This week in aural skills, we’re working on various harmonic tropes based on IV-I root movements. This chord progression is technically called the plagal cadence, but is more memorably nicknamed the “Amen” cadence because it’s a traditional European hymn ending. (It has nothing to do with the Amen break, though they do sound good together.) …
Tag Archives: music theory songs
Polymeter vs polyrhythm
As I continue to build groove pedagogy resources, I want to clear up some persistent confusion about polymeter and polyrhythm. If you don’t feel like reading the whole post, it can be summed up in this image: The most concisely I can put this into words: In polymeter, the grid lines are aligned, but the …
A nice thing happened with my music theory songs
A Twitter acquaintance wrote me this series of DMs: I am so glad he had that reaction. I haven’t been pushing my music theory songs too hard because I wasn’t sure about their value to anyone other than me. I did use some of them in my New School music theory class last semester, but …
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Led Zeppelin and the folkloric integrity of the blues
There is a fascinating moment in “When The Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin where Robert Plant plays a very flat ninth on the harmonica. I love this note, because there is so much music theory and history encoded within it. Listen at 0:41. Before we can get into the details of this note and what …
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The diminished scale
When I want my music to sound mysterious, the diminished scale is a reliable tool in the harmonic toolkit. It worked for John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, and it can work for you!
Just intonation and key changes
Western people like two things in harmony: intervals derived from the natural overtone series, and the ability to play in multiple keys. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to do both of these things within the same tuning system. If you want to use just intonation intervals derived from harmonics, then they will not work in every …
Defining key centers with rhythm
Let’s say you have two chords, G7 and C. According to Western classical theory, these two chords establish that you are in the key of C. The G7 is tense and unresolved, and it makes you yearn for the calm stability of C. Music theory resources are full of language about how dominant seventh chords …
Music Theory Songs
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 …
The blues and the harmonic series
In this post, I’m going to expand on an idea in my blues tonality treatise: that the distinctive scales and chords of the blues are an approximation of African-descended tuning systems based on the natural overtone series. Gerhard Kubik argues in his book Africa and the Blues that blues tonality comes from the overtone series …
Scales, keys and modes on the circle of fifths
If you want to understand Western music theory, the circle of fifths is an invaluable tool. For one thing, it can help you understand how key signatures work. But it also helps explain how the major scale and diatonic modes relate to each other, and gives a possible explanation for why they sound good. Here’s …
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