How does that G13#11 even lead to C#m7? is there any reason other than good voice leading?

Hello there,

I'm tinkering a little with harmony. I wanna write a song with a unique/rarerer/special cadence. (This is just the beginning of the song and I will more stuff to it at some point)

I've come up with something for Piano and than added a guitar, but I want to understand the theory behind it... and if i even named the chords correctly or if they'd have different names in these circumstances. Especially the G#m7(b9) seems to be weird. I don't think I've ever written anything with a b9 in a chord. I'm also not sure about the key. First I had it in D major, now I've put it in F# minor.

Hope some of you are in the mood to analyse these eight bars :)

cadence

Hi! I was wondering if anyone could help me brainstorm ways of transcribing this piece for organ from "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKuncgvVORc&pp=ygUeTGUgbWFyaWFnZSB1bWJyZWxsYXMgY2hlYnJvdXJn

The bass line and melody are easy to follow, and so is the harmony, but all the baroque-style counterpoint and the recording quality are making it difficult for me to transcribe the inner voices. Thanks in advance.

What does the weird wiggly line mean lol??

I was learning to play Greensleeves/What Child Is This on the tenor guitar and noticed that the melody has an interesting pattern to it when you break it down into sections. It goes A-B-C-A-B-D-E-B-C-E-B-D (note the notes themselves, the pattern). The third section changes in the first half and then the second half of the song repeats with a different melody in the first bit.

I find this really interesting and was wondering if this is a standard thing that I could learn more about. Are there names for the different sorts of patterns found in music? I feel like I don't have all the necessary vocabulary to look this up on my own.

I don't know much about music from that time, either, so if anyone has references where I could learn more about that I would be interested as well. (I love the way this piece sounds lovely and somewhat haunting, so any recommendations of similar music would also be welcome.)

https://preview.redd.it/4yztudc4798e1.png?width=469&format=png&auto=webp&s=6224f5db8ddc91bbaf172dac5ad2782cefda7da0

I know that when you're in open position, you're supposed to get rid of any doubles of the same note, then you have to put them all together in a way that there's no space in between that you can fit more of the notes in, but I find that there are many ways that I could do that and they would all change the bottom note, witch is how my program is telling me to figure out what inversion it is, so I'm confused. Are there any rules about witch doubles to remove or how to reposition the notes that I don't know about? I'm probably just being dumb, but I really need for someone to explain it to me.

I have been playing saxophone for a few years and playing some jazz. I want to get into learning improvisation but I can't figure it out. I have learned some blues scales and know how those work but I don't know how to figure out how to improvise over chords. Like, how do I know what chord comes next and what notes I am able to play over that chord? Any help would be great. I have searched things up but I still feel like I don't know where to start.

Thanks you.

Both in the main melody as in the lead theme, the song features c#, which according to my (limited :D) knowledge would make the song be D major or B minor. Yet, numerous sources state it is E minor. Aaarrgh – Why is music theory so frustrating to learn for me ^^

Help appreciated.

Bonus points if you Explain like I'm 5 :D

Hello. Something I don't quite have clarity on is the smaller subdivisions in swung music. Let's take the classic swung 8ths: I know them as the swung 8ths and triplets but shorter than that what are people playing? Straight 16ths? Triplet 16ths?

Then with quintuplet swing it's even more of a mystery. Is the next smaller subdivision quintuplet 16ths? Or do you have four 16ths but divvied up so that it matches the swing e.g. two 16ths in the space of 3 quintuplet 16ths and then 2 quintuplet 16ths?

I haven't even thought of how the septuplets would be divided.

Thanks.

Haven’t dived into functional harmony as of yet as i’m currently studying the ‘Triads and Seventh Chords’ section of ‘Harmony and Voice Leading’ (it’s good so far).

However i was watching a video the other day on chord progressions and i seen a chord progression of I - VI - VII - iv (C - Ab - Bb - Fm) and it sounded pretty resolving, it’s from ‘Legends Never Die’ by Riot Games.

I wanted to know if it was just my ears or if something like this can actually occur, i’m not well versed in functional harmony so it might be a can of worms that i’m not ready to take on yet, and i may need more knowledge to understand it, but i assumed music moved as: Tonic - Subdominant - Dominant - Tonic (In A Cycle)

Hello, I recently starting paying more attention to harmonic choices in Prog Metal (which is most of what I listened to), and I realized that most of the bands I enjoy are obsessed with sus chords, and especially sus2, for some reason.

It creates this floaty sensation, sometimes augmented with maj7 chords, and I was wondering whether anyone might have any theoretical reason why this is so common?

Of course, it simply «sounds cool» is an answer, but I’m guessing it makes modal exchange and general tonal ambiguity simpler, which is also a common technique in the genre. Using both minor and major thirds, sixths etc. in melody lines.

Could there be any other specific reasons they’re so common?

Key: B Flat Minor / Bbm (5 Flats)

Even though this is a melodic movement of:

F (v) - Bb (i) - Ab (VII)

Why is this Appogiatura resolving? Even though it’s moving towards an active tone and settles on it - Ab (VII)? is it because the melodic movement of the note is a Minor Third which is a consonant interval?

If so why is an active tone resolving in this case, shouldn’t they unresolving and want to move towards a stable one?

Unless i’m wrong and it’s not resolving...

I have this harmony (if you can even call it that, it's only two not intervals) and I'm just trying to think about what I wrote from a more theoretical perspective, in hope that it might help me write some actually harmony and expand on it.

Basically, I'm just holding a Ab in the bass note the entire time. Then I play: c,d,eb, ab, gb, f, c,cb,,c,ab,f,g,ab. I know a little bit of theory and I think I would say it's maybe the key of Eb major? Except I don't ever play Bb, and I have B and Gb, so I'm confused. I would like to what chords would sound good with these notes? The melody sounds really good starting on the chord ab major with ab on the bass.

EDIT: Here's a link to the song I'm working on.

I dont know if this discussion belongs here, but I recently was searching up why classical music could be timeless and still enjoyed in present day. One of the first things I see is someone on Quora saying "Much of the music is mathematically perfect". And goes on to talk about how they use harmony, rythm, the circles of fourths and fifths, and melodic tension which our brains enjoy.

But can music really be mathematically better than other music? I think those things listed are practically universally enjoyed concepts but are applied in a specific way to become classical. It doesnt make classical better, its simply an application of certain universal musical concepts that people happened to enjoy at that time, and can be appreciated today for various reasons.

These concepts are enjoyed and utilized (or not) in different ways that create the many genres of music that exist. Is there really a "better" or "mathematical best" way to apply the concepts? I dont think so, because everyone has their own favorite way of using these universally enjoyed concepts.

Idk why but ive been fully tripping out over this LOL

Has anyone else here noticed that minor second intervals in major-key songs are often very emotional-sounding, almost to the point of being sad in a sweet kind of way? I don't really know how to explain it, but when I hear the minor second intervals in things that are in minor keys, the intervals strike be as more calming, pleasantly-spooky, etc than emotionally touching. Just as one an example, the melody of the song Peaceful Easy Feeling (The Eagles) is in a major key and very prominently uses a minor second interval that I find to be emotional in a sweet and touching way. At the same, the song, Ghost of John, for instance, which uses the minor second interval a lot and is in a minor key, evokes more of a calm and eerie feeling in me than one of sweetly sad and/or extraordinarily emotional.

Anyway, I recognize that the emotions that diffrent things in different types of music evoke are a bit subjective and dependent on what our culture associates with certain types of sounds and such, though still, I'd be interested to know if others on here feel this way about minor second intervals.

and wants me to orchestrate it. The tonal center seems to be A, and it sounds mostly minor, but every F is sharp. The only scale mode I can find with only a sharp 6 is a strange Indian music mode that I've never heard of. It doesn't fit ascending or descending melodic minor.

Any hints on how to harmonize something like this?

Consolation no.3 Lizst, I was doing fine until the 4th measure now i want to know how to count this. I saw a video on youtube with another variation of this piece as a score and that score didn't notate the duodecuple. I have no idea if this is just another bad notation.

My Dad’s a professional jazz pianist, and he’s told me before that he’s always been really fascinated with medieval and renaissance music, to the point where if he didn’t go into jazz he could have seen himself getting a PhD in it.

Does anyone know any good books that explore this? I’m looking for something that goes past just offering an overview and really dives into it, maybe with a unique perspective.

Does this circle and the way I've attempted to show information such as diatonic chords of a key, the harmonic degrees and the diatonic mediants make sense?

Any information missing you would like to see? Should enharmonics change based on selected tonic?

I'm in the early stages of building a free webapp to function as a sort of one stop shop, comprehensive resource for music theory and primarily guitar fretboard mapping. Initially will be for myself as an excercise and learning webapp design. The homepage will be the circle of 5ths that you can rotate depending on your intended tonic key and from there will branch off into other pages of lessons and diagrams.

Kinda rambling thoughts here but I love playing the song Dear Life by Beck on piano. It's in some mode of F, and has a chord progression I've never really seen, with a lot of chords outside the standard major scale.

Here's the verse: F C# A# C# G# And chorus: F C# G# F C# G# (piano progression: G# A# E F#)

I understand the C# in there as a sharp V which I love that mysteriously hopeful feeling, but the chord that's most fascinating is the G#.

I believe you'd call it a sharp II but I don't think I've ever seen that. I see it resolves nicely to the tonic.

How would you interpret that chord? Any other songs you know that use it? Other thoughts welcome on this unique song!

I've been trying to write some doo-wop inspired music for a project of mine, and i'm having trouble getting the vocal harmony voicings right. How would you guys voice this very particular sound of harmony?