Seat-of-the-Pants-Music-Theory: What are the three chords most commonly used in a key?
Now that you know both how to build a scale and how to build a chord using that scale, let’s ask what are the three chords most commonly used in …
Seat-of-the-Pants-Music-Theory: How do I build a Chord?
Now that you know how to build a scale, we can ask, ‘How do I build a chord?’ First, let’s ask, what is a chord? I’m going to define a …
Seat-of-the-Pants Music Theory: How (and why) to build a scale using flat names
How (and why) do you build a scale using flat names instead of sharp names? In the last lesson, we learned how to build a one octave major scale. Recall …
Seat-of-the-Pants Music Theory: Build a Major Scale
Lesson 4 – How to build a scale OK, after all that talk about note names, sharps & flats, whole steps, and half steps, we’re FINALLY ready to build a …
Seat-of-the-Pants Music Theory: Define Whole Steps and Half Steps
Lesson 3 – Define whole steps and half steps You might ask why should I concern myself with music theory in general and scales in particular? My personal reason for …
Seat-of-the-Pants Music Theory: Naming the Black Keys on Piano
NAMING the BLACK KEYS on PIANO First, let’s review the white notes on the piano keyboard. Take a look at this diagram from the last lesson and make sure you’re …
Seat-of-the-Pants Music Theory: Naming the White Keys on the Piano
NAMING the WHITE KEYS on the PIANO Although your interest is probably NOT in piano music, I am going to use the piano keyboard for this lesson in Seat-of-the-Pants Music …