Hyper Scale Extensions

If you've had alot of training with jazz, you should know the theory that is involved with BIG chords like Cmaj9#11b13 or the like. However, this lesson takes it a step further. Keep in mind, this is a freakin advanced lesson, no one hear will understand anything on this post unless you know a heck alot about chords, harmony and scales. IF you do, then keep reading!

Let's ask a question, is there a difference between a major 3rd and a diminished 4th? Well seeing how diminished means to lower a perfect interval by one semitone, that would mean they are the same interval right? Yes and no. Although they are exactly the same thing physically (at least in 12tet), the difference is in function. If you play a major scale and play C and E, you get that bright, lame, major third sound haha. But now try playing the scale C Db Eb Fb and do this alternating playing the C and Fb. Fb is the same note but now it feels different, more dark and dissonant, not like before. This is what I call functional difference. There is physical and contextual difference. Although there are only 12 intervals physically in our musical tuning system, there are far more functional intervals. For practicality, we don't consider every one of these intervals though, some we use more than others, or is it that we're just lazy.

Now let's talk about Hyper Extensions or HSE's. What are they? It's not some shoulder exercise. They are hypothetical extensions that exist beyond the 13th of the major scale.  I'm going to make up a term that we will call the scale's limit.  This is not like the harmonic limit of a tuning so bear with me. When I say scale limit, I'm talking about the note at which the scale stops going up in fifths. If you read the beginner theory course, you should know that a major scale is created by building a cycle of 6 fifths and making the 2nd note of the cycle the tonic, the collapsing it into a single octave.

Like this: F C G D A E B  into C G D A E B F into C D E F G A B. 

However, notice how B is where it stops? This is what we call the scale's limit. The major scale has 6 fifths as a limit. But if we wanted to go higher, can we? Of course, there are no rules in music after all.
We can extend it to add a fifth between B and F# which changes alot.
F C G D A E B F#    So what did we do here? We added a note logically to the major scale. Though it's not exactly a major scale anymore, or it is but it's got a new note now. This is what we call a Hyper Scale Extension. Hyper meaning beyond the scale.

Putting Hyper Extensions into extended harmony 

The easiest way to do something with Hyper Extension is to put them into an extended chord. 

This is where things get a bit complicated though because we now have to think beyond two octaves. 

Look at this F C G D A E B, in this we learned that half steps are five notes above the lower note in the half step. That means that F# is a half step from F. That means that it's F# not Gb! Why does it matter? Because if we called it Gb, it would get confusing. So just call it F# for now and you'll see in a minute why it's not Gb. 

Let's build a cycle of thirds on C. C E G B D F A, this is as high as we've gone, but now let's go another third higher. If you remember how the cycle of thirds moves Major third to minor third forever. That means the next highest note is C. So we have C E G B D F A C right? Ok so what does this mean? C is just the octave right? Yes but not exactly, because this C is Two octaves, we'll treat it like extended harmony which mean we will call this a 15th not an octave. Ok so, there isn't a difference between the 15 and the 8 but there's a huge difference in the #15 from the 8. So what we're doing is adding an aug15th to our chord which gives us C E G B D F A C# which is called a Maj13#15 chord. Now that's a huge chord so we can omit certain notes. The fifth isn't needed so we can leave that out. We can also leave out the 11th because that doesn't sound good with the #15.  Can we leave out the ninth? Nope, without context, leaving out the ninth, the C# becomes a b9 which is a Db.  It's the sounds of the major seventh from D to Db that gives it it's flavor so the D is very much needed.  The A can also be left out but then we would just have a Maj9#15 chord.  One other thing, every interval higher than an octave will be altered either diminished or augmented and you just have to figure them out. 

So that's it right? Nope, we can go higher if you want all the way until you return back to the Root. I will warn you though, the colors higher up than the #15 are more exotic sounding which is fun but not useful in every aspect. They are cool though, but the world of using the last five notes in extended harmony is uncharted by 99 percent of musicans. If you want the relative minor to the Maj9#15 chord, all you have to do is create a minor scale from the 7 fifths and throw in the 7th fifth. 

If we take C E G B D F A and make it A B C D E F G A then add the HSE #15, A B C D E F F# G. 

Now just throw in the F# up high. Now you get a Min13#20. Gah, that's a high number.  

Have fun!

Looking at our new color pallet

Slicing up the Octave into Sixteen Parts

Before we begin our journey to understand and play in a different tuning, we should first roughly understand what we mean when we say split the octave into 16 parts. Think of an octave as a loaf of something good like french bread. mmmm  Now, imagine cutting the bread in such a way that all pieces including the ends are the same size. In our case, the french bread, or italian bread or whatever, would be cut into 12 pieces. On on each end, and 10 in the middle.  Now, let's say we wanted to cut the bread into 16 pieces, all the same size. That would leave one on each end and 14 in the middle. That's alot smaller pieces! The term, "Microtonal" would refer to any loaf of bread that has pieces smaller than than one-twelfth of a piece of bread. As weird as it sounds, our bread (tuning scale) of 12 equal pieces is the standard by which we measure EVERYTHING else. Wow! Anyway, now we have a loaf of bread with 16 equal pieces. We could have taken the bread before we sliced into twelve and cut each slice in half making 24 equally sized pieces but that's another blog post. :D     Moving on, now we have 16 pieces of bread. Think of the two ends of the bread (the one's I like to eat) as the same. They are on opposite sides of the bread, yet they are both ends. This is how the octave works. This means that essentially, there are only 15 pieces of bread plus one duplicate of the first on the end making 16. So 16 notes in an octave technically is 15 unique notes plus one stuck on the end as a higher version of the bottom note.  So we have 16 pieces of bread here, what do we do with it? Good question, I'm going to write about my investigation on here for all y'all to read!

Why 16? Why not 19, 22, 36 or 108? Why 16? OR more importantly, WHY 12?! I picked 16 because A. It's easier cuz it doesn't have too many notes to start out with. B. It's cool, and it has some neat intervals before we get into bigger scales.  Why 12? Well long story short, we had a scale called the diatonic scale and the people wanted to make it transposable to 12 keys. Why not 13 or 18? I dunno, they just wanted to. But we can do whatever we want right!?

Let's assume a few things here about our goals.

Since music all over the world uses different methods of arranging pitch to make music. We will say we're mainly going in terms of the "western approach" meaning focusing on chords and tonal movement, perhaps tension and resolution but may'be not yet. We may focus on color first.

We want to make pretty melodies as well.

So we generally are going for a chord + melody approach.

Etude in a Four-Tone Scale

This is an etude I wrote experimenting with the idea of writing music in smaller subsets of the major scale. The result was pretty cool. It uses quartal harmony and complicated melodic ideas and it doesn't really sound boring even though the song only uses four notes with a small transposition at one point for variation.

Melodic Minor Etude

This is a melodic minor etude written in extended pentadic harmony. You can clearly hear the sound of the mode without problems from diminished and augmented chords getting in the way.

Rest of the intervals ~ PMT #8

Now that we have learned how to find all the major scale intervals with the COF, let's take a look at some of the other intervals we haven't looked at yet.

The Minor Interval 

Before, we discussed that a major interval is one semitone wider than a minor interval, right? When we say wider we're referring to raising the UPPER note in the interval. This means that we can now kinda see that any minor interval can be found simply by lowering the upper note be a semitone or minor second. Speaking of which, a minor second is a major second with the upper note lowered by a semitone, so that makes plenty of sense. We can easily find minor intervals on the COF as well but this way, you don't have to memorize more interval movements. The Minor Third can be found by taking a major third and lowering the top note by a semitone. For example, AC# = Major third and AC = Minor Third. Ok, we can do the same with a Major Sixth. If we have DB, we have a major sixth because we moved three steps clockwise as 

D A E B then flat the B to get D Bb which is a minor sixth. Major Seventh are the same way. Remember, this can ONLY be done on major intervals. We cannot flat a perfect fifth to get a minor fifth as there is no such thing in our music. However, there is one more interval we haven't looked at. 

The Tritone

The Tritone is the result of dividing the octave in half as it is the dead middle of the octave. If you look below:

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C 

 This interval is odd because it goes under two names other than tritone. So think of "tritone" as a name like semitone and whole tone. Another name this goes by is Diminished Fifth which is a Fifth that is lowered by a half step. For example if we have a perfect fifth of DA and we flat the A then we get D Ab which is a tritone or diminished fifth. However, we can also sharp a perfect fourth to get the same interval. DG, sharp the G and get DG# which is an "augmented fourth" DG# and DAb are the EXACT SAME interval. We just call one an augmented fourth and one a diminished fifth. This will make a whole lot more sense in a moment. 

Scale Alterations

Most people will not bring this up till around the advanced level but I feel that this is important to understand so you're not confused later. Since we already know how to make all the major scales, I will tell you something important. Any note in those scales, can be altered to make a different scale. That's a no brainer but many people get confused when they hear "alteration" An alteration is nothing more than raising or lowering a note by either a whole or half step. For example, if we have a C scale and we sharp the D, then we have an alteration on the D note. The scale C D# E F G A B C is not a C major scale anymore because we altered one of it's notes. We could flat the note as well, C Db E F G A B C and it makes no difference, it's still not a C scale anymore. 

Naming the Tritone

The way intervals in scales are named depends on what number of note the upper note falls in on the scale.

In other words, if we have a fifth, that means that the top number of that interval is on the fifth note of the scale. As a general rule, there cannot be two versions of the same number of interval. Meaning, a scale cannot generally have a sharp four and a regular perfect fourth. So, this means that if we have a Sharp four, then we cannot have a another interval with the name of any kind of fourth in the scale. If we have a perfect fourth, then we cannot have a sharp fourth and therefore, the scale would contain a diminished fifth. 

So a scale can have either a diminished fifth and perfect fourth or a perfect fifth and a augmented fourth. If this is difficult to understand, don't worry, knowing whether or not a tritone is a diminished fifth or augmented fourth doesn't matter very much as understanding that they are the SAME interval. 

Just remember that the Tritone, Augmented Fourth and Diminished fifth are all the same interval. 

ASSIGNMENT

        Practice making minor intervals and tritones on different scales. 

        Try to find all the intervals of different scales. 

        

In the next lesson we'll dive into chords. 

About Polymusic

Polymusic is a new, unique musical advancement that I currently have just begun developing. Simply put, it is the simultaneous use of both polyharmony and polymeter or polyrhythms to create complicated, vivid textures that are currently not available within the bounds of other music. Polymusic is NOT a style, but an application of polyharmony and polymeter or polyrhythms  I'm intending it as a new form of Jazz and Post Rock but may also be able to be applied to any style of music.

Polymusic makes extensive use of "Polyharmony" which is an experimental usage of two (or more) simultaneous harmonies acting as one. Polyharmony is made up of bitonal hexads or two triads played as one bitonal chord. Each hexad contains two separate fundamentals or half-tonics making up one gigantic bitonal Tonic. An example such as C/D. Polyharmony makes use of what I call "Complex Polychords"  which are polychords(slash chords) that can have multiple chords within the chord.  In other words, a chord progression can be played over a slower different chord progression. D, E OVER C   is an example of a complex polychord. This means that a C chord is played over a progression of D to E. How these chords will officially be notated and what exactly is involved is completely open as of this point as the project is very new and nothing yet has been decided. Polyharmony could involve complexed movement between two or more simultaneous chord changes. Due to this, one problem we're currently facing is avoiding the conflicting harmonies to become muddy.  

In addition to polyharmony, polymusic also is polyrhythmic or polymetric meaning that it has the simultaneous uses of multiple rhythms or time signatures being played against each other. Although this portion is simpler than polyharmony, conflicting rhythms can also become muddy or just bad sounding if care isn't taken to experiment and develop the idea.  Most likely, the use of traditional time signatures and measures in polymusic will be counterproductive and quickly get very complicated on scores and notation. Therefore, polymusic will also require the development of a new system or alteration of rhythmic notation in order to become more practical. 

As of now, the project is extremely new and therefore doesn't have any ground set theories or information yet. Only ideas that have not been tested. Please leave a comment if you're interested in joining the project.

Finding Intervals with the Circle of Fifths ~ PMT #7

Lesson 7: Finding Intervals with the Circle of Fifths. So far we've talked about scale building with the COF and how we can find whole steps using the COF. In this lesson we're going to begin to learn the intervals of the major scale using the COF.  By now, you should have to whole COF memorized near perfectly. If you know it well enough, then this lesson will be a piece of cake.

Whole Steps/Major Seconds = Two Steps clockwise in the Circle; We talked about how we can move two notes in the circle clockwise and get whole steps such as G D A, GA are whole steps or Major Seconds apart.  The important thing to remember about this is that when I say move in the COF, I mean that we ONLY count, when we move to a different note so just like before, we never count the note we started on. Major Thirds = Four Steps in the COF;  To find major thirds, move four steps clockwise such as G D A B, the notes GB are Major Thirds apart. You can start to see that we can build ANY interval from any note just by knowing the distance in the COF. Like, let's say we had A#, what would be a major third from it? Just move four clockwise in the COF, Bb 1F 2C 3G 4D  So D, is a major third higher than A#.  Remember that we're making intervals HIGHER not lower, the upper intervals is higher than the lower interval.
Right, moving on!

Perfect Fourths = One Step COUNTER CLOCKWISE in the Circle; So all we're going here is moving backwards one in the circle. If we have D and want to play a fourth higher, than we play G because it's one fifth lower.  One fifth lower = One fourth higher.

Obviously, you already know how to play perfect fifths.

Major Sixths = Three Steps clockwise in the circle; If we have Db, then a major sixth from it would be Bb. ~    Db 1Ab 2Eb 3Bb     Major Sevenths = Five Steps clockwise; So, if we have B then a major seventh from B would be: B 1F# 2C# 3G# 4D# 5A#  or B 1Gb 2Db 3Ab 4Eb 5Bb   Same thing.

So we have

Major Second = Two Steps clockwise
Major Third = Four Steps clockwise
Fourth = One step counter clockwise
Fifth = One step clockwise
Major Sixth = Three Steps clockwise
Major Seventh = Five Steps clockwise

These Seven intervals make up the major scale which means now we have another way we can think about it. You can actually build a major scale directly from these seven intervals by knowing the relationship to the COF. The cool thing about this is that you don't have to memorize intervals for every note, just use the circle to find them.

ASSIGNMENT:
       Memorize the formula to find all seven intervals on the COF from any note.
       Review the Circle of Fifths

In the next lesson we'll look at the rest of the intervals.

Defining the Tonic ~ PMT#6

Lesson 6: Defining the Tonic.  Let's talk about stress. And no, I'm not talking about what happens when you're overloaded with school work and constantly have people telling you what to do. In music, stress is how we define depth, or different layers if you will. There is also Relief which we will discuss later.  Stress basically is when we take some element, note or chord in the music and put emphasis on it. The highest stressed note in a piece of music is called the "Tonic" This is the same thing as what I've been referring to as the "bottom note" or "base note". It kind of becomes the base of the music (and no, I didn't make a spelling error, bass is something different.) Basically, the foundation.  The tonic is always referred to as the same letter name as the scale. So C major, the note C is the tonic. Db minor, the note Db is the tonic and so on. Very often, the tonic ends up being the lowest note on the main chord o a song. It will literally sound as if everything revolves around it.  Which adds to our understanding slightly, from now on, we will call the bottom note of a scale, the tonic.

If we take seven fifths from G, and reorder the scale with the second note as the bottom of the scale we get
D E F# G A B C# D so in turn, this means that we could also say: Take seven fifths from G and reorder the scale with D as the tonic.  This means we can now look at the major scale and COF in two point of views:

A. Take Seven fifths and make the 2nd note in the sequence the tonic
B. Build a sequence of seven fifths a fifth BELOW the note which we want to make the tonic.

So example A is just what we've been doing. Example B, is just another way of looking at it because we're picking a tonic for our major scale then going a fifth down to figure out the notes of the scale. They're the same thing, what I'm trying to do is get you to start thinking about this stuff as collective ideas. Right, so Example A would be like taking C G D A E B F# and picking G as the tonic making a G major scale. Example B would be like taking G as the tonic and going down a fifth and building seven fifths for the rest of the scale. So one goes backwards but they're both the same result. Here's the thing though, there is one more way of looking at this which completes the understanding.

If we have C G D A E B F# and make G the tonic, we get G major right? But if we flip the scale into
G D A E B F# C then we can now see that we could have just taken Seven fifths directly from G and flatted the last fifth by a semitone giving us the EXACT SAME result. Which means now we can do this.
D major would be seven fifths from D which is D A E B F# C# G# then flat the last note to G which gives us
D E F# G A B C# D.   You may find that as a quicker and easier way to understand the concept and build major scales more easily. So now, we pick a note to be our tonic build seven fifths and flat the last note in the sequence and BAM! Instant major scale. By now, if you know the COF very very well, then you should be able to make major scales from any note without any problems. But remember how to do it like before as well. It's extremely important to know that we place stress on the 2nd note in the sequence to get a major scale because later, we'll discuss how placing stress on different notes in the sequence creates different modes. But that's quite a bit away.

So what is the tonic? It's basically the note the music revolves around. That simple.

ASSIGNMENT:
           Keep working on learning the COF
           Review and practice making major scales with both methods

Onto finding intervals with the COF

Whole Steps and Half Steps

Lesson 5: Whole Steps and Half Steps  There are basically two fundamental intervals in music, Whole Steps and Half Steps. A half step is the same thing as a semitone as in it's just a consecutive note in the chromatic scale such as C# to D or B to C.  A whole step is the distance of two half steps or skipping a half step if you will. For example, C to D, there is a C#/Db between these two notes so therefore, it is a whole step. On a guitar this would be skipping a fret or the distance of two frets. Now, we already talked about building scales with the Circle of Fifths by taking seven fifths in a row and reordering them by pitch in a single octave. We also said that we could turn this into a major scale by making the 2nd fifth in the sequence the bottom note. Such as. D A E B F# C# G#, A becomes the bottom note and the scale is reordered into A B C# D E F# G# A. You'll notice how that there is a combination of whole and half steps to get this result. A to B is a whole step but C# to D is only a semitone or half step.

If you've had any traditional theory, you may have heard of the Whole-Half method of building scales.
Such as a major scale having the formula W-W-H-W-W-W-H The W represents a whole step and then the second W represents another whole step from the second note in the first whole step. What we're essentially doing is starting the following interval on the upper note of the previous interval  In other words, it looks like this:  CD  to  DE     These are both whole steps because they both have a sharp shoved up between them. After E, is F though, which means now it's a half step. So we have CD  DE  EF  then FG which is another whole step. And we have whole steps GA  AB  and Finally, BC which ends the cycle on a half step. At this point the whole pattern repeats itself creating an endless C major scale.   There is a couple of reasons I don't like this method but then there are reasons that I teach it anyway.  One, knowing the formula of Whole and half steps isn't nearly as useful as knowing how scales are built from a sequence of fifths such as we did before. The reason is that Whole Half gives us almost no relation to harmony or tonal gravity. The one thing it
does give us, however, is knowledge of half steps. These half steps will become very important later on in this course, so you should remember where they exist in a major scale.

Half Steps and Whole Steps related to the Circle of Fifths 

So how do we relate this to the COF? Ok, well, if we keep in mind that major scale comes from taking the 2nd note of a sequence of seven fifths(try saying that three times fast), then we'll have the correct mindset for thinking. Basically, think of a whole step in the COF almost the same way you think of a whole step in the chromatic scale. It skips a note. If we have CGDAEBF#, then C to D is a whole step and D to E is a whole step. So every other note in the COF is a whole step apart. That's it, that simple. 

Half steps are a little more confusing. To find half steps apart, we have to move in the circle five times. 

So C then 1G, 2D, 3A, 4E, 5B  therefore, B is a half step lower than C. If we want to find one higher than C we have to go seven steps in the circle, C G D A E B F# C#.  But then again, what's the point of this if half steps are just consecutive notes in the musical alphabet you should already know? There isn't one. So I'm just mentioning that using the COF to find half steps is ridiculous. 

This was a bit of a more technical lesson, so just keep these concepts in the back of your mind. 

ASSIGNMENT: 

                Remember what whole and half steps are 

                Get feel for relating whole steps to the COF don't worry about half steps with the COF

                

Onto: Investigating the Major scale

Building Scales with the Circle of Fifths

Lesson 4: Building Scales! So now that we've looked at the Circle of Fifths, I'm sure you're like "So what the heck is it for?" Well, in this lesson we're going to begin to see the power of the COF in all it's glory. We're going to learn to build scales. Quite simply, the COF's sole purpose is to organize the chromatic scale by a logical order, more specifically, by order of tonal gravity. This means that the closer a note is to another note in the circle, the more naturally the note tends to lead into the other. In other words, moving by the COF, naturally creates flowing sound. C naturally goes to G and G naturally goes to C or G also can go to D and D goes to G or A but not C necessarily. I think you get the point.

To get scales such as the major scale, we simply take seven notes in a row from the COF. Say we started on C, then to build a scale off of C, we just take seven notes : C, G, D, A, E, B and F#  Then we order those seven pitches into chronological order based on the Chromatic scale:  C D E F# G A B C   This isn't a major scale btw, it's a lydian scale if you're wondering but we'll get into that much later. Let's do it with F now!  F, C, G, D, A, E, B  organized into:  F G A B C D E F.   Now let's do something harder like Eb!    Eb, Bb, F, C, G, D, A E organized into: Eb F G A Bb C D Eb! As long as you know the COF, you can find any of the notes in any scale.





Now these scales are called Diatonic which isn't very important to use now but what I'm saying is that these are a specific kind of scales, you can't make, say a A melodic minor or Hirajoshi scale with the COF in this way.

Building the Major Scale

Up until this point, we've only been interested in an ambiguous scale of notes but now we're going to learn how to create a major scale from any note. All we have to do to make it a major scale is start the sequence on the second note so if we have seven fifths from F:  F C G D A E B then we would make C the bottom note.  C G D A E B C then we would have C D E F G A B C which is the C major scale. Another way to look at this is to take a note like G and to make a G major scale, then we would go down a fifth from G and make seven fifths from that note, which would be C in this instance.

G major scale = C G D A E B F# which becomes G A B C D E F# G  

Db Major Scale = Down a fifth from Db is Gb or F# which is

     Gb Db Ab Eb Bb F C which then becomes Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db 

Basically you're just ordering the scale where the 2nd note in the sequence becomes the bottom pitch rather than the first note. As we'll learn later, this is where modes come from, it's just picking different notes in the sequence to be the base of the scale. Although we'll get into Minor scales later, in case you're curious, the minor scale can be made by starting the sequence on the fifth note.  

So if we have seven fifths from G:  G, D, A, E, B, F#, C# then we would order it 

B C# D E F# G A B  Easy enough?  We'll learn all about minor scales a little later. 

ASSIGNMENT: 

              Practice constructing major scales and rows of seven fifths from all notes in the musical alphabet

              Keep working on learning the COF 

Good luck! When you're finished here, move onto Whole steps and Half steps.

Getting Comfortable with the Circle of Fifths

Lesson 3 - The Circle of Fifths  So far we've looked at what pitch is and how we use eleven pitches plus the octave to build the musical alphabet or chromatic scale which contains all the pitches or notes we use in our music. Now we're about to get into an extremely important concept that we'll change the way you look at scales, chords and everything! I'm talking about, the circle of fifths.  This is perhaps the most known, common, well known aspect of theory out there next to scales. Yet, this is so poorly taught, confusing to understand if not taught in a simple manner and most people don't even get what the COF(Circle of fifths) is even for. Until now... :D

Basically, the circle of fifths or COF, is a device in which we musicians can logically structure the whole musical alphabet or chromatic scale into a way that makes sense. Instead of grouping the pitches by stacking them right next to each other, they are spread out. If can be used to voice lead, create smooth chord changes, and even better, it can allow you to create any scale and understand how the notes of that scale work with each other EFFORTLESSLY! Well, may'be not effortless but it's more of a system that works like: If you know the COF well and how to use it, it takes care of sooo many aspects of theory. That's why I teach it on lesson 3 and not on lesson 45 like some people. In order to understand te COF though, we need to first know what a fifth is.

A perfect fifth (which is a perfect interval like the Octave), is a distance of seven semitones. This means, to get a fifth, we count up seven semitones in the chromatic scale. So, if we want a fifth from say, I dunno, A!
Then we start at A, and count:  A# B C C# D D# E, since E is on seven, E is a fifth from A! Don't get caught up in the newbie mistake of counting A as 1, A is zero, when you get to seven, you have arrived at a perfect fifth! We can do it with C too, C is zero, then 1Db, 2D, 3Eb, 4E, 5F, 6Gb... and seven makes G! So G is a perfect fifth or just fifth from C.  Easy enough. Although we can do this all day, it's very slow and inefficient compared to just memorizing the COF by heart. The entire circle of fifths (With sharps) is: CGDAEBF#C#G#D#A#Fand back to C making it a circle.

Or you could always just look at the pretty picture down there:

This circle is SO important and we will make extensive use of it in the following lessons. Also, you need to be able to know this COF forward and backwards because you will need to be able to move in both directions. Even better is if you know it well enough to skip around such as A# comes after G# if you skip D# ect...  Another thing is that if you know the COF, you don't have to count seven semitones everytime you want to play a fifth from something, you'll already know what it is.

Rules about the Circle of Fifths

When the same musical is played consectively, you will eventually end up back where you started. If might be in a different octave but you will end up on the same letter name. Such as if we played a fifth from C which is G, then D then A then E then B then F# then C# then G# then D# then A# then F then C again. this can be done with any interval but it's a good logic to remember about musical intervals.This is why it's called a CIRCLE or in some places, CYCLE, same thing really.

The circle can also move clockwise or counter-clockwise, it doesn't matter. We'll learn in the upcoming lessons which way you go for what purpose.

ASSIGMENT:
                     Learn the whole circle of fifths very well.
                     Cough *  Learn to play fifths on you're instrument... might be a good idea. ;)
                   
Once you have a good grasp on the COF, we can learn about scales:
   On to:  Building Scales with the Circle of Fifths

Working with Musical Intervals

Lesson 2: Working with Musical Intervals   -   Music, chords, songs, melodies and so on are basically made up of one main component; Intervals. What are intervals? Well, just as an interval of time is the distance between two points in time such as an Hour, a Day, A year, A century and so on, a musical interval is the distance between two pitches. Because there are twelve notes in the musical alphabet, there are twelve intervals you need to know in theory and most likely, it would be a fantastic idea to learn where they are on your instrument as well. Every interval sounds unique with no two alike. C to D is an example of an Interval for instance. Intervals make up the music you hear and play and they can be played together such as in chords or they can be played one note after another in low to high or high to low. The point is, they are simply the distances between pitch and which ones you use will DRASTICALLY effect the way something sounds. There are twelve intervals, because there are twelve possible distances from a single note in the chromatic scale. Intervals are also ABSOLUTE meaning they can be moved around to different notes and still have the same flavor but a slightly different color depending on how low or high they are.

The first, most basic interval is the Octave, which we already learned is two of the same notes but one higher and one lower. The octave is the most consonant interval meaning it sounds the most crisp and pure of all the intervals. If we split the octave into 12 equal steps, then we get the musical alphabet. The distance from one of these steps to an adjacent note is called a Semi-Tone or Half Step. And no, I'm not British, I just think that semitone sounds better as an interval name.  From this point, it's a good idea to look into how the interval naming system works.

Basically, as we said before, the chromatic scale has 7 letters in it with 5 sharps/flat versions, right? Well, think of those seven letters as being the base for the interval numbering system. This means that if we have we play an interval of C and B towards the upper C, then we would have a seventh because B is seven letters away from C. Likewise, if we play C and G together, we're playing a fifth because G is five letters away from C.

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
 1              2               3  4              5              6               7    8

C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
 1              2               3  4              5              6               7    8

Obviously, this won't work in any key except C. But what I'm trying to get you to understand is how this numbering system works. When we get to scales, this will make a whole lot more sense.

Interval Types 

There are five types of intervals_ Major, Minor, Augmented, Diminished and Perfect

Don't let those terms scare you, they aren't as difficult as you think. It's all about understanding what they mean.  Major means larger and Minor means smaller. Basically Minor is a semitone lower than Major which is a semitone higher than Minor. Augmented basically is taking an interval and raising it a semitone higher than  a major interval. (Augment means to make larger so think of it like making the distance a bit wider) Diminished is the opposite; it just means to lower a minor interval by a semitone. Finally Perfect means that the interval has the least amount of unpleasantness to it.

There are only three perfect intervals. Octave, Fifth and Fourth
There are four intervals that have major and minor versions, Second, Thirds, Sixths and Sevenths
Augmented and diminished gets a bit complicated though because of dealing with en harmonic crap.
(It can get annoying just so you know ;) )
There are also Tritones, augmented Sixth and Unison  btw

Obviously, discussing all these intervals in this lesson would get really LONG really FAST and it's pointless so I will tell you that we will be discussing all of these in depth as we progress.  Right now, we're mostly interested in understanding a little of how intervals work and what they are.

Assignment:
             It would be a good idea to learn how to play the semitone on your instrument. Also get yourself comfortable with the five terms I mentioned.

Terms:
          Major - Wider Version
          Minor - Narrower Version
          Augmented - Wider than Major
          Diminished - Narrower than Minor
          Perfect - Sounds pure and crisp

Let's now take at look at fifths!

The Musical Alphabet

Welcome to Lesson 1! In this lesson, we'll begin our musical journey by discussing what pitch is and how it relates to everything else in music as well as learning about the Musical Alphabet AKA, the Chromatic Scale.

Basically, everything we hear is made up of pitches. Pitches are simply vibrations of a certain frequency. We don't really need to know anything about these frequencies though. What's important is that these pitches make up the sounds we hear. Every pitch has a different color then another. Although, to the untrained ear, they may sound virtually the same. When the frequency(which is the number of times something vibrates per second) is doubled, the pitch has exactly the same color as before, BUT it will sound higher. If we halve the frequency, again, the pitch sounds like exactly the same color BUT it will sound much lower. This is what we call "Octaves"  Basically we have a pitch of say 100, (This pitch would be EXTREMELY low and inaudible to humans but for simplicity of example, it's 100)  If we make this pitch, 200, then the pitch would be one octave higher than 100, if make it 50, then the pitch is one octave lower than 100.

All of these octaves would all have the same letter names. Let's say that 100 is the note C, so that means that 200 would also be the note C an octave higher than 100 and 50 would be a C one octave LOWER than 100. They are all C's yet one is higher and one is lower. And to your ears, they would all sound like the same note but higher or lower than each other. So if we have Three octaves of C_ 50, 100 and 200, we would have an infinite number of pitches in between 50 to 100, and 100 to 200 right? Of course, only doubling and halving the frequency would give you C, that means that any notes in between these numbers would NOT be C's.  Let's say we could have some kind of F note at 145 right? or a B at 194 and so on... This means that we have octaves but we also have notes in between them.

In our music, we divide these infinite spaces up into 11 equally spaced pitches plus the octave which means we now would have eleven notes in between 50 to 100 or 100 to 200. These eleven notes plus one octaves make up what we call "The Chromatic Scale" which basically is every note in our musical system in a row. There are seven letters: A B C D E F G and then at the octave, A again but this time, an octave higher. And no, there is no H I or J. Not in our tuning anyway, why? I have no idea but they decided to stop at G. Guess they thought "Alright guys, seems like that'll be enough notes." Besides these, everyone of these letters has a sharp or flat version of it except for B and C  or E and F. The reason for this is that our 12 tone scale came from a simpler seven note scale. I will discuss this more in lesson 5.

Flat - To move a note down one in the chromatic scale, denoted with b sign
Sharp - To move a note up one in the chromatic scale, denoted with # sign.

This gives us:  A  A#/Bb   B C   C#/Db   D   D#/Eb   E F   F#/Gb   G   G#/Ab    A...

The notes that have /s between them are en-harmonic which is just a fancy term for "The same thing spelled differently" A# means to move A up one note in the chromatic scale, Bb means to move B down one note in the chromatic scale. Both result in the same note. So therefore, A# or Bb it doesn't matter what you call the note.  Just think of it as there can only be ONE note in between a regular letter such as A. So, deductively, you can figure out that A# which is one up from A and Bb which is one down from B is the same note.

The trick is to remember which notes do and DON'T have sharps/flats between them because knowing how the twelve notes relate to each other is how we begin to visualize musical space. These letters make up what's called "The Musical Alphabet" which is the like the color pallet we have as musicians. However, as I said before, there are an INFINITE number of possible pitches in between an octave which technically means, these eleven notes are by no means the only notes possible. But they are the standard in which we use to write music and generally,  in western music, notes outside of these pitches don't exist. There are a few exceptions though such as Blue notes and bends, which we'll learn about MUCH later.  Basically, every note on you're instrument (Unless you have an instrument like a violin or cello) is one of the notes of the Chromatic Scale.

Assignments
                 Memorize the Musical Alphabet and also be aware of E-F or B-C having no sharp between them. Also remember what an octave is, and it would really be a good idea to listen and learn how to play them on your instrument.   I would also remember what a # and b is and what they mean because I will be referencing them and the chromatic scale through out this course.

Terms:
            Sharp -  Raising a note by one step in the chromatic scale
            Flat - Lowering a note by one step in the chromatic scale
            Musical Alphabet - All the notes we have. AKA, The chromatic scale
            Octave - Two versions of the same note, one higher and one lower. Also, the distance from two of the same notes.
         
Good luck!  On to working with musical intervals!

Introduction to Music Theory

I've heard the same thing repeated over and over." Music theory is a pain in the butt." "It's useless, it doesn't do nothing for me", and so on... This is a big lie. Honestly, there is are a small percentage of people who are so gifted that they don't need theory to make great music, but even then, those people have a TON of problems trying to communicate their ideas because all they can do is play but don't really understand what they're doing. This course is going to hopefully destroy this mentality of "I hate Theory" because I'm going to show you how music theory can, although usually isn't, be practical. I'm going to teach you what I believe to be the core theory that I feel everyone should know.

Before you start the course, let's discuss what music theory can do for you. For starters, music theory is basically "Explaining what sounds good and why" This means that theory came AFTER music, music was first. Theory is there to explain how we can arrive at the good sounds and how we can get similar results over and over. Put blatantly, Music theory is repeat-ability. So does this mean that using will make the music seem lifeless and overdone? Of course not, Music theory, at it's roots, was designed to explain HOW composers did what they did. However, over time it has evolved into what I call "Musical Perception" or "Musical Science". In this, I'm stating that the music theory I use and am teaching here isn't what you might think of music theory because rather than just understanding the ideas behind good sounding music, I want you to understand music at it's core and be able to mold it into anything you'd like.  Music theory has become more of a "Science" rather than a "Theory." Why? Because, a theory is "A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be" _ Google.

Put in simple terms, it's something people come up with that is used to explain something that wasn't done on purpose. Such as some people played some cool music and said "Oh yeah, I like that" then later, someone came along and through observation, concluded that there were basic principles behind the great sound that the player got. Although the player may have not been aware of exactly how or why the music sounded the way it did, another guy came up with a "Theory" to why it worked the way it did and how a similar result could be achieved later. However, nowadays, music theory is no longer like this. Nope, rather than explaining why something works the way it sounds, players are more interested in how they can relate ALL the ideas into one giant understanding I call "Musical Understanding".

Simply put, it's the ability to see patterns, structure and logical reasoning by a network of different ideas, sort of like physics or math but in music. Although, I'm in no way bragging, just as not everyone is talented in math or physics, not everyone is talented in music theory. BUT Everyone can reach some degree of fluency in any math or physics if given proper teaching, so the same can be said with music theory. This brings me to the point that music theory can be thought of as a subject of it's own. The difference is unlike math and physics which are based on actual occurring instances, music theory is based on "Hey that sounds cool!"
In other words, Music Theory is limited to Human perception.

This Course is going to give you a solid grounding in Theory and will prepare you for the second course which goes towards attaining music theory fluency and understanding the system as a whole.

Now that I've blabbed on about What Music Theory is, let's talk about what makes it so useful!

1. Using theory makes my music sound boring and repeated, no no no... Although it is possible for this to happen if you try to use theory as a crutch, generally, a good understanding of theory will help you to break the rules. How can you break the rules if you don't know what they are in the first place?

2. Music theory is too complicated and doesn't make sense, again, this is mostly due to bad experiences of trying to learn theory. Keep in mind that outside of a college degree, music theory is usually not intended to be fully comprehensive, as it is here.

3. Music theory is boring and takes too much time to learn, I just wanna play! Oh gosh, may'be if you would take the time to read the course, you might be surprised at how intriguing things can get. At some point you'll hit an Eye opening statement and be like "Oh my gosh, so that's why that works!" Knowing theory can make you very skilled.

Enough of this, let's get started learning some theory!
Head on to:  The Musical Alphabet

Welcome to Kentaku's Theory and Composition Lab! If you've ever had problems and even pure frustration with music theory, this is the site for you! No, seriously, this site is dedicated to teaching theory and songwriting concepts of Music without the pain or fuss. I'm attempting to teach you music theory that is not only easy, but practical. I believe music theory ain't useful if there isn't any purpose to it. Which is why "How to use" sections are included on many of the articles and lessons here.  If you're more advanced, I also will write on here about my more advanced concepts.  This site primarily focuses on Guitar and Piano but I think about anything with a pitch to it can greatly benefit from this site. Well, may'be "greatly" is a bit of a stretch but I'm trying!

If you've never known anything about music theory, try my "Puppy's Complete Course to Music Theory"
This will be the ultimate beginner theory guide that will take you from knowing nothing to a fairly decent grounding in theory. There will also be the "Anatomy of Music" Course" which is a more upper beginner towards advanced course that will take everything such as "modes", "scales" and so on and teach you how to understand them as a whole allowing to hear everything relative to each other.  Please be patient, none of this is finished yet, but it will be soon.

Basically, I'm attempting "Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese" for Music Theory.

Later :D