Music theory lessons

Short lessons with exercises you can hear and check.

Notes and Octaves — The twelve pitch classes, how they repeat in octaves, and how to name any key on the piano.
The Major Scale and Scale Degrees — How the major scale is built from whole and half steps, and the name/number of each degree.
Intervals: Seconds and Thirds — Measuring the distance between two notes, starting with the smallest and most common intervals.
Intervals: Fourths Through Octaves — Completing the interval catalog — the perfect intervals, the tritone, sixths, sevenths, and the octave.
Key Signatures and the Circle of Fifths — Why some major scales need sharps or flats, and how the circle of fifths organizes all fifteen of them.
Minor Scales: Natural, Harmonic, Melodic — The three forms of the minor scale, and the difference between a relative and a parallel key.
Rhythm and Meter — Note values, beats, measures, and the difference between simple and compound meter.
Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented — Stacking thirds to build the four triad qualities, and how to recognize each by ear and by interval content.
Diatonic Triads in Major — Building a triad on every degree of the major scale, and naming each with Roman numerals.
Diatonic Triads in Minor — The same idea applied to the natural minor scale — a different, equally fixed, pattern of qualities.
Seventh Chords — Adding a fourth note on top of a triad — the chord type that drives jazz, funk, and functional harmony alike.
Chord Inversions and Figured Bass — The same chord, different note in the bass — why inversions matter, and how figured bass notates them.
Non-Chord Tones — The notes that don't belong to the underlying chord — where melodies get their color and forward motion.
Cadences — The harmonic punctuation marks that end phrases — and how each one lands with a different weight.
Voice Leading Basics — How to move between chords so the individual lines stay smooth — and the two motions traditional harmony avoids.
Functional Harmony: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant — Grouping all seven diatonic chords into three roles that explain why progressions feel like they go somewhere.
The ii-V-I and Other Common Progressions — The single most common chord progression in tonal music, plus a handful of other recurring shapes worth knowing by ear.
Secondary Dominants — Borrowing the dominant-to-tonic pull and pointing it at a chord other than the tonic.
Modulation to Closely Related Keys — Changing tonal center smoothly, using a chord both keys already share.
Modal Mixture and Chromatic Harmony — Borrowing chords from the parallel key — a way to add emotional color without fully modulating.
Modes and Modal Color — The seven modes of the major scale — same notes, seven different centers of gravity.
Phrase Structure: Motive, Phrase, Period — The building blocks between a single note and a full song — how small ideas combine into larger ones.
Musical Form — How phrases and periods combine into whole pieces — from binary form to the modern verse-chorus song.
Tension and Release: Consonance, Dissonance, Expectation — Naming the single mechanism behind everything you've studied so far — why music feels like it moves.
Music Perception: Tonal Hierarchy and Tendency Tones — Why some notes feel more 'at rest' than others — the listening theory underneath everything you've learned.
Applying Theory to Songwriting — Turning tension, release, and form into practical songwriting decisions — hooks, repetition, and pacing.
Capstone: Analyzing a Progression From Scratch — A worked checklist that pulls every lesson in this course into one repeatable process.
Melodic Development: Sequence, Inversion, Retrograde — Turning one short motive into an entire melody without running out of ideas.
Counterpoint Basics: Independent Voices — Writing two melodic lines that each stand on their own, and still sound good together.
Advanced Modulation: Common-Tone, Chromatic, Enharmonic — Three ways to change key when there's no smooth pivot chord to lean on.
Instrumental Ranges and Timbre — The starting toolkit of orchestration: knowing what each instrument family can actually play, and where it sounds best.
Voicing Techniques: Close, Open, and Drop Voicings — The same chord can be spaced a dozen different ways — each one changes how it actually sounds.
Writing for the Rhythm Section — Drums, bass, guitar, and keys each have a distinct job — arranging is deciding who does what, and when to get out of the way.
Bass Line Writing — From root-and-fifth patterns to a walking bass — building a part that supports harmony and moves on its own.
Countermelody and Harmonic Fill — What to write in the space the lead melody leaves behind.
Arranging Texture and Register — Why the same chord progression can sound thin, thick, cluttered, or clear — depending only on how it's spread across register.
Song Arrangement Structure: Builds, Drops, Transitions — Applying tension and release at the production level — where a song adds instruments, and where it strips them away.
Writing for Horn and String Sections — From a single unison line to full harmonized section writing, without the notes turning to mush.
Capstone: Arranging a Lead Sheet for an Ensemble — A worked checklist that pulls every lesson in this unit into one repeatable arranging process.
How a Voice Is Made: the Whole Chain — Power, source, filter, radiation: the four-stage model that organises everything about singing technique.
Breath and Subglottic Pressure — Why loudness comes from pressure, not from air volume — and what 'support' actually is.
The Larynx: True Folds, False Folds, Cartilages — Where the sound is made — and the neighbouring structures (the false vocal folds, the epiglottis) that can help or ruin it.
Phonation Modes and Registers — Breathy, flow, pressed; chest, head, mix, falsetto, fry: what's physically different and how to blend them.
Resonance, Formants and Larynx Position — Why a low, stable larynx gives a rich tone, what the singer's formant is, and why the larynx tends to climb.
Jaw, Tongue, Lips and Soft Palate — The articulators shape vowels — and tension in them travels straight to the larynx.
Vocal Health, Warm-up and When to See a Doctor — Habits that keep a voice for decades, a safe warm-up, SOVT exercises, and the red flags.