Double Sharp, Double Flat): A key signature is a set of sharp symbols or flat symbolism. Key signatures indicate that certain accidental should be used throughout the piece, or at least until the next key change. The accidentals applied to all natural notes involved, regardless of how low or high they are. So here we have F-sharp and C-sharp. Every f, regardless of where it is, becomes an F sharp. Every c becomes a C-sharp. Key signatures are always at the beginning of every staff and followed directly after the clef. In this key signature, we have two accidentals, F-sharp and C-sharp. This is the key signature of the tonality, D major or B minor. So this is a c-sharp, F-sharp, C-sharp, F-sharp. The point of the key signature is to reduce the amount of writing and ink. So if we wanted to play a C, we need a natural sign and that becomes a. See, the combination of the treble clef and the bass clef is called the grand staff, by the way, here's a key signature with two flats, B-flat and E-flat. Every b becomes a B-flat, every e becomes an E flat. This is the key signature of B flat major. These nodes would be C, D, E-flat, F, G, a, B-Flat. There are also other symbols, double sharp and double flat. The double sharp symbol raises a natural note by two semitones, and the double flat lowers the natural note by two semitones. This would be a C double sharp and sounds the same as D. That's an E double flat, and sounds the same as D. Check out the PDF with practice exercises, note naming in the treble and bass clef 5. Note Values, Rhythm, Time Signatures: In order to make music, we not only have to know which notes the plate, but also how long these nodes supposed to sound relative to each other. That's where the so-called note values coming. Here are the four most basic node values, starting with the whole note, the half-note, the quarter note, and the eighth note. For now, the whole node is our longest note value, 12 341-234-1234. A half note is half as long as the hormone 12341234 to the quarter note is half as long as the half node, 121234. The eighth node is half as long as the quarter note one more hand gun. In theory, the subdivisions of the whole node could keep going on forever, half as long as the eighth note is the 16th note, the 32nd node, and so on, the time signature, 44 is the most common time signature in music. It consists of four quarter note pulse is 1231234. Every time signature is written as a fraction with the amount of beats on the top and the note value of said beats on the bottom. Time signatures exist. So music can be subdivided into little chunks. These chunks are called measures or bars, separated by the byline. One measure of 44 consists of four quarter notes. Then the next measure begins. One measure of 44 could be filled by four quarter notes, or one whole note, or two half notes, or any combination that adds up to one whole lot. Note value alone doesn't tell us how slow or fast. And notice for that we need a tempo. Tempo is indicated in beats per minute BPM and short 80 BPM means that there are 80 beats per minute AT quarter note pulse is permanent in classical music, there are many Italian words that indicate the temple, but these are more vague and fluid than the exact and precise measurements of the BPM. Just grabbed litigate Allegra. Oh, no dressed or the counterpart to note values. They tell, tell us how long not to play a whole note rest tells us not to play for the length of a whole note. Half note rests, tells us not to play for the length of a half note, and so on. A small dot to the right of a note, head lengthens the node value by half its value. So a dotted half note means that node has the, has the duration of a half-note plus half of a half-note, which is a quarter note. So it's three-quarter notes and total indirection. A dotted quarter note has the length of three eighth notes, and so on. A tie combines the duration of two or more nodes values. So the next note, the note following the time isn't attacked again. It's just held for the length of its value. Ties are especially useful when combining note values across the bar line, as this can be written in any other way. As mentioned before, time signatures are written as fractions with the mountain beats on the top and the note value of said beads on the bottom. So the time signature 58 e.g. tells us that one measure of music has five eighth notes. Besides for four, there are all possible time signatures that you could possibly think of, but the denominator always has to be an even number. Time signatures can also change within a piece. Every time signature has a strong and weak beats. Usually, the strongest beat of any time signature is the one in the time signature 68. The emphasis is on the one and the fourth, which gives us a grouping of three eighth notes plus three-eighths times signatures with odd numbers in the numerator, or more unconventional and challenging to play. These so-called odd time signatures can be grouped in different ways. 58, e.g. can be grouped in two eighth notes plus three eighth notes, which would give us a pattern of two plus three. Or it could be grouped in three plus two with the emphasis on the first and fourth eighth note. Here are some famous examples of all kinds of time signatures 6. Famous Examples of different time signatures: 1, 2 3, 1, 2 3, 1 2 3 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2, 1, 2 1 2, 1 2 7. The Major Scale: The complete sequence of natural nodes from C2C is called the C major scale. The sequence keeps repeating at the octave. C is the root node or tonic of the C major scale. Just as F is the root or tonic of the F major scale, of the G major scale, and so on. The root. The strongest gravitational pull. The root or tonic note is the tonal center, the RESTful, stable, home-based of any key. That's why countless melodies returned to the root node at the end. The major scale is a diatonic scale. All diatonic scales have seven nodes in total, and there's certain fixed succession of whole note and half-note steps as explained earlier, the semitone or halftone step is the smallest possible interval in music on the guitar. It's the movement from one fret to the next. And the whole tone step, or major second, is the distance of two frets, one. In interval terminology, the whole tone step can also be called a major second. The halftone step can also be called a minor second. Looking at the C major scale on the piano, we can easily see the structure of whole tone and halftone steps from C to D is a whole tone. D to E is a whole tone. From E to F is a half tone semitone because there's no black key in-between. From F to G is a photon. A to B is a whole tone. B2c is a half. So the structure of the major scale is mainly made up of hot on steps, with only two half-tones steps. The half-tones steps occur at the third and fourth degree, or it's the distance from the third to the fourth degree and from the seventh to the eighth or first-degree. So here's the magic major scale formula. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, Halftone. Every major scale is based on this formula, this succession of protons and half-tones. There is another interesting feature of the major scale. The C major scale from C to C can be divided into two identical segments because we have a hold on, hold on halftone here. Then again the series hold on, hold on Halftone. These two segments, I called the first tetrachord and the second tetrachord. Tetra is the Greek prefix for the number four, makes sense because it's four nodes per tetrachord. C to F is the first tetrachord. G to C is the second tetrachord. These two tetrapods are separated by the distance of a whole tone. So to sum it all up, all diatonic scales have seven degrees in total. All in all, there are 12 different major scales, one for each of the 12 chromatic notes that exist. Also, the major scale can be divided into two identical parts. The first tetrachord, on the second tetrachord, every diatonic scale has all seven Latin names present, including those with accidental. This means that a major scale can't have two versions of the same Latin name. We have a D-flat up there and a D natural de done there. That's wrong. Sharps and flats can never be mixed inside the same major scale. Key signatures with sharps in them run clockwise on the circle of fifths, key signatures with flats and then run counterclockwise more on that later, check out the PDF with practice exercises. It also contains all 12 major scales in written form. Okay, let's do a practice exercise. Notate the E major scale. You can find many more exercises like this in the PDF that I've attached somewhere in the vicinity of this player noted the images care. We have to bear in mind, but all seven letters have to be included. And we can only use sharps or flats. So using the order of whole steps and half steps, or major and minor seconds, we can figure out the E major scale. A whole tone above E can be F, because E to F is a semitone. So we have to put a sharp symbol in front of them to get a whole tone. E to F sharp is a whole tone F-sharp. Now I need another, another whole tone, F-sharp. What's the next letter name is g. Has to be some kind of G. F sharp to G sharp is a whole tone. Now we need a semitone from G-sharp upwards. That would be a, a to b as a whole tone. Another whole tone be the whole tone above B is C sharp. Whole tone up from C-sharp, D-sharp up another halftone is E. Now we have all seven Latin names present. And because E is a sharp key, we have sharp symbols with unnecessary to a is the first tetrachord. B to E is the second tetrachord, E, F sharp, G sharp, a, B, C-sharp, D-sharp, E. E major scale 8. Intervals: An interval is the name for the distance between two nodes. Here, it's irrelevant whether the two notes sounding at the same time or one after the other. It also doesn't make a difference when the interval is measured from top to bottom or from bottom to top. The interval names are really easy to learn because they're just numbers 1-13, unison, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th. Now, I'll demonstrate the basic interval names from unison to octave using the white keys on a keyboard. Imagine two players playing the same note at the same time. That's called a unison. When two letter names and span, it's called a second. C to D is a second. C to E is a third, because a three letter names are involved, CDE. See the F is a fourth, C to G is a fifth. Sixth. C to B is the seventh. When we reach the same Latin name, it's not called an eighth, but an octave. Beyond the octave, we get the so-called compound intervals. Because the made-up of an octave plus something smaller than an octave plus a second is called the 9th. An octave plus a third is called a tenth, or compound third. An octave plus a fourth is an 11th. An octave plus a fifth is a 12th or compound fifth. And octave plus a sixth. Is it 13? The important ones of these compound intervals? Or ninth, 11th, and 13th? For reasons I'll later explain. To find the correct name of any interval, we have to count the positions, aka lines and spaces. So this interval spans 1234 positions. So this is a fourth, E to a is a fourth. Later on, they'll get more complicated than this. And it's very necessary to do this step first, count the positions, and give it the basic name. Because regardless of how many accidentals There are, the basic interval name stays the same. E flat, a shop may sound like a fifth, but it's still has to be called a fourth of some kind because the letter name spanned are still full, E, F, G, a. This is a double augmented fourth, by the way, but we'll learn how to do that later. Here's a few practice examples. Pause the video and try to figure out the basic integral names. In the next video, it gets a bit more complicated because the basic interval names are not enough to precisely measured on interval. For that, we need certain adjectives that go in front of the interval name, like minor, major, diminished, augmented, or perfect. At first, we need to understand what actually makes them interval larger or smaller than another one. Let's look at some fifths. And what the accidental to do this is a perfect fifth CG. Let's see what happens. When we make it bigger. We put a sharp symbol up there. The distance between the two nodes gets larger and an additional flat sign on the C makes it again one semitone larger. This interval is two semitones larger than this one. Now let's make the perfect fifth or smaller. If we put a flat symbol in front of the top note, the distance gets smaller and the sharp symbol on the bottom node makes it again one semitone smaller. This is two semitones smaller than this interval. Unisons, fourths, fifths, and octaves can be diminished, perfect or augmented. Diminished is one semitone smaller than Perfect. Perfect is one semitone smaller than augmented. Perfect intervals are also so-called perfect continents as they sound very stable and neutral. All the other intervals, seconds, thirds, sixth, and seventh, can be either diminished, minor, major or augmented. Harsh sounding intervals, like second sevenths and the tri-tone are considered dissonances, whereas thirds and sixths are considered imperfect continents. The process of naming intervals has two phases. In phase one, we establish the interval number name by counting the positions or the letters. This is Ca, C, D E F G, C, D E, F, G, a six letters. So this has to be a sixth of some kind. We can write that there. Now we have to find out, is it diminished, minor, major or augmented? I'll tell you this much. It probably a major sixth or a minus x. A major sixth has nine semitones. Minus x has eight semitones. So an audit to find out, you probably as beginner, have to count all the semitones. Or you can memorize all intervals built with two natural notes, aka the white keys. You can find a list of all possible intervals constructed with natural notes in the attached PDF file, CA has nine semitones, so it's a major sixth. He's two example exercises. E, G-sharp. What kind of interval is that? E to G is a third, spends three positions on Latin names, definitely a third. Now it comes in handy turnover e, g, a minor third, it has three semitones. The sharp symbol makes the interval larger by one semitone. Minor third, E G becomes one semitone, larger, minor becomes major. This is a major third, Good read the capital M something. This is a nasty example. D, D has to be an octave because two of the same note names are involved. We can look at one accidental at a time, D, D-sharp, one semitone larger than a perfect octave, that would make it an augmented octave. And we have an additional flat sign, the lower D, again, the size increases by one semitone. This is a double augmented octave 9. Complementary Intervals: Complimentary intervals will help you gain a comprehensive understanding of how the notes wrap around the octave. Let's say some kind of melody requires you to play upper minus six, but that exceeds the range of your instrument or voice. If you know complimentary intervals that you would know to go down a major third instead, without thinking. Here's the interval BC, it's a minor second, we get the complimentary interval when either the top note is transpose down an octave, we get a major seventh. We could also get the complimentary interval by transposing the lower note up an octave, we get the same thing. The complimentary interval of a major, a minor second is a major seventh. In other words, the complimentary interval involves the same notes, but formed in the opposite direction while still being within the span of an octave is another way to look at it. If you have an octave and OneNote placed between the octave, the interval that can be formed from the middle node to the other two notes. Those two intervals are complimentary intervals from A-flat to the C above is a major third. A flat to the C below is a minus six. So major third and minor six are complimentary intervals. This can also be illustrated with a little bit of simple math when the semitones of two intervals and up the 12th, the complimentary intervals. That's all there is to it. I'll say CI for short. Minus second and major seventh, sci, major second and minus 7th, minor third and major six. Major third and minor six, perfect fourth and perfect fifth. At the augmented fourth, we reach the exact midpoint of an octave. The tri-tone has six semitones. After this point, the ratio start repeating the reverse order. So here are two tables you can use to find complimentary intervals. Unison becomes octave, second becomes seventh, third becomes sixth, fourth becomes fifth. And all of the adjectives also become opposite quality. Diminished becomes augmented, minor becomes major, perfect stays Perfect. So here's a random example. If you want to find out what's the CI of a diminished sixth, you just look at the opposite side of both tables. So opposite of diminished is augmented, opposite of sixth is the third. So the CIO of a diminished sixth is an augmented third 10. The Intervals of the Major Scale: Now that we know about intervals, we should take another look at the major scale, at the intervals that are formed by combining the root and the other six scale degrees from root till the second degree is a major second. Capital, m123 is a major third, C to F, five semi-tones, perfect fourth, C to G is a perfect, perfect fifth, seven semitones. C to a is a major sixth, nine semitones, and C to B is a major seventh. 11 semi-tones, makes sense. One semitone less than the octave, which has 12. The major seventh is a note with a lot of tension that wants to resolve upwards by semitone to the next root node. It's also called leading tone because it's one wants to lead us up to the home-based the tonic. But keep the concept leading tone in the back of our minds. While we look at the three most fundamental minor scales, natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor 11. The 3 Minor Scales: The first minor scale to look at is the natural minor scale, also called eolian in modal speak, the natural minor scale is made up of the same notes as its associated major scale. Let me explain. Take the sixth degree and write a new scale with the same notes, but with that note, with the sixth degree as the root. Then we get a new scale from a to a with all the same notes as C major. A minor is the relative minor key of C major and vice versa. C major is the relative major key of a minor. That's why they share the same key signature. Let's look at the intervals as we did before of all of the intervals formed with the root and the other six degrees, we have a major second from a to B, a minor third from a to C, I'll write a lowercase m, a perfect fourth from a to D, perfect fifth minus sixth, and a minor seventh. So the different nodes between the minor scale and the major scale, the minor third, the minus six, and the minus seven. The main characteristic of any minor scale is the minor third. If the scale doesn't have a minor third, it's not a minor scale. The minor third is what's responsible for making a scale sound more dark, serious, or even sad? Next, we're going to look at is the harmonic minor scale. Remember the concept of leading tone. Harmonic minor has the exact same structure as the natural minor scale, but it has a major seventh leading tone. The harmonic minor scale is used to build courts for cadences like this. We can have the same movement from the five chord to the one chord. And the five chord is a major chord, but the harmonic minor scale resulted in a augmented second from the sixth to the seventh scale degree, which was considered problematic in the day. Especially composers from the Baroque era avoided crossing over this gap. So the only difference between natural minor, harmonic minor is the major seventh. This is where melodic minor comes in. Melodic minor has a major seventh, but also a major sixth that takes care of the problem of an augmented second from the sixth, seventh in the harmonic minor scale. An easy way to remember the melodic minor scale is to think of it as a normal major scale, but with a minor third. Of course, baroque and classical composers use the scale in a way that when there were ascending melodic runs, the melodic minor scale was used. And when they were descending from the root downwards, the natural minor scale was used. That's why many schools of theory, even till this day, distinguish between real and traditional melodic minor. The real melodic minor scale just means that you go up as you came down with the melodic minor scale, the traditional melodic minor scale, a sense as the melodic minor scale and descends as the natural minor scale. Let's take a look at an example of how Johann Sebastian Bach use this traditional melodic minor scale. Check out the practice PDF with some exercises on this stuff. 12. Triads: Here's a triad. Why is it called triad? You might ask, well it has three nodes. This one's called a C major triad with nodes C and G. Basic triads are built by taking a note and stacking two more nodes on top in intervals of thirds. The process of stacking 3rds is the basis of western harmony. Here are some more triads. A basic triad has three components, the root, the third, and the fifth of the chord. When the root note is the lowest note in the chord, this is called root position. But the other two nodes could also be the dose note. Then we get the inversions, where the third is the lowest note of the chord. This is called first inversion. When the fifth is on the bottom of the chord, this is called second inversion. When the notes of the chord a closely packed together, leaving enough space for additional cool tones. This is called close position. When the notes are more widely spaced out, leaving some space for additional chord tones in-between the knots. This is called open position. It's called a chord when all notes of the chord sounded simultaneously. When the court notes played successively or melodically, this is called an arpeggio. This is also a triad, although it has 12 months. When we take a closer look, every node is either root third, or fifth of the C major triad. There are four different basic types of triads. There's the major triad with the root. The major third. Perfect fifth. Might also think of it as a major third. Minor third. Major third from third, a minor third from third to fifth. On top you can see some common chord symbols. The next triad is the minor triad. It has root, minor third, perfect fifth. It's sort of sad. Sibling of the major chord could also think of it as minor third, major third. Some common chord symbols for the diminished triad is a stack of two minor thirds diminished chord as a root, minor third and a diminished fifth, two minor thirds Chord Symbols could be root followed by a superscript zero or minus flat five, or Dim, short for Diminished. Last but not least, the augmented triad. Augmented triad has a major third and an augmented fifth, or so-called sharp five. So it's a stack of two major thirds. Chord Symbols are root followed by a plus sign or capital M sharp five, or org, short for augmented. That code is very rarely used and pretty old-fashioned. Major, minor and diminished triads can all be found in the major scale, whereas the augmented triad cannot. That's why the augmented triad is used a lot less. Take a conventional major scale and stack two-thirds on top of each, each node. This is how we get the seven diatonic chords, which can be numbered one through seven. With Roman numerals. Major chords get uppercase numerals. Minor chords get lowercase numerals. The seventh degree also gets a superscript zero to signify that it's a diminished chord. So the order of chords in major keys goes major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished. All major keys adhere to this order of triads. Here's a little practice exercise. Pause the video real quick and try to figure out what the name of this chord It's okay. So we can see it's a closed position, root position triad. So the lowest note has to be the road. Lowest notes and E-flat. Now I need to check the distance from E-flat, G-flat, 1233 semitones, it's a minor third. So this court has either a diminished triad or a minor triad from G flat to B flat is 1234 semitones. So that's the perfect fifth. This chord is E-flat minor. With triads, there are two kinds of assignment, either named this given cord or notate this code. So to figure out what the name of this code is, we have to bring the notes close together until its root position, close position triad. We can do this in front of our minds. I will do it as a sketch. Let's try to bring the D up an octave. Then we have D, F, B-flat. Same code. Isn't root position yet. So let's bring the B-flat, B-flat, D, and F. That's the root position, close position. B flat is the root. So it's a B-flat of some kind. B-flat to D is a major third. D to F is a minor third. Major. Third. Minor third is the formula for the major chord. So this is B flat major. Now we need to figure out what the inversion is. What is this cool tone? D is the major third of the B-flat chord. So this is B-flat major first inversion. Let's take a look at the next one. They want us to notate G diminished in second inversion. Let's first write the G diminished chord as a root position, close position triad. A diminished chord is a stack of two minor thirds as G. B flat minor third above B-flat is D flat, G, B flat, D flat. D flat is a diminished fifth. The fifth has to be the lowest note because it's the second inversion. We can go get, go ahead and write that there. D flat. Now we need the other two chord tones, G and B flat. It doesn't matter where we, where we write them really. Let's just put them anywhere. So this is G diminished second inversion. Check out the PDF file that I've attached for more exercises like this. 14. The circle of fifths: The circle of fifths displays all 12 major and minor keys, including their respective key signatures. Key signatures are a set of sharp or flat symbols placed immediately after the clef at the beginning of every staff in a piece of written music, key signatures tell us that certain nodes should automatically be made sharp or flat according to the symbol. Let's take the example. D major. D major has two sharps in the key signature, F-sharp and C-sharp. This means that every F and every C should be automatically be made F-sharp and C-sharp. This saves time and ink when we say that a piece is in D major, e.g. this means that the D major chord is the tonal center of the piece and predominantly note from the D major scale are used. Same goes for pieces in minor, let's say a pieces in a minor. This means that the a minor chord is the tonic of the piece and the different minor scales are used as a reservoir for chords and melodies. There are 12 major and minor keys. Every major key shares its key signature with its respective relative minor key. We can find the root of the relative minor key by going to the sixth degree of any given major scale. So let's take C Major. What's the relative minor key? Go to the sixth degree, go through the C major scale, C, D, E, F, G. A degree is a, that means a is the relative minor. You could also go down a minor third, C, B, a, and the circle of fifths. The major keys are on the outside of the circle and the minor keys on the inside, relative minor and major keys are opposite one another, going clockwise from C to the position 06:00. Then we get the sharp keys, which are sharp symbols in the key signature G, D, a, E, B, F sharp. Where we go counterclockwise from C, we get the flat keys, which are flat in the key signature, F major, B-flat major, E-flat major, E-flat major, D-flat major, G flat major. Going clockwise, every note is a perfect fifth higher than the previous one. G is a perfect fifth higher than C, D is a perfect fifth higher than G, and so on. You, you should also think of it as going up a perfect fifth, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, perfect fourth, and so on. These are complimentary intervals, perfect fourths and perfect fifths. The sharp keys are a series of ascending perfect fifths going counterclockwise. Every key is a perfect fifth lower than the previous one. F is perfect as Lord, and c, B flat is a perfect fifth lower than F, and so on. You should also think of it as going down a perfect fifth, perfect fourth, the perfect fifth above perfect storm. So you could think of a flat keys as a series of descending perfect fifths. But why are the nodes are arranged in perfect fifths in the first place keys, there are a perfect fifth apart are the most closely related keys, meaning they have six of seven scale nodes in common. Let's look at C major. G major. C major has all natural notes, C, D, E, F, G, a, B, G major has G, a, B, C, D, E, F sharp. The only different node is the F-sharp. Six or seven notes in common. Sharp key signatures have up to six sharps, F-sharp, C-sharp, G-sharp, D-sharp, A-sharp, E-sharp. You could keep going. But that's sort of a nerdy discussion. That's not necessary at this point. The flat keys have up to six flats, B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, G-flat, C-flat. The sharps and flats follow a certain order, with every key adding one more symbol while retaining the symbol of his previous neighboring key. Let's take an example. A flat major. A-flat major has four flats. B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, D-flat. The next major key down and perfect fifth is D-flat major. It retains all the symbols from A-flat major while adding one, B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, G-flat. So there's a few things to remember. The correct order of sharp and flat keys, including their key signatures. The best way to learn this is to just draw a circle of fifths by yourself without any reference point except maybe your keyboard. You could also use flashcards to memorize all the keys in their key signatures