Transcripts
1. Introduction to Music Theory: Need to learn music theory. Every musician, producer, and songwriter should
learn music theory. And here's the thing. It
doesn't have to be complicated. Music theory is
actually very simple. I've created a
streamline class of just the essential parts of music theory so that you
can make modern music. Type. Class, we'll
talk about chords, melodies, scales, intervals,
harmonies, and more. And we'll only dive as
deep as we need to to get the core principles
across so that you can understand music from
a theoretical standpoint, which will open up a world of possibilities for when you're writing music. I'm Benza Maman. I have a degree in
music composition, and I've been working behind the scenes in the music
industry since 2010. I've written and produced
songs for countless artists, and I've had the
privilege to work with the writers and producers of
artists like Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Luke
Combs, and Many More. Recently, I've even gotten
millions of streams, views, and some viral
videos of my own. And I can't wait to share this decade of
knowledge with you. I love music theory. It's enhanced my
writing so much. And the thing is, it doesn't
have to be intimidating. It doesn't have to be
a long, arduous thing. It can actually be very simple
and very straightforward. This class is designed
to equip you with the tools and knowledge to take your music
to the next level. Whether you're just starting out or trying to refine your skills, I'm here to guide you every step of the
way. And don't worry. We'll keep it engaging
and straightforward with plenty of practical tips that
you can apply right away. The activity for this class is to write an original
piece of music alongside me using all of the different music theory hacks that I'm
going to teach you, so I can't wait to unleash your creativity by teaching you the essentials of music
theory in this class.
2. What Is Music Theory: Welcome to the Music
Theory chapter. And in this chapter,
we're going to be doing a quick deep dive
into music theory. Now, I know music
theory can maybe sound kind of intimidating or kind
of intense, but don't worry. There's a lot of logic to it, and it's really pretty
simple how it works. It does take practice
and coming back again and again to the
same core concepts, but the concepts themselves are not really that
hard to grasp. Wanted to explain a little bit about what music theory is. And essentially,
music came first. There were composers
who were making music. And eventually, people
were trying to understand, Okay, there seems like
there's a logic to this. If you listen to the music of Buck, it's very mathematical. There has to be a logic to it. It can't just be random. So people started to study the music that had been
made and try to understand Why does this work?
Why do these notes go to those notes in a
pleasing kind of way? Why do those notes not go to these other notes in
a pleasing kind of way? And they were starting to study what the composers
were already doing. And from analyzing and
analyzing and analyzing, eventually music
theory starts to get born as we start
demystifying music. So that's what music
theory really is. In the vastness of all
the notes available. Why do some notes sound good with each other?
Other notes don't. Why do some groups of notes
play well at the same time, Well some groups do not?'s really what music theory is. Understanding what is
happening with music. And one thing I want
to be absolutely clear is that there
are no rules. You might learn something
in music theory that says this should happen, and then that should happen. Those are guidelines. Those are meant to
help you if you're not divinely inspired
in the moment. Those are meant
to be like, Okay, if you don't know exactly
where you want to go next, you can use your
theory knowledge to help springboard
a different idea, but there are
absolutely no rules. And if there were rules, they are definitely made to be So, music theory is
based off of the piano, because the piano is linear. It goes low notes on the left
to high notes on the right. And unlike a guitar,
which can have the same note in many
different places, the piano only has
each note one time. Middle C, the C
that's at C three, only happens at the
middle of the keyboard. Every other C on
the keyboard is in a different octave and has
therefore a different sound. Music theory is the
study of which notes and combinations of notes sound harmonious or
dissonant together. Some notes and chords
seem to want to resolve to other certain
notes and chords. Music theory will tell you why. Essentially, the point
of music theory is to understand why does a
piece of music sound good? So I encourage you to come
back to these lessons in this chapter as many
times as you need to to really reinforce
these concepts, because, like I said, they're
not that complicated, but they do take
practice to settle it.
3. How is the Piano Organized: We talked about how music theory is based
off of the piano. But how is the piano organized? Here on the screen,
you'll see C one, C two, C three, C four, all the way up to C eight. So let's talk about
what that means. If you'll notice on the piano, there are white notes and
there are black notes. Now, the black notes are organized in groups of
two groups of three. This is very important for your visual orientation
of the keyboard. Because without
that, we would have absolutely no idea where
we were on the piano. So because there are groups
of two and groups of three, it lets us visually able
to orient ourselves. So let's go ahead
and look at that C one on the left all
the way up to C two. That's called an octave. Regular piano has 88 keys
and has eight octaves. Each octave contains 12 notes, and those notes repeat for every other octave going
up or down in pitch. So let's just talk about
from C one to C two. You see C one, and then there are the group of
two black notes, and then there's a pause with no black notes in
between some white notes, and then we have the
three black notes, and then we've made it to C two. So you can think of an octave
as the space between C one, C two, C two, C three,
C three and C four, but you can also think of
it as the space between, when we have a group of two black notes and a group
of three black notes, that's basically an octave. Then when we get to
the second group of two black notes and second
group of three black notes, that is a new octave. Of course, it's not quite that simple because we do
need to take into account the white
notes that are just adjacent to those black notes. That's a way to think about it. If you see the group
of two and three, you can sort of
roughly categorize that general area as one octave, then you see the next
group of two to three. That's the next general
area of the next octave. Now, let's talk
about what an octave is because an octave
is made up of notes, and we have 12 notes
here per octave. Let's jump up to this
C two and C three. Here is our octave. These are a group of two, black notes, and the white notes that are
right next to them, octave. So if you go up an octave
to C three and C four, we have the same note names,
but in a higher pitch. If you go up an octave again, same note names, a higher pitch. And each of these is an octave. So the piano is organized
into eight octaves, eight series of the
same 12 note names repeating in different
pitches higher or lower. We will go on to explore notes in depth in
the next lesson.
4. Notes: The Building Blocks of Music: Music theory is based
off of the piano. And the piano is divided
into seven octaves. Each octave is made
up of 12 notes. So what are notes? This lesson is all about notes. There are 88 keys on the piano, and the distance from one piano key to the next
is called the half step. Two half steps
make a whole step. The piano is broken
into seven octaves, AKA, seven groups of
12 repeating notes. That's just a way that
I think about it. The repeating notes
are labeled as such. C, C sharp, D, D sharp, E, F, F sharp, G, G sharp, A, A sharp, and B. Yes, there are such
things as flats, and we will get into that
later in this lesson. Once we've made it from
C all the way up to C, the note names reset an
octave higher or lower. We call the lowest octave C one and the highest octave C seven, and middle C is C three. So let's look at
our keyboard here. C to C, we have an octave. So we go C, C sharp, D, D sharp, E F, F sharp, G, G sharp, A, a sharp, B, and C. There is our octave. And then we go back
up to C sharp, D D sharp E. But those second set of notes are going to be
an octave higher. So the D down low is an
octave below the D up high, likewise, with the C, the C sharp, the D sharp, and the E. So they are the same note names, and they're going to
sound in a way similar, but they are different pitches. One is a higher pitch, and one is a lower pitch. Are 12 notes in every octave. And the notes are
the names here, C D EFG AB, and they're corresponding
sharps or flats. Now, when I first read this, I said C C sharp, D, D sharp, et
cetera, et cetera. You can also call the
Black notes Flats. Now, sharps and flats don't apply exclusively
to black notes, but it's an easy way to
think about music theory at So you can also consider
the Black notes flats, which would be C, D flat, D, E flat, E, F, G flat, G, A flat, A, B flat, B. Now why you would want
to consider it flat or sharp has everything to do
with what key you're in. But we're going to
go over keys in another easiest way to orient yourself visually
on the piano is to look for the break
in the black notes, because there's groups
of two and groups of three black notes, and
then there's a space. If there were
constant black notes throughout the entire keyboard, it would be really tough to
orient ourselves visually. So that's why we have a group of two black notes,
then a space, and then a group of three
black notes because that makes it easy
to see where we are. Because of that,
it's really easy to locate a C on the keyboard. And this is important
because you want to be able to glance at a keyboard
and know where you are. Yes, Because of
sharps and flats, you can have two names
for the same note, and I know this is
kind of confusing, but I promise you there
is some logic to it. We'll talk more
about that later, but the basic
concept is you don't want two of the same
letter names in a row. For example, you don't
want to talk about C, E flat, and E. It's easier
to talk about C, D sharp, and E. The basic logic
behind this and we'll dive more into this later is that when you're
talking about music, it's nice to use
different letter names instead of the same letter name because if
you're talking about, Okay, we're going to go C, and then we're going
to go to E flat, and then we're going to
go to E. It's simpler to think of it as
C D sharp and E, even though D sharp and E
flat are the same note, it's nice to call them by
different letter names, but more on that later. So here is our keyboard, and you can see the group of two black notes and the
group of three black notes. This is visually easy
for us to orient. And you can see to the left of the two black notes we
have our Cs labeled. Everywhere on the keyboard, where you see two black notes. If you look on the
screen, you'll also see that it says C
to the left of it. So you can always count on
the note to the left of the two black notes being C. And that in any
octave you are, you can always count
on that so you can visually orient yourself
on the keyboard. We talked about the
different notes. The flat in the black
notes can be flats or sharps depending on your key, and we'll dive more
into that later. But what's important is that
each octave has 12 notes, and those 12 notes
are some versions of the letter names C, D, E, F, G, A and B, with the black notes
being a sharp or flat of whatever comes to the
left or the right of it. Notice how this C and this C have a similar
sound to them. They're just in
different octaves. This C, this C. These all have a similar sound, but they're different pitches. They are different octaves. So a lower C has a lower pitch, and a higher C has
a higher pitch. This is true with
any other note. You can take this F here. Any other F on the keyboard? Has a similar sound, but it's a different pitch. So that's how the piano works. That's how these notes work. Once you start on
a certain note, 12 notes above that note
is the octave above it. Likewise, 12 notes below a
note is the octave below it. And that's how octaves work. You always have a
C, D, and E, and F, G and A and a B in
varying pitches, being higher or lower. That is how the
keyboard is organized. So the notes on the keyboard are each individual key of the
piano, which we call notes. So this is a note.
This is a note. This is a note. This is a
note, so on and so forth. Every single key here is a note. These are all the
notes on the piano. The distance between
one note and the adjacent next note either higher or lower
is called a half step. So the distance
from this note to this note is a half step. The distance from this note to that note is
also a half step. If we count two
note differences, like from here to here
or from here, to there. This is called a whole step. We'll dive more into half steps and whole steps in
a later lesson. But essentially, the
distance between the notes becomes very important for knowing
what key we're in. But we'll explore keys
in a later lesson. Notes are really pretty simple. They're just every single key
on the keyboard is a note. And from now on, we're going
to call them notes because a key in music refers
to something else. So to make things simple, we call the notes
on a piano notes, and I'll catch you
in the next lesson.
5. Scales: Navigate the World of Notes: Let's talk about scales. So we talked about the
piano being broken up into octaves of 12 notes. But let's talk about how to organize those notes so that
they sound good together. First of all, there are a
lot of different scales. Usually scales are eight
out of the 12 notes that are organized in a
specific order that then once you reach
the end of the octave, will restart for
the next octave. Those eight notes can be
played in any octave, and they will always
be the same scale. Like I said, there are many
different kinds of scales, and not all scales are
limited to just eight notes. The most common scales are
the major and minor scale. Scales are created by
varying differences of whole steps and half steps
starting on a given note. So what makes a scale major is this specific combination of
whole steps and half steps. Yes, you can also
do this by ear, but what makes a major scale, if you were to start on
C is the pattern H step, whole step, half step. That pattern, starting on
any note on the keyboard, will create a major
scale from that note. A minor scale has the
pattern whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step. A note on the keyboard
that you pick. If you are then to go in that pattern will
create a minor scale. Once you have the
sound in your ear, you can also do this by ear. Start on any note on the
keyboard and apply this pattern. You'll find the major and
minor scale in any key. Let's talk about
the C major scale. The major scale in the minor
scale are eight note scales. There are 12 notes in an octave, meaning Not every note
makes it into the scale. This also means that five
notes out of the octave are out of the scale when you're
using major or minor scales. So a scale, like I said, is a way of organizing notes together in a way
that sounds pleasing. So let's start with
C. And what's nice about C major is
that the pattern we talked about of whole sps and Hateps happens to line
up perfectly that the C major scale
is just playing every single white
note in sequence until you reach C in
another octave, like so. That's a C major scale. You can also play it going down. We know this is C
major because it's every single white note on the keyboard played
sequentially starting from C, ending on C. We
also know this is C major because of the
distance between the nodes. Hole step, step, half step, step, step, step, half step. That pattern creates C major, whether you're here,
here, or here. Seat major has a sound to it. And if you can get that
sound in your ear, you could create a major
scale on a different key. Let's say you can't
really do it by ear, you can do it by
the distance, step. H step. Half step, step, step, step. Half step. That is the formula
for a major scale. No matter what
note you start on. And any note can have its own
corresponding major scale. When we're learning, it's
nice to think about C because there's that cheek
code that we can remember. It's every white note on the keyboard played
sequentially. So there we have
our major scale. Let's talk about minor, the other most popular scale. Now, A minor, just like C major, A minor has the same
cheek code of using every single white note on the keyboard played
sequentially. So let's listen to what
minor sounds like. Let's listen to minor
and a higher octave. Now, remember, this
is minor because it's every single white note played sequentially starting
from A to A. It's also minor because of the distance
between the notes. Holl step, half step, step, step, half
step, step, step. Now, you can play this
by ear in any key. Or you can use the formula to find what the minor scale
would be in any key. Hole step, half
step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step. That's the formula for finding
any minor scale anywhere. So there you have your major
scale and your minor scale. These are the most
important scales to know because most music is written in either
one of these scales. That's not a wild concept. There are such things
as major scales, which have a happy feeling
to them and minor scales, which have a more
somber feel to them. No matter what note you
pick on the keyboard, if you follow the given formulas of whole seps and has steps, you will create a major scale or a minor scale from that note. Now, it takes a while to really get familiar with
all these scales. So you can come back
again and again to this lesson if you need to remember how to
find these scales, if you want practice
with these scales. And I urge you if
you have access to a keyboard of any
kind to start playing some of these scales
on the keyboard and getting used to these
combinations of notes. But the theory behind it
is pretty simple to graph. There's just a
formula that plug and play will work
every single time.
6. Understanding Keys: What is a key in music? Because we're going to start learning now that we
know a little bit about notes and scales that
each song has a key. It has a scale that sounds
best with that song. So let's go explore
what keys are. The key of a song
feels like home. So this is important
to internalize. The key of a song
feels like home. Songs center around a key. You can change keys
throughout a song, but at any given time, there will probably be one
key that feels like home. Usually, if most of the notes in a song are
in a particular scale, that is the key of the song. If you have most of
the notes in a song in the scale of C major, then the key of the song
is probably C major. Likewise, if most
of the notes in the song are in the
scale of A minor, the song is probably
in the key of A minor. Key determines
which notes chords, harmonies, and
melodies sound good. Keys really give some reason, some boundaries to the music. So some notes will sound
better than others. Through these boundaries, we can create all of the amazing
music you've ever heard. And remember, all rules
should be broken. So always use your ears. You can be in the
key of a minor, which doesn't have
certain notes, and you can go ahead and play the notes you're not
supposed to play, and it can sound
amazing. Sometimes. So always trust your ears. Sometimes songs change
keys within the song, which means the total
center of the song, the place that feels like home switches to aother
place that feels like home. That's a little
bit more advanced, and a lot of pop music and dance music and rock music
does not change keys. Again, don't be
confused with the key of a song with the
keys of the piano. So, forget about piano keys, and we'll call them notes on the piano and keys of a song. Let me show you with the simplified version
of a Beatle song. When I find myself in
times of trouble a man he comes to me speaking
words of wisdom, let it be. So, the notes were playing The notes we're playing
are only white notes. So, we can remember, Okay, we learned that C Major is
every single white note on the piano played
chronologically starting from C. And this song is also
playing all the white notes. That's a little o that
can maybe make us wonder, what if the scale of
this song is C Major. So, here are notes. You could go more technical
saying, Okay, well, there's an E, F, G, and A, a C, and a D, which is a
lot of the notes, every note in the key of C
major except for this B. So because it's seven out of the eight notes
in a certain scale, you could say, maybe this
is in the key of C major. And that scale sounds
good over this. When I find myself, Notice if we played
a different scale, when I find myself, That feels that doesn't feel like we're in that feels
like another world. So, when we're here,
this feels like home. S feels like home. When I find myself
in times of trouble. S feels like home. This song is in the
key of C major. We know that because
C feels like home. We know that because
it plays seven out of the eight notes in
the key of C major. We know that it's probably
not minor because it has more of a major feel to it. Although you could say, what is this in A minor instead and make an
argument for that. But for the sake of this lesson, we know this is in C Major. That's the key of this song. Now, what that means is
that all the notes in the scale of C major are
probably available to us. It also means that all the notes that are not in the key of C major are not in the scale. So when we're thinking
of what notes we can play with this song, when I when I find myself, All those notes
in Key of C Major are basically fair game,
and they sound good. Notice, if we play some of the notes that are
not in C Major. It just doesn't sound good. So we're like, Whoa,
Okay, those notes. Don't sound like in the
same world as the song. And that's basically what a
key is trying to tell you. It's trying to tell you,
Okay, this feels like home. So we can play the notes
in the key of C major. And if the song
doesn't change keys, those will remain the main
notes that we want to play. Obviously, some notes
within the scale C major sound dissonant
with each other sometimes. P, po po. So, you still have
to be mindful of what notes exactly
you're choosing to play, but at least we know most of these notes are gonna sound
good most of the time. And we know which notes to kind of avoid playing
these black notes. And which notes we want
to think about playing, which are these white notes? If you're in a different key, the notes that are available
to you will change, and you could play the same
song in a different key. When I find myself
in tons of trouble, ma comes to me. So, this is the same
song in a different key. This now feels like home. Now, if you were to play
the notes of C Major, not all of those notes
sound harmonious anymore. So, depending on the
key of your song, it'll tell you what
scale you can play, which tells you which notes are basically available
for you in that song. Of course. It's super cool to play notes that
are out of the scale, that are out of the key. But this needs to be done
tastefully and intentionally, or at least you're
really listening to see what you're going for and trusting your ears to
see what sounds good. But while you're
getting started, it's nice to stay
in key because it's generally a safe place for most notes to
sound harmonious. You can be in a major key. You could be in a minor key. P. This feels like home. And because that
feels like home, we can play any of
the notes in a minor. And even though they
have the same notes as the notes in C major, this feels like home, not this. O So whatever feels like home
is the key of your song. And the key of your
song is probably going to be a major key, a major scale, or a
minor key minor scale. So you're probably going
to do a major or A minor, C major, C minor, or any of the 12 notes available
to you on the keyboard. Either major or minor is probably going to be
the key of your song. Most commercial songs
only have one key. So all you need to do is figure out what are the
notes they're playing? Which scale has
those notes in it, and then you'll know
what key you're in. Or maybe you're the kind of
musician who can feel like, Okay, this feels like home. This is what I think the key is. There are no wrong
ways to go about it. As long as you can
figure out what key in, you'll know which notes
are available to use. And when you're composing,
you can just decide. You're like, Well,
I'm going to write an A minor because I know that I like the
minor somber feeling, and I just want it to be easy, and I want all the white
notes to be available, and you choose to
write a A minor, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
7. Advanced Scales: Just to make your life
absolutely miserable. There are advanced scales beyond major and minor
that you can choose from. And I'm obviously kidding, because the advanced scales
are some of the coolest. I don't want to overwhelm you. So, like I said, go back and re listen to any
of these lessons as many times as you need to soak in the information from
that specific lesson. But advanced scales
are available to you, and I want to make sure
that you know everything that's out there so you can
write the best music you can. There are different
formulas that produce different sounds,
scales, or modes. And scales or modes are interchangeable
words for each other. You can be in a certain
in the ionian mode, which is also the major scale. So when you hear about scales, know that they could
also be called modes, and we hear about
modes, know that they could also be called scales. You can build a mode off of
any note on the keyboard. In this lesson,
we're going to be exploring a bunch
of different modes. There's the Ionian mode, which is the major scale. There's Dorian Frisian
lidian Mcaldan, Aeolian, which is the
minor scale and Lcrian. There are tons of
other scales, too. There's the harmonic minor
scale, melodic minor scale, whole tone scale, chromatic
scale, and pentatonic scales. So let's dive in to
some advanced scales. Easy way to dive into advanced scales is
thinking about it this way. When we started from C, and we played every single
white note in sequence. I created a major scale. This is the Ionian mode. When we started on A, and we played every
single white note on the keyboard in sequence, this created the minor scale. That's called the lean mode. You can start on any white note on the keyboard and play all the white
notes in sequence, and it'll create
a different mode. Let's start on D. That's called the Dorian mode. Now, Dorian has a
minor feeling to it. But there's a little bit of
a different quality to it. That's because it's one note different than the minor scale. The minor scale built on
D would sound like this. Dorian instead of doing
a half step here, does a whole step. So
it has this sound. The Dorian scale, the
Dorian mode is super cool. Let's start by building
a mode off of the E, playing every single
white node in sequence. That's called the Phrygian mode. Now, Phrygian also has
a minor feeling to it, but this is what an E minor
scale would sound like. Here's the E Phrygian scale. The difference is instead of
starting with a whole step, and going to a half step, it starts with a half step
and goes to a whole step. So both the Dorian scale
and the Prsian scale are one note apart from the minor
scale in different ways. Let's build a scale
off of the F. That's called the Lydian mode. Now, it sounds major, but there's one note different. Instead of going half
step, it goes whole step. So the major scale built off
F would sound like this. The Lydian mode
sounds like this. I kind of has another
worldly quality to it. Let's try building a
scale off of the note G. Has a major quality to it, but a major scale built off
of G would sound like this. Here is here is
the Mixodian mode. So both the Lydian
and mixdian are one note apart from the major
scale in different ways. Similar to how the Dorian
and Phrygian modes are one note away
from the minor scale, but in different ways. We have two minor modes,
Dorian and Phrygian, and two major modes,
lidian and mixdan. We already know
what happens if you build a scale off of the note A. It creates the Allan
or minor scale. Lastly, there is the Locrian
scale, built off of B. This has the most
dissonance built into it. It's got a minor kind
of feeling to it, but it's even more dissonant. Here's what a minor scale built off of B would sound like. And here's the Lokrean scale. So the Lokoan scale is two
notes away from minor. In the minor scale. We have these two black notes. In the Lokoan scale, they are both down a half step. I love the modes.
They're so cool. You can get a whole world
just by playing a mode. Dorian is one of my favorites. I also love Mika Lydian. And there's a whole
world that opens up when you start exploring
these different modes, and it's very, very exciting. So A way to think about it is pick one of the
white notes on the keyboard and start playing every
white node in sequence from that note to the octave
above or below it, and you'll create a mode. If you take the same pattern of whole steps and
steps and apply that to any other key or any
other note on the piano, you'll create that same
mode in another key. So you can study this
pattern for the Dorian mode. Pull step, half step, pull step, pull step, pull step, half step, pull step. And if you were to take that pattern and start
it somewhere else, pull step, hal step, ple step, ple step, ple step, hal step, pull step. Now we've created the Dorian
mode on the key of G. This works the same
with any mode. You can take the MxLtan mode, count the whole steps
and half steps, start it on this F sharp, count the same whole
seps and half steps, and you created the
MxLdian mode on F sharp. That's exactly how it works. It's a very simple formula, but it obviously will take
some practice and some getting used to before you're just can eyeball any mode
anywhere on the keyboard. And that's totally
totally normal. And when we're
starting with music, I still recommend using the major scale and
the minor scale, just to start, but I
want you to be aware that the other modes and
other scales are out there. And if anything else, come back to this lesson when you've been
producing for a while, and you want to expand your musical horizons because this is a great way to do so. There are a couple
other advanced scales I really want you to know about. There is the chromatic scale, which is just literally playing all 12 notes in the octave. So, there is a chromatic scale which uses all the notes,
and that's what it is. Start anywhere you want.
That's the chromatic scale. There are also variations
on the minor scale. There's something called
the harmonic minor scale, which sounds like this. What's happening there is the seventh degree of the scale, what's in natural minor,
sounds like this. Gets raised up a half step. This opens up some
new possibilities. Very, very cool.
So I want you to know about the
harmonic minor scale. There's also something called
the melodic minor scale, which has different
notes going up and down, which is a little confusing,
but it sounds like this. So going up, we have a raised
sixth and seventh degree, which has a really good
pole to the tonic, which is the root
node of the scale. Then we go back down
the usual minor scale. Which opens up some
more possibilities. Lastly, I want to talk
about the pentatonic scale. There's a major pentatonic
and a minor pentatonic. The pentatonic scale is probably
the most important scale because most pop melodies
are pentatonic melodies. Let's take C major, and we're going to do
the C major pentatonic. A pentatonic Penta is five, so these are five notes scales. They're based off the
major and minor scale, but they had even less notes. Here is the major
pentatonic scale in C. The regular major scale has the F in the B in it. The major pentatonic
scale does not. These are the most harmonious
notes of the scale. So you can probably
any of the notes in the major pentatonic scale on probably any you're
playing in the key. And most melodies are
pentatonic melodies. What's also cool is you can play all the notes in the
pentatonic scale together. It doesn't sound that bad. You can play them
in a different way. Sounds even better,
and even like this. The major pentatonic scale
is very, very harmonious, and I encourage
you to explore it. You can figure out the distance of the half steps
and whole steps and apply that to
any other note, and you can have the
major pentatonic scale starting on that note. The major pentatonic scale is a total banger
every single time. Now, let's talk about the
minor pentatonic scale. So the minor pentatonic scale
is similar to the major. It starts off the minor
pentatonic scale, similar to the major
pentatonic scale is a lot of the same
notes as the minor scale, but just of them, five of them instead of eight. So a minor scale usually
has all of these notes. The minor pentatonic
sounds like this. So it does not have the
second or the sixth. The minor ten pentatonic scale is maybe my favorite scale. It is such a banger, and it sounds so good, and all the notes sound
good together. And it's got such a strong vibe, and so many melodies. So many hit songs are written, just using those five notes, just using the notes of the
minor pentatonic scale. And just like major, if you're in a minor key, you can probably jam those notes over any
chord you're playing. Now that's a probably. You might be playing
some freaky chords, and maybe that's the
coolest thing ever. I'm saying, most likely, if you're playing
some basic chords, the minor pentatonic
scale will sound good over most chords played
in that minor key. And The minor pentatonic scale should be your starting place. When you don't know
what you're doing, write a song in the A
minor pentatonic scale. This doesn't mean you can't ever use the other notes
in the minor key. But if you generally pick the notes of the
minor pentatonic, it'll probably
always sound good. I know that's a lot
of information. And the point of music theory is to let you
know what's available. But then when you get composing, that's when it actually
means something. That's when you can
actually try some of these ideas out,
and you're like, Well, you didn't remember any
of the advanced scales, except for you remember that
there were advanced scales, and you're composing something, and you come back
to this lesson. You're like, Okay, let's
just try one of them. Pick one. Try Dorian. Write something in D Dorian, every white note
on the keyboard, starting from D. And
then there we go. You can start experimenting.
How does that feel? How does the minor
pentatonic feel? How does the major
pentatonic feel? And slowly you can add these things to
your musical arsenal. But don't worry
about remembering all of this stuff right away. It will unfold naturally
as you produce more.
8. Harmony Explained: Probably heard of the
word Harmony before. In this lesson,
we're going to talk about what harmony
means in music. Harmony is produced when more than one note
plays at the same time. You have two notes playing at the same time That's
called harmony. If you have more than two notes playing at the same time,
that's still called harmony. But at least two notes
playing at once is harmony. How far the notes are
from each other determine the quality or what
kind of harmony it is. All of the harmonies available between two notes are Unison, which is one note
playing with itself. Or maybe you have two
different instruments playing the same note.
That's called Unison. If the notes are 1-2 half steps away, it's
called a second. If the notes are between three
or four half steps away, it's called a third. If the notes are five half steps away, it's
called a fourth. If the notes are six
half steps away. It's called the tritone. Seven half seps away, is called a fifth. If the notes are eight
or nine half seps away, that's a sixth. If the notes are ten or 11 half seps away, that's a seventh. If the notes are 12
half steps away, that's called an octave. You can also have compound
harmonies of ninth, tenth, 11th, 12th,
and thirteenths. You can repeat the distance
formula starting on any note, and you will find the
same quality of harmony. So let's dive into
harmony. Here's Unison. You can't really do unison with just one piano
because that would be this note playing
with this note. But if I were to sing,
we're in unison there. Here's a second. This
is dissonant sounding. That's very dissonant sounding. So our second sound
dissonant. Here's our thirds. Is a minor third.
Is a major third, T sound more harmonious. Here's a fourth, Tritone fifth. Minor sixth. Major sixth. Minor seventh. Major
seventh. Octave. If you count the distance
between any note, so you'll do three half steps, that creates a minor third. Anywhere you are,
three half steps away, creates a minor third. Likewise, four half
steps is a major third, anywhere else on the keyboard, creates a major third. So when you have two notes playing at the same
time, it's a harmony, and depending on how far
they are from each other, it's what kind of harmony it is. Harmonies can go below as well. This is four half steps below or four half steps above
creates a major third. Ma third above, Ma third below, and it
works the same way. Major six above, which is
123-45-6789 half steps. Let's go nine half steps below. Major sixth below above below. You can start to
understand that like a mi third when you take the
third down an octave, inverts to a major sixth. That's not super
duper important, but you'll start seeing how the harmonies are
intertwined this way. Harmony. O. When you're in the
key of C major, all the notes of C major
are available to you and you can create harmonies
using those notes. So if you want to
harmonize every note in the major scale with a
third above of some kind, you basically skip a
note and then play every note available to
you in the key of C major. You can also do
that with a fourth. And a fifth, and a six. You can do it with seconds
and with sevenths as well. So now we're
understanding, Okay, we understand a key, and let's say we're in
the key of A minor. So we know what
notes are available. And we know that
then we're going to find notes that
are in that key, and we want to
harmonize with thirds, and we know that a third is either three
or four half steps away, which visually, if you just look at the notes that
are available in the key, are one skip one, basically. And then we can know, Okay, all of those notes
are available, so let's just build
some harmonies. El Now we have harmony, more than one note
playing at once. I talked about
compound harmonies, which are harmonies above
the distance of an octave. That could be a second because
this is a second A to B. But when it's an octave
removed, we call it a ninth. A tenth is a third
anctab removed. A 11th is a fourth
in Octave removed. And a 13th is a sixth
anctave removed. The concept of harmony
isn't complicated. You can harmonize with any note available
to you in the scale. Obviously, you can break the rules and use any note you want. But for keeping it simple, you can harmonize any note with any other note within the
key within the scale. And this is a pretty
simple concept. You know that the
distance between the two notes have
different qualities. You can do it by ears. Some of those qualities
are dissonant, and some of those qualities are harmonious and
sound pleasant. Dissonance isn't
always a bad thing, and especially
depending on the genre, if you are into jazz, the jazz loves dissonance. So depending on what
genre you're making, you might be leaning towards more harmonious or
more dissonance or more dissonance
sounding harmonies. But the concept is
basically pretty simple. It'll come second nature to
you the more you make music. So like with everything,
it can get kind of heady. That's not the point.
The point is you know, when there's at least two notes playing at the same time,
it's called a harmony, and those harmonies have
different qualities, and you will start experimenting with what sounds good to you, and that is the perfect
way to learn music.
9. Common Chords: This lesson is all about chords. We've talked about notes. We've talked about harmony. Now it's time to
talk about chords. Harmony is when we have two notes playing
at the same time. Chords are when we have three or more notes
playing at the same time. Three notes or more playing
together is a chord. A three note chord
is called a triad. You can build a triad off
of any note in the scale, and a quick visual
hack is one skip one. So you play one note, skip the next available
node in the scale, and play the one after that, and then so on and so forth. The quality of the third will determine whether the
chord is major or minor. So the quality of the middle
note in root position of a three note chord will tell you if the chord
is minor or major. Rearranging the
notes of a chord is called changing the
inversion of the chord. It doesn't matter what
order the notes are in. If you have those same
three notes in any order, it's still the same chord. You can layer the same notes of the chord in higher
or lower octaves, and it's still the same chord. So let's dive into chords. So let's go back to
our key of C major. Every single white note on
the keyboard starting from C, ending on C in an octave. We know that harmony is when two notes play
at the same time. Chords are when three notes or more play
at the same time. So a quick visual way to think about chords in the key of C major is, what are
the notes available? Skip the next available note and play one Skip one, and
that's your chord. This pattern works all
the way up the scale. The quality of the core that
we're playing is changing, but these are all chords. So let's take this CEG. Just like scales have a whole step half step
formula, so do chords. So to make a major chord. You have one, two, three, four half steps, and then
you have three half steps. So four half steps and three
half steps is a major chord. To do a minor chord, you have three half steps
then four half steps. That makes a minor chord.
Here's the major chord. Minor. Major. Minor. Major. With this major chord, the rule of hoses and Hass
we just talked about, will give you the
root inversion, which is C major chord, which is a triad in C, which starts with C, has a third E, and
has a G in it. We chords start to get a little confusing
at first is that any order of CE and G together is always a C major chord,
even if it looks like this. The C is no longer
at the bottom, but this is still
a C major chord. Even if it looks like
this, Cs in the middle, it's still a C major
chord because CE and G will always
be a C major chord. What's changing is
called the inversion. If you layer more of the same notes that are already in the chord on top of itself, like we add another C,
still a C major chord. Now we have two Es,
still a C major chord. Two Gs, still a C major chord. C and G, is always going
to be a C major chord. And you can always find any
major chord by starting on any note you want and doing four half steps,
then three half steps. And that will tell
you the major chord built off of that note. And then if you were to move those notes around, same chord. So, when you're just
getting started, it's easiest to think about chords in their root position. C major chord, starting on C. F major chord, starting on F. In a major key, there are some common
chords you might play. The four chords that
you might have heard of that make up most pop
music are C major, a chord built off of the tonic. A minor, a chord built off the sixth degree
of the scale because A is six away from C. G major, a cord built off the fifth
degree of the scale, F major, a chord built off the fourth
degree of the scale. Those chords in a variety of different orders are what
make up most pop songs. So some common chords
that are used, obviously, every single
note in the key of C, you can build a chord off of it, and any single one of those chords is fair
game in the key of C. Some common chords
are the C major, the D minor, the F major, the G major, and the A minor. So the B diminished chord, which we'll talk
about that later, is not as common. We don't usually hear
this, especially in pop dance, or rock music. You do sometimes
hear this E minor, but it's a lot less common. The most common by far, C, F, G, A, and D. That's a lot
of chords to play with. So there's a lot of information
here we get to use. We know this is a D minor
chord and an A minor chord, A, because of the sound. Also because of the
amount of half steps, one, two, three, one,
two, three, four. A D major chord would
sound like this. Minor. So in a major key, the first degree of the
scale is a major chord. The second degree of the
scale is a minor chord. The third degree of the
scale is a minor chord. Fourth degrees major,
fifth degrees major, six degrees minor, seventh
degree diminished. But we'll talk about
that one later. This pattern will be true for, every single major key. A general rule of thumb for why chords might
sometimes be in different inversions is
so that you don't have to move so far on the keyboard. If you put the C up top, and you go to your F ord, like that, it's a lot easier. Or maybe we want to keep
the C at the bottom. This is still our Ford. We're choosing to change
the inversion to keep minimal distance for moving
our hand on the piano. And it also as a
plus, it sounds good. It sounds good to have
good voice leading. Voice leading means the distance
each note is traveling. Since an F major and
a C major chord, both have a C in it, keep the C the same and move the
notes that change. If that's a little
confusing for now, just keep everything
in root position with the name of the
chord in the base. Triads are the foundations
of most chords. It's important to get
familiar with triads. Get comfortable using the
main chords in a major scale, and you will start your
journey into chords.
10. Common Chords Minor: Talk a little bit more
about some common chords. There's an endless
option of chords, which might feel a
little bit overwhelming. So usually we try to
stick to the notes, harmonies, and chords
within the key. Although this is not necessary. It's just a nice place to
start because otherwise, Everything's an option, and we have decision making paralysis. So it's nice to start with some boundaries
to what we're doing. Again, we choose chords within the key because we know they're going
to sound good. But use your ears
and break the rules. Whatever sounds good to
you is the right choice. I often, and you'll see
other musicians talking about building chords off of different degrees of the scale. And this is a good
way to start thinking about music because then if
you're in the key of C major, but then you move
to a different key, instead of trying to
wrap your head around, Okay, what's the chord here? We're changing keys?
What's that chord? What's this chord? It's nice to be able to talk about things. Oh, okay, we're going
to build a chord off the one of the
degree of the scale, the six, the four, and the five. So that's exactly from
if you start at C, and you count six, You'll get a. If you count four, you'll get f. You count five, you got g. And that means the first degree, the sixth degree,
the fourth degree, and the fifth degree
of the scale. And no matter what
scale you're on, you're going to have a first, sixth, fourth, and fifth degree. So it's nice to think about chords this way
because that way, you can change keys and the ratio between the
chord stays the same, which is the most
important thing. So some common chords are
one, six, four, five. Those are the four chords that make up basically every pop
song you've ever heard. You can play those
chords in any order. It could be 4561 or
5641 or 6514, whatever. But in general, any order of those chords can harmonize most pop songs
that you've heard. Other common chords
are just going 1-4. This is true in major
and in a minor key. We can do a 251, which is a more
jazz progression, which you can hear that in
the major or minor key, and you can do one and
two in the major key. So try these in any order. You don't always have
to start on one. You can be in the key of C, but you don't have to
start on the C chord. You can start on the F.
You can start on the four. You can start on the
six. You can start on the five. You can
start on the two. Whatever key you're
in determines what other notes are available, and what other chords
are available. You don't always have to
start your re progressions on the note of the key. So we talked about
the four chords. And these are the four chords that make up all the pop songs. One, six, four, five. Sometimes in the order
of one, five, six, four, or one, four, five, six, or any other order. We also talked about 25 ones, that's starting a chord on the second degree
of the scale, fifth degree, and then one. But there's a lot of
jumping around going here. So let's try to change the inversions so that we
don't move around as much. I 1-2 in the Major key is another common
chord progression that harmonizes a lot
of notes in the scale. And you can just keep jamming on just those two chords
or one and four. One and four. You have
a whole endless world of music with just one and four. So let's jump over to a minor and talk about
some minor chords. Common minor chords
are one, three, four, five, six, and seven. The two is diminished and minor, and we don't use that as much. But we will talk
about diminished chords in another lesson. You can do one and
four and minor. I'm playing only the
minor pentatonic. And just two chords,
and it's a whole. So, the six or and minor seven and one are
also very popular. Oh. If you want to do the
four the four chords that make up all the pop songs, but in minor, you would do
one, six, three, seven. The three is more common in
minor than it is in major. So, the amount of
whole steps and half steps that
make up a major or minor chord are the same, whether you're in a
major or minor key. So if you're in the key of a minor and you want to
build a minor chord, it's still three half
steps and four half steps. If you did four half
steps and three, it will give you
an a major chord, which is not in the
key of a minor. So still the distance between
a major and minor chord doesn't change with whether you're in a major
or a minor key. The key just tells you which chord is going to
really feel like home. Oh. Chords create a certain vibe. And that's usually where I start making music. I
play some chords. And that is an emotion to me. And then maybe some melodies start flowing vocally
or on the piano. And you never need to change your chords if
they're the right vibe. But the reason why
sometimes we will change chords is
because every note that's played on top is
harmonizing with your chord. So if you want to get the maximum mylids out of the harmony of
what you're playing, once your melody
is set in stone, you may change the chords you're playing to better
harmonize the melody. So if this is our melody,
It goes like this. Well, this chord has two of the notes of
the melody in it. So that's pretty
good. And this note sounds good with the Cort. So everything sounds
good here, we can leave the first chord alone. Here, this note is in the Cort, so that's a fine choice. This note is a very,
very pretty note. We'll get into major we'll get
into seventh chords later, but this is also is a very
specific quality to it, which might not be the quality
that you are going for. So how else could
we harmonize this? That's another way
to harmonize it. We just look for
other chords that have the notes that
we're playing in them, and this C major chord does, which is the third
degree of the scale. Maybe we want to not do
our same second chord. What other chords in our
scale have a D in it? That would be a D minor, which is the four
also has a D in it, the G and the D. So it's up to you to
decide what you want. But that's the general
way to think about it. What notes are in your melody, what cores are
they playing over? And if you want to
reharmonize it, what are the other
chords in the key that have those notes that are
in the melody in the or? So you're like, Well, which is another
way to harmonize this. There's no right or wrong. It's really a subjective choice. Don't overthink your chords when you're just
getting started. Some of the most iconic
hit songs of all times are very simple from
a chord perspective. So there's no expectation to be some amazing chord genius
right off the bat. That's not what's important. What's important is that you
know how it makes you feel. You play some notes
on the keyboard, and you're like,
Yeah, that chord feels good, and that
chord feels good. And all you need is two chords. If it really just pulls
at your heart strings, and you know that's the
emotion you're looking for. Don't overthink it. Always listen to how
it makes you feel.
11. Advanced Chords: Now that you barely have an
understanding of chords. Let's talk about
advanced chords. I'm just kidding. But I know that there's a lot
of information here. There's a lot to chords, to scales, to keys, and it's so much information, and we're just going to pile on more and more
and more and more. But the point of this is to just let you know
what's available. And then as soon as
this chapter is done, just forget about it and just listen to how things
make you feel. And then somewhere
down the line, you'll be like, I remember hearing about some
advanced chords. You can come back and
watch this lesson again. Don't get caught
up in the details, but I want you to know
what is available. I talked about this one skip one to find the notes of your chord. Well, you can keep that going all the way up
to 13 and beyond, to find more advanced chords. There's triads, which are three note cords,
and every version. Every organization
of those notes, even if you have doubles of those notes is still
the same chord. We talked about that. But you
can add seventh and ninth, which are my favorite chords. And they sound so good
and so beautiful. And the seventh and ninth
are not part of the triad. So we will be demonstrating
some of those. The seventh degree
of a chord can be major, minor or dominant. The third degree of accord, which you already talked
about, can be major or minor. The seventh degree can be
major, minor, or dominant. So we'll cover that
in this lesson. There are such
things as SS chords, which might substitute one of the notes for the
second or the fourth, usually substituting the third of the scale for the
second or fourth. We'll show you what
that is. We'll talk about half diminished chords. And just to let you know, this is just the
tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to chords. So we talk about
this one Skip one. Let's go to our
handy dandy C major. And let's skip the next
available note in the scale. Let's skip the next
available note. Let's skip the next
available note. Ah. The major seventh chord. So beautiful. You can skip the next available note
and play this one. Oh. The ninth. Such a pretty sound. So, let's stick with
sevens for a second. You can have a seventh
and a major chord. You can have a seventh
and a minor chord. You can build a seventh off
of every degree in the scale. We talked about seventh being able to be different qualities. So when the seventh is four
half steps above the fifth, It's a major seventh. Let's say you have a minor
chord with a major seventh. This is a very uncommon chord. This is pretty dissonant. But it is a chord, but it's
just not used very often. So let's say you
have a minor chord. And remember, if you
have three half steps, then four half
steps, minor trad. But this major seventh is
really cramp in our style. Minor seventh. We're using the minor. We're using only
three half steps between the fifth
and the seventh, and that's creating
a minor seventh. The other way to
think about it is you lower the major
seventh one half step. So this is a minor seventh. So it's a beautiful chord. You can also have a major
chord with the minor seventh. That's called a
dominant seventh, and that's usually found on the fifth degree
of the scale. So the fifth degree of
the scale in the key of C is G. A dominant seven chord major triad with a minor seventh is built off the fifth
degree of the scale here. And it has a very classical pole towards the tonic or
the root of the key. So our sevens can be
major minor or dominant, which is minor over
a major triad. These ratios between the nodes starting on any other note
will remain the same. This is a minor seventh
in starting on a minor. He's a major seven
starting in F. Ninth work in the
same exact way. We have our seventh. You just keep going
and even ninth. Such a beautiful chord. If we're in minor, we can do our minor ninth chord. Oh. You can obviously
play minor and major ninth with whatever
other chord you want. So this minor ninth chord can go to this
major ninth chord. And remember, the ninth is
just the second up an octave. So this is a minor ninth chord with the ninth down anctave. We call this an ad two because the second
degree is in here. But you can start thinking
about how this is really a minor ninth with the
down and ctaive. Same goes for major ninth
with the D down anctaive. This is such a pretty chord. We can go back to our triad. And there's such
thing as a sus chord, which means that the
third of the chord, which is either minor or major, is replaced by the
second or the fourth. When I say second or fourth, I mean the second
note of the chord, which is not being played in this triad or the fourth note, which is also not being played. This has a very quiet feeling to it because a lot
of the times the S four resolves to the
regular major triad. So if we do it in
this inversion here, S you've heard
something like that. A bam Very pretty. You can, of course, have a
SS chord with a seventh. Let's try this version.
It's more dissonant, but this one is really pretty.
Let's try it in minor. S two. It's pretty emotional. That's kind of cool. So a minor
cs two? A minor ces four. We talked about
diminished chords. Now, a diminished
chord is built off the seventh degree
of the scale in major or the second degree
of the scale in minor. The diminished chord
is three half steps, then three half steps. And it has this very
sort of dissonant sound. A lot of classical music loves Diminish chords
because they love going to the dissonance to then resolve to the continents. Diminish chords can
have seventh as well. So if you keep the three
half step rule going, you'd go three half steps, three half steps, and
then three half steps. This is called a fully
diminished chord. That's as dissont
as you can get. And that's called a
diminished seventh, which is the fourth
option for a seventh. You can also have
a diminished chord with a minor seventh. So four half steps between
the fifth and the seventh. You can see the software is calling this a minor
seven flat five. That's because if
you were to play the regular minor, it
would be like this. And we are just
lowering the fifth. So that's another way
to call the same chord. Let's go ahead and play this in our A minor that
we're familiar with. But for it to be diminished, we need to do 123 half steps
and then 123 half steps. But we keep the seventh minor. This is called a
minor seven flat five or a half
diminished seventh, which has a really
cool sound to it. Again, this is just the
tip of the iceberg for really cool chords and exciting chords that you
can use in your music. And I highly encourage
you to just experiment. Take one of these
chords that you learned in this lesson and apply
it to your next song. Then take a different chord and apply it to your next song. And as you start using them
in your own compositions, you'll start knowing which
of these you like and when.
12. Advanced Chords Part 2: So now that we've talked about
chord extensions, seven, and ninth and using the different notes
available in the key, let's talk about chords
that are out of key. Just for pure chaos. Here are some out of key
chords that sound great. If you are in major or minor, changing the quality of the fourth chord to
either major or minor, sounds really,
really, really cool. A half diminished two chord or a minor two flat five on the
second degree of the scale, and major sounds incredible. Major three, Major two, in major sound
really, really great. Remember that normally that
those should be minor chords, and the minor two in minor
sounds super cool as well. So let's dive into these chords. In the key of C major, The F major is the
fourth quarter. And the F is supposed to
be major because well, this is the third, and
if we were to lower it. This note is not in the key
of C major. That's not here. So, what am I talking about
using this note in the F? Oh. Well, that's why I'm talking about it because
it sounds so good. So, you can break these rules and start using cords
that are out of key. You can use them in
a chord progression. So switching the four from major to minor
sounds super cool. You can go straight to
it or you can go to the major four and go
down into minor, which also sounds really cool. Let's jump over to
our A minor key. We can do the exact opposite, which turning the four,
which is D into a major. So let's hear what
that sounds like. Oh. And for those of you that are putting
the pieces together, yes. This note is the
Dorian note in A. So, for example, if we were to play a D minor in
the key of D minor, and we would have this G major, that's the Dorian note because the minor scale has
this note in D minor. And the Dorian scale
goes like this. So this is the
Dorian or in a way. And I'm sure that's
why it sounds good, because it's telling our ear, Oh, maybe this isn't
Dory and it's minor. You can use this chord
back to our A minor chord. You can create a
chord progression that has the major
four chord in it. So it's not just a two
quarter progression. You could do something
like one to three to the seven to the
seven to the four. So, like So epic feeling. I love how this feels. Back to Major. We talked about a half diminished seven chord or a minor seven
flat five built off the two. So, the two chord
in major is this. It is this D minor. If we add a seventh,
D minor seven. Beautiful chord. Let's
lower the fifth. If you'll remember,
our mi four chord in major is F minor. If we put a D at the bottom, it's our D minor
seven flat five. So these chords are
clearly related. And this has a similar
feeling to that minor four in major. Kind of Labish. O. It's almost my favorite chord. I really, really love
how that sounds. We talked about playing a major two and a major three
in a major key. And as we just explored, the minor two is usually minor. And the minor three, and the three is usually minor as well. So where this concept comes from is a concept called
secondary dominance. We talked about the dominant seventh being built off the
fifth degree of the scale. Major chord, minor seventh. And that has this sound to it. You can even do this as a ninth. It's beautiful. But this quality pulls us towards a C chord. The dominant seven is it
wants to go somewhere. It wants to resolve. It's
dissonant, wants to resolve. Secondary dominants
are this way of almost changing
the key sometimes, even though you don't actually have to change the
key, but you can use, for example, you can use the fifth of the fifth to sort of give the key
a new tonal center. So what that will sound like?
The five in the key of G is D. Because 12345, D. There we go. So, if we're in G, and G is the fifth of C, because 12345, and you want to play
the fifth of the fifth, you would play a D major. And that kind of
starts making us feel like the G is maybe home. So we're playing
here. We in C major. Then suddenly. We're
like, Oh, this is new, and then now suddenly it helps
us change keys that way. But we don't have to use the secondary dominance
to actually change keys. We can just use them as cool juicy extensions that
are available in our key. So let's do C major
incorporating this D major, but not change keys. So
that might sound like this. Oh. And doing a one, two, four, with the two being
major is really cool. If you are also
remembering the modes, this note in a major key, a raised fourth degree
is the Lydian note. We go to F Lydian scale.
Major would sound like this. The fourth degree of the scale. Being up a half step makes it allowing us to
have our major two. So this is also another place
where this might come from. Another really cool
cord to use in major is a major cord built off the
third degree of the scale. That usually wants
to go to the six. But it can also go to the f. So I love going
from one to major three to minor six
to Major four. You can also go one, six, three, four, and I'm pretty sure
that's where is my mind. Last, we'll jump over to the minor two chord
in a minor key, which normally the
minor is diminished. So you can have minor to minor, which has a really
cool feel to it. You could do a whole
course just on chords. And there's so many
chords out there. As a piano player, I'm a sucker for some beautiful juicy chords, and I hope that you
can incorporate some of these cool
chords into your mic.
13. Music Theory: Music theory goes
deep. It goes far. And there's a lot more to
music theory than just keys, scales, and chords,
and harmonies. And each of those
specific things I just said can go on
and on and on and on. And it's really a huge topic. I just want to give
you the basics, because if you understand keys, then you understand
what notes are mostly available to
you in a given song. And if you understand keys, you also understand what
scales you can play. So from the key, you can build your chords, and then from the scale, you can also build
your melodies. And then you have
harmony and melody, you have chords and melody.
That's all you really need. You have music. So this was a quick overview
of music theory. You can come back to
these lessons any time. You don't need to master all
these concepts right away. Really, the point is to
wherever you're starting from, take the concept that's closest to where you are
already right now. You don't want to jump
into super advanced res, if you still don't
really understand key. Go back and re watch these, pick one concept at a time, incorporate that
one concept into the next piece of music that you make into the next
beat that you make. You're like, Alright, I'm just going to think about
key in this one. Alright, cool. We got
stuff in the same key. Then the next beat
incorporate another concept. And through incorporating
these concepts into your music is how you're actually going to learn them and how they
actually have value. It's no point to get stuck in your head and theorizing stuff. And that's not at all the point. The point is like, Okay,
you're working on a beat. You don't know what to do next. You're like, Okay,
well, we're in a key, and the key has these chords, and maybe I can
try to this chord, or try these notes in the
melody. That's the point. The point is when
you're not divinely inspired or you hit
a little road block, or a little bit of
writer's block, you have some
information to pull from that can help you
get to the finish line. Incorporate one of these
techniques per beat, and eventually, all of this stuff will
become second nature.
14. Learning ActivIty Writing Chord Progressions In Ableton: Congratulations. You've made it to the end of the Music Theory
chapter. You did it. You never have to think about music theory ever again,
if you don't want to. So I just have a quick
learning activity for you to put some of
this into practice, and I'll catch you
in the next chapter. Go ahead and pull up the Music
Theory Learning Activity. And you'll hear this bet. What I want you to do is to use this grand piano and just play some chord
progressions to this beat. Record some chord
progressions to the beat. I would suggest
either C major or A minor and just
find some chords. If you really don't
know where to start, just pick two chords or
a four chord pattern and use those chords
for this beat. You can make as many chord progressions as you
want to this beat, but at least find two chords that you can
record to this beat. And I will catch you
in the next chapter.
15. Congratulations!: Congratulations on
finishing this class. I am so proud of you, and I can't wait to listen
to your class project. You can say hi to me on Instagram or Spotify
at Benza Maman. And if you like this class, please check out my other
music classes on Skillshare.
Future Skills, Uplevel Your Future Self
