Music Theory Explained
Presented by life long musician and world class music technology instructor Eli Krantzberg, this collection of videos is the same info you get when you pay big dollars to go to music school and colleges, and contains all you need to know to get started on your musical theory journey.
The Basics
• Introduction to Sound (08:23) - Discover how sound can generate sound waves at either ordered periodic frequencies that have a strong fundamental pitch, or as chaotic irregular unordered patterns that are perceived of as noise.
• Notes & Names (07:33) - Learn how to identify all of the notes on a piano keyboard, as well as how to determine if the distance, or interval, between adjacent notes is a half step or whole step.
• The Staff & Clefs (09:21) - See how the notes on a piano keyboard correspond with the lines and spaces on musical staves, and how to determine the note names for staves with both a treble clef and a bass clef.
• The Major Scale (05:30) - Explore how to construct a major scale in the key of C major, and learn the names and numbers associated with each degree, or step, of the scale.
• Intervals (10:38) - Watch how to determine the quality of both simple and compound intervals.
• Key Signatures / Circle of Fifths (07:28) - Discover how the most closely related keys are a perfect fourth or fifth away, and how to use key signatures to identify them.
Meter and Time
• Meter & Time Signatures (08:11) - See how time signatures divide and measure time into discreet units of time called bars, which are based on pulses, beats, and sub divisions.
• Note Lengths (06:51) - Learn about the length or duration of the various different note values.
• Eighth & Sixteenth Notes (08:22) - Get detailed instruction on eight and sixteenth notes and how to read their note values.
• Rests (09:48) - Rests define silent space within music, learn about the various rest values and how to read them.
• Dotted Notes & Ties (14:11) - Discover how to read and recognize dotted notes and ties.
• Triplets, Tuplets & Tempo (12:12) - Explore how to read and recognize dotted notes and ties.
• Grooves (10:42) - See how note values relate to drum patterns and grooves.
Scales and Harmony
• Working with Major Scales (07:51) - Get some exercises and techniques to help you learn and master major scales.
• The Natural Minor Scale (07:00) - Learn the fundamental concepts and principles behind minor scales and how they are created.
• Harmonic & Melodic Minor Scales (10:18) - Discover the harmonic minor and melodic minor scales, two variations of the natural minor scale. Also hear how to practice them with the previous exercises.
• Harmony (11:04) - Explore the nature of harmonic relationships between the different scale tones, as we learn to construct triads built on a scale’s tonic, sub dominant, and dominant degrees.
• Diatonic Triads & Roman Numerals (08:37) - See how representing triads built on the different degrees of a scale with roman numerals can be used to identify their function within a given key signature.
• Minor Scale Triads (06:40) - Discover how triads are constructed on natural and harmonic minor scale degrees and how they are represented by the Roman numeral system.
Inversions and Arpeggios
• Triad Inversions (07:49) - Discover how to arrange the notes of a triad in inversions, so that either the third or the fifth degree of the triad is at the bottom.
• Arpeggios & More (07:23) - Learn how arpeggios are built and also some helpful exercises for practicing and remembering them.
• Voicing & Inversions (09:35) - See some real world musical examples of how different voicings and inversions can really add some drama, color, and emotion to otherwise static harmonic progressions.
Movement and More
• Melodic Analysis (08:47) - Melodies consist of either chord tones or non-chord tones. Learn the rules that guide and explain the movement of melodies in relation to their underlying harmonies.
• Secondary Dominants (11:20) - See how secondary dominant chords are created and used to make a note other than the tonic sound like a tonic.
• Seventh Chords (10:54) - Discover how different types of seventh chords are constructed and notated, and how their qualities are determined when built on major and minor scale degrees.
• Cadences & Modulation Chords (11:09) - Learn how different types of cadences provide different types of resolution at the ends of musical phrases, and how they are used to modulate from one key to another within the same piece of music.
• Other Scales (10:05) - Explore how whole tone, diminished, pentatonic, and blues scales are constructed and used.
• Notation (09:49) - Learn about commonly used notation articulation and navigation markings that guide performers as they are reading music.
• Modes (08:30) - See how the different modes pertaining to any given key signature maintain the exact same note pitches, but how the order of the notes is altered to modify the pattern of intervals contained within them.
• Sounds Like (09:02) - Have fun putting all of your new knowledge and skills to work by playing along with some popular chord progressions.