- Music theory is essential
for any piano player
or musician, whether you
wanna compose or not.
Today, is the ultimate
introduction into music theory.
Of course, we are gonna be talking about
what is music theory?
Followed by notes and the
relationships between them,
which is huge for theory.
We got keys and key signatures.
Scales, and then lastly,
we're gonna bring it all full circle
by combining everything together,
talking about building
chords and progressions.
So let's take a look at
what is music theory?
How would I define music theory?
Well, music theory is, basically,
understanding how music works.
To do that, we observe the
relationship between notes.
There are a number of types of
relationships between notes,
which we will, of course, talk about.
Right now, the distance
between notes is one of them,
which is intervals.
Which we'll talk more about,
and then, we got the sound of notes
being played together,
that's your harmony.
Voicing of notes from left
to right, that's our melody.
The timing of notes between each other,
which is your rhythm.
So obviously, I can have ...
Now let's get a piano up in here.
So obviously, I can have
the distance between notes.
Oh, I don't have this on.
The distance between notes,
you'll hear it in a second.
The distance between notes.
This is called an interval.
And then, you do have the sound of notes
being played together.
So, here's our intervals.
So they're all intervals.
Intervals can be really far apart,
they can be really close together.
And then, we do have
basically, the timing of notes,
which is your rhythm.
You know, I was just playing one note,
but I was playing in a
repetitive pattern over time,
so that is our rhythm.
We're gonna talk more about
these in detail right now.
Okay, we're gonna be
talking about intervals.
A interval is the
distance between pitches.
Intervals can be read
harmonic, up and down,
or melodic, left and right.
Whenever you have notes
that are up and down,
they're being played at the same time.
That goes perfectly with what I just said
about harmony, and then you can go from
left to right as well.
Intervals is the same thing.
In fact, looking at the sheet,
I actually made a special practice sheet
for this lesson, you can
find in the description.
Well, we're gonna take a look
at it together right now.
As you can see right here,
we're just looking at these
first two measures here.
We have notes from left to right.
See that?
We got,
let me get a pen here.
So you got left, you got right,
and the notes run from left to right.
Well that, any time you observe that,
you're talking about some kind of melody.
Whether it be the main melody,
usually the melody is
on the top of the piece.
If you have Jingle Bells, for example,
which I always use for this example,
'cause it's so good.
You have your melody up here.
And often, melody is the part of the piece
that you're gonna be humming to yourself,
and thinking about.
Harmony is the background chords to it.
When you have this sort of thing,
taking our melody of Jingle Bells,
these notes all have a
relationship to one another,
in terms of,
in terms of intervals.
So here, obviously, I have
between the first two real notes,
you know that's up a third,
those are three apart,
one, two, three.
And then, between those two, that's five.
So taking a look at
our example here again,
that our intervals are really here, here,
I'm actually not gonna circle them all,
'cause I do want you to do the assignment.
But as you can see, they are ...
You're basically going from note to note,
looking at the distance between each.
Actually, the distance
between this F and the G here.
By the way, intervals are
signified, basically, by number.
So you, first of all, have a unison.
Say I have F,
and then a friend of mine
on another piano plays F.
Well, we call that unison,
and you've probably
heard that saying before,
singing in unison.
That means you and your
friends, or whoever,
are singing the same
thing at the same time.
And then what they tend to do is,
after that, they go in
order, number order.
So second, is the next one,
so if you have a note in the next note,
that's a second.
You skip one, that's a third.
Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth.
Well you've probably, if you've
taken piano lessons before,
you probably recognize that
your teacher may have said,
that this is called an octave.
Well think about it.
Oct, right?
Octave.
Think about octopus.
The oct word means eight.
So, an octave is an interval
based on eight notes.
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight,
just like that.
All these intervals here in our example,
are all seconds so far.
You have from F to G.
So that's a second, one, two.
Then you have from G to A,
that's a second as well.
G, A.
All seconds.
Now, for the assignment, you
don't have to write them in,
but I'm just kinda showing you that
intervals are all signified
by a certain number.
Let's take this B to this E, for example.
The B,
is right here, the E
is right here actually.
This view is better.
B E right here,
and then all you do is you
count the note you started on,
count the notes in between
to the ending note.
So one, two, three, four.
Therefore, that interval is a fourth.
So that's how you do it,
you just count the notes
on the outer edges,
and then the notes in between,
and that gives you your intervals.
Okay, harmony.
Harmony is the relationship
of notes being played
at the same time, as I mentioned.
We're actually gonna take a
look at a specific example.
Harmony is often illustrated
in terms of chords.
Let's take a look here at
an example that we have.
So, we have this
notes being played at the same time.
Let me get this a little
larger, so we can see
what is happening.
Over here,
we have an F and an A being
played at the same time.
So right away, if it's being
played at the same time,
you know that that's a harmony.
One thing I wanna mention is that
you can also combine,
because the left hand is
being played at the same time
as the right hand, you
can combine the two,
and actually, the whole thing is harmony
between the right hand and the left hand.
If I play all those
notes at the same time,
as you should,
you'll get something like this,
although there's hand
crossing going on right here.
You know, if I play all those notes,
let's show you here.
At the same time.
As you can hear, it
sounds kinda like a chord.
A chord, by the way, as we'll
get to later in the lesson,
is just basically when you
stack notes evenly like that,
you're playing more than
two notes at a time.
That is, technically, a chord.
So remember, harmony, up and down,
and then, melody, left to right.
Very very important you understand that.
All right, let's move
on to the next thing.
Okay, I wanna quickly elaborate on melody,
using this same example
we were looking at.
If this part was the harmony, right?
Up and down and vertical columns.
Well, the rows from left to right,
are the melody.
So you know, this is the melody,
because all these notes are happening,
just one note at a time.
Now obviously, they are being played
along with the harmony too,
but you can read them from left to right.
That is the melody, and that's
what a melody will look like
in an actual piece of music.
Okay, now we're gonna talk
about keys and key signatures.
Also very important in music.
Let's take a look.
A key tells you the notes
commonly found in a piece of music.
Keys have a number of sharps
or flats, but not both.
So, going to our keyboard here.
Say I have the key of C,
which is basically, key of C
has zero sharps, zero flats.
That means you can expect to see
a lot of these types of notes,
a lot of the white keys,
because there's no sharps
or flats to be found.
In the key of C,
the tonic, which means
the starting note, is C,
and the notes in between
are D, E, F, G, A, B and C.
That gives you the layout
of what notes you're
gonna be using in a piece of music.
Now, can you use any sharps or flats,
in the middle of a piece?
Well sure, but they
aren't a part of the key,
they are actually using
notes outside of the key.
Just like that.
Now the key of G, for example,
like I mentioned, keys can
have zero sharps, zero flats,
they can have a certain amount of sharps,
up to seven, and a
certain amount of flats,
also up to seven.
Now, like say the key of G for example,
this time, has an F sharp in it,
and that's just one of the
ways you define the key of G.
It has an F sharp in it,
and the tonic, meaning the
starting and ending note,
are both G, so that's
some ways you can tell
what key you're in.
You look for the tonic,
which is the beginning and ending notes,
then any sharps or flats.
So let's take a look at our
example here once again.
A key is designated by what
we call the key signature,
right here.
Now, we're not gonna go
into all the key signatures,
and how to memorize those,
I've made lessons on that already.
I'll try to make sure to
link you to a description,
link you to, in the description,
when you come across those,
but a key signature, are
just the sharps or flats
that appear in the beginning of a piece,
that tell you what notes are sharp or flat
throughout the whole thing.
That goes along with the key, right?
Because, if you had the
key of G, like I mentioned,
you'd expect an F sharp
in the key signature.
In this case, this happens to be,
it's a little tricky,
it happens to be in C minor,
which happens to have these three flats,
B flat, E flat, and A flat.
Let me show you right here.
So B flat, E flat, and A flat.
Those three flats.
Every other note is a normal, standard,
regular, natural note.
In the key of C minor,
what are some things, how
will we know it's in C minor?
Well, the tonic, right?
The beginning and ending note will be C.
Like that.
In between, we're just gonna go up,
but every time we hit a B, E or A,
it's gonna be flat, instead
of the regular note.
So remember that a key
just tells you what notes
are sharp or flat.
Don't try to wrap your head too much,
if you don't know your keys already,
in memorizing every key right now,
just understand that a
key tells you what notes
you can expect throughout a piece,
and the key signature is actually
the physical representation,
in the beginning of the piece,
telling what key, basically,
you're playing in,
and what sharps or flats you could find.
Sforzando, so you hit it suddenly,
and then you back off the sound.
Okay, next we're gonna talk about scales.
I would define a scale.
A scale is when you put
all the notes in a key,
starting from the tonic
to the other tonic,
and all the notes in between.
So far, actually by
showing you how keys work,
I've already shown you quite a few scales.
When I played C, and all
the notes in between,
for the key of C,
that's the C scale.
That's one of the reasons
we learn our scales,
because it helps you
understand the visual representation of
where the sharps and flats are.
Obviously, in the key of C,
you don't need to worry about it.
In the key of G, I
actually played the G scale
for you already,
'cause you play all of
the notes, basically,
starting from the tonic,
ending on the tonic,
and all the notes in between,
including any sharps
or flats you may have.
Like the key of C minor,
the C minor scale was that,
with the appropriate flats
where they need to be.
Don't skimp out on your scales,
because your scales, actually,
if you're interested in theory,
which you should be, because
it's really important,
whether you wanna compose or not.
You should become
familiar with your scales,
because then you'll know, like that,
what sharps or flats,
visually on the piano,
there are in a key.
For example, the key of E, right?
I haven't even talked about that one yet,
but because I played my
scales about a million times,
I know,
that there's four sharps in here,
and they are located right there.
So playing the scale is really
really really important.
In fact, if you play a piece in a new key,
I recommend playing the scale first.
It really really helps.
Okay, so chords.
I mentioned a little bit
about chords earlier.
A chord is when you play two
or more notes at the same time.
So, let's take a look here.
So a chord, on the piano,
will obviously look like this.
You know, there's a C chord.
There's an F chord.
There's a G chord, and so forth.
All chords.
Now, sometimes you can have
a chord with only two notes,
but that's not really a
specific type of chord,
that's just that you're
leaving out one of the notes
in the other types of chords we have.
One of the types is called a triad.
Which is a three note chord.
One, two, and three.
Sometimes, some of the notes are doubled,
like you'll see C, E, G and then C,
I'll play it at the same time,
and you may be thinking,
well, that's not a triad.
Well, yes it is.
It's three individual notes.
If any of the notes are repeated,
it is still technically a triad.
As you may surmise,
there are many many types of chords.
Every chord has a different
type of a sound, by the way.
So there's major chords, happy.
Minor chords, sad.
Diminished chords, scary.
Augmented chords, mysterious, I would say.
There's a ...
And you can fit these into the pieces,
based on what kind of
mood you're going for.
If a composer is writing a piece,
they wanna sound sad,
first of all, they
write it in a minor key.
I should have mentioned there
are major keys and minor keys.
The minor keys sound sadder,
and use mostly minor chords.
It makes sense.
Go for something sad, use minor.
If you're doing an upbeat,
happy song, use major.
Okay, some of the other types of chords
that I wanna mention, just briefly,
this isn't lesson just on chords.
They are your triads, obviously,
then you have your sevenths,
your extended chords,
suspended chords, and of
course, there are plenty more
than that, especially
as you get into jazz.
There will be (mumbles) chords,
but all you need to know today,
is that a chord is really
when you're playing
two or more notes, being
played at the same time.
Now, chords and harmony can
be used interchangeably.
Like I said, chords are really
a way to describe harmony.
Instead of just saying, okay.
There's harmony going on there.
Well, what kind of harmony?
An F minor triad harmony, that's what.
So that's just a way to
further describe the harmony going on.
Next, we're gonna be talking
about how to build chords
on a scale, because that will tell us
what chords we can have in any given key.
What is a key again?
Think about it.
A key is, basically,
the notes that you can
typically find throughout
a piece of music.
If there's no sharps, no flats,
that's the key of C.
Then you can have a certain
number of sharps, up to seven,
certain number of flats, up to seven.
But let's talk about,
let me show you, actually,
a scale on the piano first.
So there's our scale, right?
We have eight individual,
or eight notes total,
seven individual notes,
C, D, E, F, G, A,
B is our seventh.
Well, on each of those notes,
if you evenly stack notes on each of them,
like a snowman, you can build
some triads on each note.
Now I'm gonna show you what
this looks like in a second.
We'll see if it does
anything wonky, though.
Okay, so we still have
the scale in place, right?
We still have C, D, E, F, G,
it's all the bottom notes,
is chords A, B and C.
But now, I've stacked
triads on each of them.
So instead of this,
whoops.
It's more like this.
Just like that.
One chord, two, three,
four, five, six, seven,
and then, we're not gonna
call this chord eight,
because it's just the same
as the first chord we did,
so that is basically the same
chord over and over again.
Okay, let's take a look here.
So you can see here that
we can label the chords
a one through eight.
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, and eight,
just like that.
Eight chords, although
I should just write one,
like I said.
Shame on me for not doing that.
Okay, so now we basically
have seven chords
that we can use in a piece.
Now this is true.
You can borrow chords from other keys,
but we're not gonna talk
about that right now.
These are what we call diatonic chords,
which means they are
chords that exist in a key.
Which is really important in
discussing our next topic,
which should be chord progressions.
A chord progression is
a pattern of chords,
using a piece of music.
You can take the chords we built
and make a pattern out of them.
The most common chord regressions
are the primary chords,
now these are Roman Numerals,
but this is one, four and five.
Now it's very common
for chords to be written
in Roman Numerals, and
if the Roman Numeral
is capital, it signifies a major chord,
if it's lower case, it
signifies a minor chord.
So let's take a look at what we have
here in our example again.
What did I mention in the slide?
Which ones were the most important?
Which ones were known
as the primary chords?
Well, let's circle 'em.
One, four,
five,
and they often go back to one.
Well now, let me ignore
all the other chords
in between, and let me just
play the chords that are
squared, in this case.
I meant to circle 'em, but here we go.
So one,
four,
five,
one.
Hey, we just played our
first chord progression,
so that's all you have to know,
is that a chord progression
is a set pattern of chords,
that's usually repeated many
times throughout a piece.
You can use more than one
chord progression per piece,
but the chord progression
really helps out the
overall harmonic sound of the piece.
Again, think,
if you ever build chord
progressions yourself,
think about whether the
chords are major or minor,
in terms of what chords
you wanna use, right?
All of these happen to be major.
But say you wanted a
more melancholy sound.
My computer, hold on.
But say you wanted a
more melancholy sound.
So maybe instead of one, four, five, one,
which are all major chords,
maybe I'll do one, two,
which has a minor kinda
sound to it, right?
Two, five, one.
So you can mess around with
the chord progressions a bit,
but just know that the most
common chord progression
in all of music is what?
The primary chords,
one, four, five and then
back to one, usually.
Okay, if you liked today's
introduction to theory,
and you're thinking, I kinda get it,
but I really want some more practice,
or maybe you get it really solid,
and you really want to
learn more about theory
than ever before, well,
you'll wanna go to my website,
pianolessonsontheweb.com.
I have links in the description for you,
of all my theory classes
that you can take.
I would start with music theory level one,
if you're brand new.
A great review of what
we talked about today,
but it also is really helpful because,
not only is just videos,
like you're seeing now,
there's also included
assignments and worksheets
and things really, really
to help you practice
each of the individual things
that we talked about today.
So make sure you check out
the link in the description
for that, and use code
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