bro I'm tryna learn music theory and it's difficult as someone who has trouble listening + has a short attention span for stuff like that :( I'm gonna write about music theory here and then study it until I kinda get it YwY: The musical alphabet is 7 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G There are 12 notes on the piano keyboard: A, A#, B b, C, C#/D b, D, D#/E b, E, F, F#/G b, G, G#, A b - the same 12 notes repeat upwards and downwards in octaves The white keys play the natural notes, the seven letters of the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) - playing only the white keys puts you in either the C major key or A minor The black keys are the flat and sharp notes (A#/B b, C#/D b, D#/E b, F#/G b, G#/ A b) - 'b' is flat, '#' is sharp; You've probably noticed how the flat/sharp notes have 2 names - that's because the sharp that comes after a white key is the flat note for the other normal note it comes before. e.g., (A#/B b) A# comes after A, but comes before B. If a black key comes after a natural note, it's the natural note's 'sharp' version, and it's the 'flat' version of the natural note it comes before, so A# is also B b ----- An interval is a distance between two notes. There's several intervals - measure these intervals by the number of half steps, whole steps, and positions on the scale - A half step interval is one semitone (like taking half a step - some white keys have a white key that comes right after, instead of a black key in the middle; going from that white key to the one right next to it is a half step) - A whole step interval is two semitones (a full step - going from a white key to the next white key, skipping the black key in the middle, or going from a black key to a black key, skipping the white key in the middle) - Two half steps make a whole step (like fractions in math - 1/2 + 1/2 = 1) Intervals are the foundation of both harmony and melody - playing two or more notes at the same time creates chords (harmonic intervals); playing single notes in a sequence makes melodic intervals (melodies) We describe intervals by number (distance) and prefix (quality); the interval number represents the number of half-steps between two notes - these numbers are 1st (unison), 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th (octave) The five interval qualities are major (M), minor (m), perfect (P), augmented (A), and diminished (d) ---- Octaves are the next highest or lowest pitch of the same note; the interval between a note and a note double its frequency is an octave. (e.g., an octave up from C1 on a piano is C2 - octave down would be C0) - there are 12 semitones in the octave - these pitches repeat in the same order throughout the range of human hearing --- Key signatures tell what notes in a scale are sharp or flat - there's 12 key signatures, derived from the 12 available natural notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) - key sigs also help identify the key of a song, the tonal center (e.g., a song in the key of A minor uses notes from A minor scale) --- Musical scales form the building blocks of music - understanding scales and their functions is essential when learning the theory basics -- A musical scale is a set of notes within an octave arranged by their pitch - the ascending or descending interval relationships among the note pitches define each scale; the notes from a scale form melodies + harmonies - there's several types of scales; the two main types are the major and minor scale - you can build both major and minor scales from any note; how you use them depends on the intervals pattern you use - there's 12 possible natural major scales - natural major scales are bright and happy-sounding - the seven notes in all major scales follow same interval pattern, 'W-W-H-W-W-W-H (w: whole; h: half) - because the piano keys are ordered that way with the white and black keys - minor scales are more emotional/sentimental; the seven notes in all minor scales follow this interval pattern, ' W-H-W-W-H-W-W' - there are twelve possible natural minor scales - there are three variations of the minor scale, too; natural, harmonic and melodic --- going to stop there :3 - this was written mostly copying Icon Collective lolz (therefore, basically rewritten. go check out Icon Collective's music theory basics ^^)
basics written/taken from Icon Collective
