I did some studying but doubt it is good (mostly self-taught). Would appreciate some feedback on the voicings and any errors I might've missed. And I also decided to write a full version with some movement, which might be even worse so please give me some feedback. And recommend some resources to help.

roast me hard

roast me hard

Been playing guitar for a little over a year now….. anyone else use a bunch of sticky notes to connect the theory dots?

I created a chord progression and trynna figure out what key is it in? The chords go in the following order: Dm C Bb F Gm A

At first I thought it was in the Bb key but I don't think there's a C major in that key?

I was assigned this song for my vocal performance class but I have no idea how to count it. Included the first few measures.

I want to know how to start ear training if I never once started it. I play the piano but never managed to have the ear to pick songs from ear and play it.

The advice I hear the most is to transcribe, but it seems impossible without some practice with functional or solfege training before hand.

So for a beginner how should I start, use the functional ear trainner app/ tonedear? Or train solfege? Or should I stick keep transcribing until I can get better?

Hello everyone, I’m preparing for a college music technology audition on February 5. I’ve been playing piano for about four years, and while I’m comfortable playing by ear and learning songs through repetition, sight-reading is something I’ve never really done before. One of the requirements for the audition is sight-reading, and I’m feeling a bit anxious about it.

In addition to sight-reading, I also have to perform three songs on an instrument that I’ve memorized and present music projects I’ve created in a DAW. I feel confident about the memorized pieces and the projects, but sight-reading is definitely my weakest area.

For those who’ve been in a similar situation, should I focus on the memorized songs and my DAW projects, or should I spend more time working on improving my sight-reading, even though I feel like I might not do well either way? Any tips or strategies for handling this in the limited time I have left?

New to this

First off, I’m not certain if this is the right subreddit for a question like this. I know very little about music, so if anybody has thoughts on a more appropriate subreddit, I’m all ears :)

In Fellowship of the Ring (book), Frodo Baggins sings a song to create a distraction at the Inn of the Prancing Pony. It starts as:

There is an inn, a merry old inn Beneath an old grey hill And there they brew a beer so brown That the Man in the Moon himself came down One night, to drink his fill

There's a dozen or so more verses, but they all fit the same structure as that first verse. The book has all of the verses of the song, and says that Frodo sings it as a fun and energetic kind of jig, but as far as I know it's never had a tune put to it. Tolkien has several song recordings on his website, but I don’t believe this song is among them.

So are there any popular or well-known tunes/ melodies that fit that rhythm/structure? The closest I've ever found is the Gilligan's Island song. It almost fits, if you repeat the notes in the last two lines.

(I apologise if the title seems vague, I was unable to figure out a better way to phrase it.)

From what I am aware, there are certain types of compositions which have specific rhythmic motifs associated with them.

The Calypso style uses the rhythmic device of "quaver, crotchet, quaver, crotchet crotchet".

The Mazurka commonly uses the short rhythmic motif of "semiquaver, dotted quaver, quaver".

The Rumba style uses a rhythm of "dotted quaver, dotted quaver, quaver" followed by "quaver, semiquaver, quaver, semiquaver, quaver".

Late Baroque Sicilianas, I am told, employ aspects of multiple different types of rhythmic phrases in 6/8.

When a song is written "in" one of these specific rhythms, does it mean that the rhythm in question is the primary rhythmic motif, or does it mean the entire piece more or less adheres to the rhythm?

It looks like a c natural but isn't it supposed to be a c#? There's even a C natural marking the best time I see it that makes me think it's supposed to be a c sharp.

I took a dominant 9th and wondered how many suspensions I could add, not even sure if this is a functional dominant but it seems like it.

Over the years, I've made a lot of chord and scale reference charts for myself (we've all been there). This latest attempt tries to bring everything together. Importantly, each mode and scale is accompanied by its chord progression.

My goal here was to balance compactness and ease of lookup. Color coding draws attention to fifth (blue), third (orange) and seventh (yellow).

The purpose of this chart is to help myself figure things out faster. Perhaps it can help you as well.

This chart can answer the following questions:

1. What is the relationship between interval name and semitone size? For example, there are 8 semitones in flat 6. You can also look up intervals between any two notes. For the interval between Eb and G, you'd look up the column of G in the row that starts with Eb and scan to the top (or bottom) to read off the interval. In this case, Eb-G is a third.

2. What are the degrees of the major modes? The circles for third, fifth and seventh are distinguished by outline (or fill). For example, dorian is 1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7.

3. What are the degrees of other common scales? I've listed some minor scales here—this will never be complete.

4. For the modes and scales listed, what is the chord progression? Below each degree circle, is the chord quality. For example, dorian progression is m-m-M-7-m-halfdim-M. This part is particularly handy for the more exotic scales like Ukranian dorian (m-7-M-dim-mM-halfim-M#5). Some of these progressions are tedious to look up.

5. For common chord qualities, what are the intervals? I don't list all the chords, just ones that are used in the chart. Notation might need fixing. For each chord, the seventh is included. For example, the minor-major (mM) chord is 1-b3-5-7.

6. For a given mode, scale or chord root, what are the notes? You can use the table of notes at the bottom of the chart to "quickly" look up notes. For example, if you want the Gb minor-major chord, scan down to the line with Gb in the first column (root) and then read off the notes that align with the circles in the minor-major chord line. In this case, Gb-A-Db-F.

7. For a given combination of notes, what is the name of the chord? For example, what chord is G-Bb-D-Gb? This part is doable with a pen. You would go to the G row in the notes, highlight the notes and then match their interval pattern to the circles in the chord section. They line up with the minor major chord, so G-Bb-D-Gb is minor major.

Points to note as I refine this:

1. sus2 and sus4 chords replace the third (either 3 or b3) with the major second or major fourth, respectively. These chord lines only have the position of this replacement and don't have the 5th or 7th, because they can vary.

2. Some of my notation may not align with what is commonly used. For example, by M#5 I mean major chord with sharp 5. This is also called augmented major.

3. In an earlier version of the chart, I had a octave column on the far right. I decided to skip this.

4. I've stuck to flats. Except for the tritone which I mark as #4 rather than b5.

5. I've tried to maintain consistent visual vocabulary. Inconsistencies may remain.

6. There may be errors.

https://preview.redd.it/rt4vrnc4zlge1.png?width=2356&format=png&auto=webp&s=47c7b2ac58f2e1c11a8f7f308b24448884237297

Was making flashcards to memorize the numbers and chord names for every major diatonic chord, for all 12 keys.

But then I got confused on what I should actually study.

If all 5 sharps/flats each get their own version of their respective key (A# vs Bb) then that would be 7 natural notes plus 10 sharps or flats, so that would be 17 keys instead of 12.

Trouble is that I've heard some keys are "theoretical" and not really legitimately used because of like, double sharps or things like that. Like I think A# major would never be used over Bb major, is that right?

I've also heard of goofy things like Cb major or something like that I guess, which I don't care about because I don't read music because of the genres of music I play.

Idk I'm pretty fucking confused right now. I just want to be able to quickly transpose chord progressions in my head, but now I feel all caught up in conventions.

I've been learning music theory for about six months at this point, and I really enjoy messing around on websites such as onemotion.com/chord-player, which has helped me understand more about the differences between major and minor modes, chord functions, cadences... functional harmony in general. I've had a lot of "Ah-hah!" moments using tools like this. You can arrange them and see how they sound without too much effort fiddling on a keyboard, and then I like to memorize the chords and functions in a particular key with a progression I've constructed or found.

However, something I would really like to understand is quartile and quintal harmony, since I enjoy a lot of contemporary Japanese music that employs these chords.

I have searched but all of the tools I have found only use tertial-based harmony.

Of course I could just play these on my keyboard, but I've found it's easier for me to learn chords this way before playing them, since I am still new to both playing and music theory.

I know it's a bit of a shot in the dark, but any help is appreciated.
And if no such thing exists, what resources would you recommend for learning more about quartile and quintal harmony?

I’m incredibly new to music theory so there’s a possibility my question doesn’t make sense or is impossible to do. So I’m currently learning Homecoming by Kanye in E minor. I would like to play the beginning chord progression the way this person does at 0:05 (in the song that chord goes lower, but he plays it higher if that makes sense). The problem is he is playing in Ab major I believe, and I am trying to learn it in E minor. Is it possible to transpose this? Thank you in advance.

So, I'm working on a song where I want to modulate from the key of D major to the key of F major. I know very little about music theory, and work mostly by ear. I came up with this progression that mostly works to my ear.

Dmaj

Bm

D7 -> Gm

Gm b6 (G Bb Eb) -> Gm6 (G Bb E)

Fmaj

I'm trying to figure out why this works. The first two chords are clearly in D major (I and vi chords).

The D7 to Gmin movement I think is moving us from the feeling of D major into D minor, the D7 gets us out of the D major feeling and resolves that into the iv which firmly plants us into D minor territory now. Since D minor is the relative minor of F major we have lots of chords to pivot on.

Then, I stick with the G minor as the pivot chord just changing the voicing to lead us chromatically into the F. Basically, the Gm b6 -> Gm6 progression has an upwards chromatic movement from Eb to E which feels nice resolving into the F.

I'm mostly getting confused on the function of the Gmb6 chord. It feels like it's helping push us into F major, but I don't know why it should work because the Eb isn't in either of the keys we're working with (D Major or F Major.)

Any explanations or even suggestions to improve this modulation are welcome! This is my first time trying to write something like this.

Can someone tell me if this performance by Chet Atkins is an example of Rubato technique? As I'm not sure . Thanks.

https://youtu.be/kHtwF-gpluc?si=lA8kVVPjenaAE8UT

I’m writing a lead sheet for uptown funk and I can’t figure out what key is the correct one to write it in. Can you help me?

Im pretty new to music theory and have a specific question. Recently I have gotten into downloading midi files for popular bands that heavily use dissonant melodies (Mostly Korn and Slipknot) and analyzing them to improve my own work. One of the things I saw was the use of more than two adjacent notes that dont fit into any traditional scale - “Daddy” by Korn, for example.

Anyways, I was hoping to have a discussion on how people make this work in a song, and determine what notes to use in their vocals. From my knowledge implementing that many adjacent notes together would sound terrible, but ive seen it pulled off. How would you go about coordinating a vocal melody on a song with notes like this in the instrumental?

This feels really strange to write but I love the feel, am I missing a easier way of writing this rhythm?

Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Ihb3PLbC0

All the sources I’ve seen have said that it’s counted as 6 quarter notes.

Writing a song on guitar and I’m capo’d on the second fret so really I’d be playing a E,G6,A,A minor but what would be the chords since it’s capo’d on the second and what key. Any help would be amazing.

On a side note I don’t like the sound of the A minor at the end. I wanted something that sounds more like a D minor(F minor on second fret I think) like almost an ascending sound to it with that same feel but I can’t find a not that fits.

Any help on anything would be appreciated!

I'm trying to learn how music basically works i guess...

What I've been doing is listening to music , writing down what emotion it evokes for me and analyzing what resources are used to create such emotion so then i can learn how to do it myself .

Other than production(especially panning }which i didn't put on the title because it would not fit , what other important things do you guys think i am missing , and what could I do to improve in those areas .

for some reason, I have searched sooo many examples of anacrusis and I still do not understand what it means. Here's a statement example of what i'm confused with:

Generally, in standard stave notation, compositions with an anacrusis are written so that the same number of beats in the pick-up are absent from the final bar -- so that the total number of bars in the score is a whole number.

can anyone explain it to me like im 5? also is this useful in making songs?

edit: big thanks! i already understood it. i figured out the only reason why im struggling to understand what an anacrusis is because i confused it with the slur! i thought it was a slur and when i learned about how time signatures worked and read your examples, i figured out it was the irregular bar before the music starts. I have absolutely no Idea why i confuse this with the slur.

note: to all the people who's starting to learn music theory, if you encounter anacrusis and have not much idea with how time signature in a bar works yet, then you will struggle a bit to understand what the anacrusis' purpose is