New answers tagged theory
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Confusion on modes
Being told by the app that a mode 'has one sharp', or 'has two flats' in itself is pretty useless. Unless it also highlights which number notes are affected.
It's not like 'there's a major key with ...
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Is there a common name for the scale [0 2 4 5 7 8 10] (C D E F G Ab Bb C)?
Make your choice, depending on the root note you want:
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Confusion on modes
I find it helpful to think of the pitches as "raised" and "lowered" to avoid confusion. So Lydian, for example, has one raised pitch compared to major. The actual note name could ...
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How is this called, and how do I play it?
It's a string of grace notes. To be played freely (but probably quite rapidly) as a lead-in to the main note.
The slash on the first note is a quirk of the notation program (Sibelius?). There are ...
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How is this called, and how do I play it?
It's multiple grace notes. The entire arpeggio is played rapidly as a lead-in to the primary note, the high C.
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Confusion on modes
It's common to describe modes (or any seven-note scales) by how they compare to the major scale- major is sort of the "default" scale in western music and music theory.
Lydian has one sharp ...
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Confusion on modes
The thing I'm confused about, lydian always have 1# in it? or dorian two b. Dosent this depend upon which major scale and mode? Or is the fixed amount of flats and sharps only applying if all modes ...
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When the third is omitted and replaced with a perfect fourth or a major second is a chord labeled "suspended?"
'Sus' is generally related to the lack of 3rd, being substituted by 2nd or 4th. In reality sus should be used when the 4th is used, and 'ret' (retarded) used for 2nd, but it's rarely applied.
iim7♭5 ...
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When the third is omitted and replaced with a perfect fourth or a major second is a chord labeled "suspended?"
The term actually comes from the situation where a note from one chord is "suspended" (i.e., "held across") into the next chord but is not a part of that chord. The quintessential ...
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Identifying a chord with seeming multiple suspended notes
E and G make up ^1 and ^3 of E minor. Often ^5 is omitted from a chord. With a D in the mix, it becomes Em7, quite at home in key C.
You haven't stated which order or octave those three notes are in, ...
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Identifying a chord with seeming multiple suspended notes
Without the surrounding context, it's impossible to accurately name a chord like D-E-G. That's because, unlike standard triads and seventh chords, it's not evident what the root of the chord is.
And ...
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Why is a minor chord or key considered to be "lesser?"
Personally, I find a lot of guessing in the answers. No real description of the history, etomology, of the concepts.
As a contrast, in the germanic tradition (German, Swedish, ...) the concepts are ...
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Why is a minor chord or key considered to be "lesser?"
I would say that to discern the difference in stature of the major and minor triad, we must go all the way back to the overtone series, which serreptitiously governs much of music theory. I don't ...
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Why is a minor chord or key considered to be "lesser?"
Major and minor, with reference to intervals, is quite specific. And it refers to 2nds, 3rds, 6ths and 7ths. The others are called 'perfect', and not particularly related to this question.
Each of ...
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Why is a minor chord or key considered to be "lesser?"
It isn't. The minor third between ^1 and ^3 of a minor scale is smaller than the major third of a major scale. That is the only way in which a minor key is 'less' than a major one. There is no ...
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Why is a minor chord or key considered to be "lesser?"
The interval, that is the distance, from the root note in a minor or major scale to the third note is called a third.
The interval called a third is either small or big which is called minor or major. ...
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Is there such thing as a secondary dominant (or 2-5) of the 7th degree?
You can certainly include viio in a 'cycle of 5ths' type progression. Whether you'd refer to the preceding chord as a 'secondary dominant' depends on how far you're prepared to stretch that ...
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Chords building blocks
You've stumbled upon the DNA of music. Yes you can re-harmonize any piece of music as you see fit but changing the song's chord progression is a little more tricky, especially if you are playing with ...
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How are 4th and 2nd species counterpoint combined?
Fux goes into more detail on this in four-voice counterpoint ligatures (page 125 in the Alfred Mann English translation). Recall that ligatures simply delay the following chordal tone. Thus, in strict ...
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Chords building blocks
Does every song consist of certain chord progressions?
There's a lot to that question. First of all, not all songs even have chords! And it is true that some chord progressions can become famous or ...
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Chords building blocks
Every song you hear that's written and recorded will initially have the same chords (and same melody) as original, but everything can change after that. If that's what you're asking.
If you're ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
All melodies have a harmonic basis.
Music is not just a collection of notes. Melodies have to have a harmonic basis, if they don't have the foundation of harmony then the melody is just an incoherent ...
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Is there such thing as a secondary dominant (or 2-5) of the 7th degree?
II - V - I a regular cadence with the subdominant being replaced by a functionally equivalent chord.
So then let us ask if there can be secondary tonality on the VII. First we see that clearly in ...
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Is there such thing as a secondary dominant (or 2-5) of the 7th degree?
In this video:
Jens Larsen says "I actually don't know of any songs that have a cadence to the seventh degree, but if I was to add a cadence to that one I would ...
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Is there such thing as a secondary dominant (or 2-5) of the 7th degree?
In your first sentence I think you meant to say “tonic”, not “root”.
Taking the ii chord out of the equation for now, a secondary dominant chord is typically a dominant chord resolving down a 5th to a ...
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Is there such thing as a secondary dominant (or 2-5) of the 7th degree?
When you bring up II V I and secondary dominant, it muddies the waters...
ii7 V7 I in major
ii7b5 V7 I in minor
...neither of those progression involves a secondary dominant, both are diatonic for ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
There can be further subtleties. Although a melody often implies a harmony, different harmonies can color the same melody. As an example, take this stoke of genius by Schubert in the opening of the ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
A melody is simply a musical "line", a collection of notes that are played sequentially as a cohesive musical thought. Almost any series of notes could be called a melody. A melody requires ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
I wouldn't work too hard to derive "truths" from this website. It has a point to make, and there are some good aspects to that point, but it's a very simple point and it makes it in a ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
Your question deals with pitch and how it is used expressively.
The expressiveness of a single pitch is limited, but I would not say it has no expressiveness, no character. Excluding other factors ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
Yes and no. There's often the definition of melody as a serial progression of notes and harmony as notes being played in parallel. So if you imagine a chord as being 2 or more notes being struck at ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
since a good melody does have a certain feel of mood, the melody is
built from both notes and chords
No. A good melody may imply chords, meaning that hearing the melody alone is enough to invoke ...
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A melody is built from both notes and chords
Generally speaking, the main notes that are in a chord are reflected in a melody, and vice versa. As in, chord of C in a bar, melody notes are often (not always!) C, E or G. By main, I mean beat 1 and ...
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Why do some intervals sound better than others?
On the side of "hard-wired" look up "Lissajous figures" on you tube. These show that pleasing sounding intervals produce pleasing patterns on an oscilloscope. This would suggest a ...
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Random Chord Progression Based on Circle of Fifths
The wording of your question could be clearer, but I think I understand it.
Given these diatonic chord: I IV V vi...
If you always start with I...
Can the following chords be IV V vi in any order...
...
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Random Chord Progression Based on Circle of Fifths
My answer comes from a slightly different vantage point, but: this absolutely happens, and it's one of the hallmarks of French impressionism (especially Debussy).
We call this pandiatonicism (...
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Random Chord Progression Based on Circle of Fifths
Surprisingly many chords will "work" in many situations, depending on your definition of what it means to "work". If the audience expects a certain chord progression and will not ...
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Random Chord Progression Based on Circle of Fifths
It will fail most of the time, which is why composers exist — to find ways to make otherwise random sounds "work". It's also why music theorists exist — to understand what allows some ...
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how to replace the diminished chord in a key to write a good song without a diminished chord (for example e diminished to F)?
Diminished chords can have many functions, so there is no universal way to exchange them with something else.
However, one very common use, which seems to be your case, is when a diminished chord ...
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how to replace the diminished chord in a key to write a good song without a diminished chord (for example e diminished to F)?
I guess you're thinking about the chord based on ^7 of the key of F - Edim.
There are other chords which could well come into play to include that E note. Am, C, C7, F▵, A7, F♯7 would all contain said ...
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how to replace the diminished chord in a key to write a good song without a diminished chord (for example e diminished to F)?
If you mean "use E" as a pitch as opposed to a chord, you can always harmonize that E (scale-degree 7) with a V chord, which in the key of F would be a C-major (or a C7) chord. This is very ...
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Before the primo passaggio is there another passaggio?
Keep in mind that a trained voice should not actually have a passaggio at all! Your vocal apparatus consists of muscles (vocals muscles) and ligaments (vocal cords). Pitch is determined by the tension ...
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Accepted
How to switch from Fixed-do solfège to Movable-do?
First of all (though off topic to the question but important for the situation): In Austria we use movable-do solfeggio pretty much exclusively in basic music education, such as in teaching melodies, ...
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How to switch from Fixed-do solfège to Movable-do?
Working with French musos, having been steeped in movable do, I appreciate your problem from the opposite side!
Chances are, you will by now have developed a pretty good 'absolute pitch', where do has ...
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Before the primo passaggio is there another passaggio?
Since there are three vocal registers (chest voice, middle voice, and head voice), there are naturally two transition points for a singing voice. These are known as the primo (first) passaggio and the ...
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Examples of neutral lines
A simple arpeggio pattern can be used as a neutral line between melodic motifs to provide a moment of relief and make the melody less dense. The neutral line can be any simple musical idea that ...
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How to switch from Fixed-do solfège to Movable-do?
As a first step, learn an entirely different system. It could be numbers (0 = C; 1 = C#; 2 = D; ...), scale degrees, or note names, for example, but what you're looking for is anything that disrupts ...
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Harmonic functions of these chords
The Adim chord is known as a "common-tone" chord. Common-tone diminished chords are often used to extend a tonic chord.1 In this case, it's acting to delay the tonic chord or smooth the ...
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Harmonic functions of these chords
Based on the reference you provided in comments your version of the chords in the key of A minor is incorrect and also leaves out the all important bass notes/inversions:
G#o7/B Am/C A7/C# Bb/D D#o7 ...
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Before the primo passaggio is there another passaggio?
Passaggio can be a region rather than a single pitch.
Some interesting ideas HERE
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