1 MUSIC THEORY: THE TL;DR VERSION By: Reginald Young / Neon The Rex 2 “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” -Pablo Picasso 3 WHY MUSIC THEORY MATTERS Composing without music theory is like mixing without EQ. It’s possible, but I don’t recommend it. The main problem with ignoring theory is that, chances are, you’ve grown up surrounded by Western music. And your ears probably prefer Western music norms. So the music you inherently prefer to compose will follow the rules of Western music. And by “rules of Western music,” I mean music theory. To break the rules, you have to realize you unconsciously follow them, which requires learning them. Once you learn theory well, you’ll see how to treat the “rules” instead as “guidelines.” Also, a tip on “studying” the theory concepts in this pdf: USE THEM. Write songs for the sole purpose of exploring diatonic chords, or do whatever you need to do to make things stick. Just use theory in any way you can and push into territory you’re uncomfortable with as often as you can in order to make it familiar and easy TL;DR: STFU and learn music theory 4 DISCLAIMER This guide is not: Academia-oriented Comprehensive Perfect ABOUT THE AUTHOR Reginald Young produces under the name Neon the Rex. Download his album, “Codex,” for free @ soundcloud.com/NeonTheRex If you find any errors, please let me know so they can be corrected! I can be reached by email @ [email protected] Music Theory: The TL;DR Version by Reginald Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Basic Melody 7 a. Major scale 8 b. Minor Scale 10 c. Intervals 11 d. Relative/parallel scales 13 e. Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales 14 f. Compound intervals 15 g. Inverted intervals 16 h. Modes 17 i. Pentatonic Major and Minor 21 j. Describing melodies 23 Neighboring and passing tones, pedal points, and chordal skips/arpeggios 2. Basic Harmony 24 a. Triads + 7th chords 25 b. Chord Inversions and Variations 26 c. Diatonic Major 27 d. Diatonic Minor 29 e. 5-6 Technique 30 f. Partial Chords 31 g. Extended Chords 32 h. Dominants 34 3. Intermediate Melody 35 a. Contrapuntal Motion (“Counterpoint”) 36 b. Phrygian Dominant 38 c. Diminished scales 39 d. Whole tone scale 40 e. Altered scale 41 f. How to harmonize a melody 42 g. Melody over chord progressions 44 h. Melodic Chromaticism 46 4. Intermediate Harmony 47 a. Secondary Dominants 48 b. Altered Chords 50 6 c. Applied Chords 51 d. Mixture I: “What is it?” 53 e. Mixture II: “Why use it?” and Example I (Viva la Vida) 55 f. Mixture III: Example II (Loud Pipes) 56 g. Mixture IV: Example III (Get Lucky) 57 h. Mixture V: Concluding Remarks 58 i. Phrygian II (Neapolitan chord) 59 j. Suspensions 60 k. Anticipations 62 l. Chord Movement Patterns 63 m. Modulation 64 n. Chromaticism 65 o. How to Analyze a Chord Progression 67 5. Rhythm 69 a. Rhythmic notation 70 b. Syncopation 73 c. Polyrhythms I: “What are they?” and 2 V. 3 74 d. Polyrhythms II: 3 V. 4 76 e. Polyrhythms III: Other polyrhythms and How to use them 78 f. Polyrhythms IV: Polyrhythm variations 79 6. Other 80 a. Time Signatures 81 b. How to Apply Theory Numbers to Notes 83 c. How Keys Work 84 d. The Circle of Fifths 85 7. Further materials 88 7 BASIC MELODY 8 THE MAJOR SCALE All scales are built on the concept of “steps,” which are either half or whole. A half step is the distance between a white key and the black key next to it on the piano. Or the distance of one fret on a guitar. The first two notes of the jaws theme are a half-step. The 2nd and 3rd notes of “Happy Birthday” are the distance of a whole step. Two halves make a whole; Add two half-steps together and you get a whole-step. Side note: Half-steps can be called semitones; Whole steps can be called whole tones. We can stack these steps on top of one another. As I tell my guitar students, imagine a ladder. Some steps in the ladder are 6 inches from the next, some are 12 inches. Stack a bunch of those steps together and you can climb to the next story of a building. This is the idea behind a scale; steps are organized in such a way that they arrive one octave up. “An octave” refers to a note twelve semitones above another. It’s important to know that an octave is the repetition of the same note. “C” an octave up is still a “C,” right? It’s just… higher, that’s all. With that in mind, here’s a major scale formula: Note: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 Step: Whole Whole Half Whole Whole Whole Half So what does that all mean? Here’s the way I notate it. A “^” means a half-step: 1 2 3^4 5 6 7^1 Notice, first of all, that I repeat “1” once the scale hits the octave. This is because it’s not a new note, remember? A “C” played an octave above another “C” is still a “C.” Alright, so that formula shows you that there are two half-steps in the major scale. One is between 3 and 4, and one between 7 and 1. On a piano, if you play a scale starting on C, you’ll notice the half-steps line up with the places where no black keys are present. Two white keys without a black key in between them on a piano are a half-step apart. Or on an open guitar string, you would play the frets: 0-2-4-5-7-9- 11-12. 9 TL;DR: Scales are built by stacking half-steps and whole-steps. The major scale is made of five whole steps, and two half-steps: between 3 and 4, and between 7 and 1. It can be written like this, where “^” means half-step: 1 2 3^4 5 6 7^1. 10 THE MINOR SCALE There are two approaches to understanding the minor scale. Both are important. First, the minor scale is like the major scale: It is made of five whole steps and two half-steps. However, the steps are arranged differently. It can be written like this, where “^” means half- step: 1 2^3 4 5^6 7 1 The half-steps in a minor scale fall between 2 and 3, and 5 and 6. That is the last time I will ever write a minor scale without notating any flats. And here’s why: The second (and much more common) way to conceive of the minor scale is by taking a major scale and flatting (aka, lowering by a half-step) the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes. We will write these from now on as b3, b6, and b7. So you can think of a minor scale compared to a major scale like this (again, ^ = half-step): Major 1 2 3^ 4 5 6 7^ 1 Minor 1 2^ b3 4 5^ b6 b7 1 Notice that by flatting the third note of the scale, you move it farther from 4 and closer to 2. This causes the half-step to move from between 3 and 4 to between 2 and 3. The same thing happens when you shift both 6 and 7 down a half-step. TL;DR: A minor scale is made of 5 whole steps and 2 half-steps. The half-steps fall between 2 and 3, and between 5 and 6. You can get a minor scale by flatting the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes of a major scale. It can be written like this, where “^” means half-step: 1 2^b3 4 5^b6 b7 1. 11 INTERVALS The word “interval” refers to the distance between two notes. The basic intervals are: Unison, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and octave. Each interval can be raised or lowered. We can divide the intervals into two groups: Group 1: Unison, 4th, 5th, and octave. Group 2: 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th. Intervals in the first group are called “perfect.” Raising them by a half-step results in an “augmented” interval (for example, an augmented fourth). Lowering them by a half-step results in a “diminished” interval (for example, a diminished fifth). The second group is the “major/minor” group. These intervals as referred to as “major” when they are unaltered (Ex.: a major third). If they are lowered by a half-step (aka “flatted”) then they are called minor intervals (Ex.: a minor 6th). Here’s the basic intervals and their distance: Interval Distance Unison 0 steps Diminished or flat 2nd 1 half-step (Perfect) 2nd 1 whole-step Minor 3rd 1 whole-step + 1 half-step Major 3rd 2 whole steps Perfect 4th 2 whole steps + 1 half-step Augmented 4th/ Diminished 5th 3 whole steps Perfect 5th 3 whole steps + 1 half-step Minor 6th 4 whole steps Major 6th 4 whole steps + 1 half-step Minor 7th 5 whole steps Major 7th 5 whole steps + 1 half-step Octave 6 whole steps Side note: You will see varying notation and terminology for intervals. A diminished fifth can be written as “d5.” Guitarists tend to call a diminished fifth a “flat-five.” In general, there are usually several ways to refer to music theory concepts, so choose the one that you understand the best.