People find the diatonic modes confusing. They are confusing! But they’re also wonderfully useful. So one of the goals of my music theory songs is to make the modes less confusing (or, at least, to make them confusing in a different way.) Some of the confusion comes from the fact that you conventionally see the …
Continue reading “Modes from light to dark around the chromatic circle”
Ashanti Mills from my Patreon had a brilliant idea. He said, hey, you know how you combined interviews with Toni Blackman with hip-hop songs to explain hip-hop pedagogy? You should do that with music theory: have songs that explain their musical content to you. This is one of those ideas that seems obvious as soon …
One of the most powerful music theory concepts you can learn is how to make chords from scales. If you learn a few scales, then you get a whole bunch of chords for free. The specifics of all the chord names can be complicated and daunting. But the concept of constructing them is very simple. …
Here is a visualization of all the scales in the aQWERTYon, organized by the way I personally conceptualize them. This does not represent every scale in the world, just a broad selection of the ones in common usage in pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop, jazz, and film and game music. I group scales into three broad …
As I struggle my way through the Bach Chaconne on guitar, I’m having to work around the fact that I am great at music theory but terrible at note reading. So before I could play the piece, I had to completely understand it and be able to feel it by ear. The only way I …
Continue reading “What if the Bach Chaconne was modal jazz?”
Improvisation is a core musical skill across a variety of styles and genres. Being able to make up music on the fly is obviously useful in and of itself, but improvisation is also an excellent tool for songwriting, composition, production, and teaching. The best way to learn how to improvise is to do it along …
Continue reading “Learn to improvise on the white piano keys”
A few years ago, the NYU Music Experience Design Lab launched a web application called the aQWERTYon. The name is short for “QWERTY accordion.” The idea is to make it as easy to play music on the computer keyboard as it is with the chord buttons on an accordion. The aQWERTYon maps scales to the …
The Groove Pizza uses geometry to help visualize rhythms. The MusEDLab is planning to create a similar tool for visualizing music theory by merging the aQWERTYon with the Scale Wheel. When you put the twelve pitch classes in a circle, you can connect the dots between different notes in a chord or scale to form shapes. My …
Update: we have implemented these changes to the aQWERTYon, try them here Try the scale wheel visualization here The MusEDLab will soon be launching a revamped version of the aQWERTYon with some enhancements to its visual design, including a new scale picker. Beyond our desire to make our stuff look cooler, the scale picker represents a …
Continue reading “The aQWERTYon pitch wheels and the future of music theory visualization”
See also an analysis of this tune’s amazing drum groove. If you have even a passing interest in funk, you will want to familiarize yourself with Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon.” If you are preoccupied and dedicated to the preservation of the movement of the hips, then the bassline needs to be a cornerstone of your practice.
