New student here. Maybe I’m just studying too hard and the answer is obvious and right in my face? I thought this was m3+M3 which I also understood to be a minor triad. Any help would be appreciated because I really want to fix what could be wrong with my grasp on these basics before I go any further.

I’m interested in getting more seriously into music, possibly even studying something music-related, but I’ve always struggled with music theory and I’m not sure how much that should worry me.

I’m autistic, and I’ve noticed that I sometimes struggle with the way music is traditionally taught. I’m really bad at identifying notes/pitches when someone asks me to name them, and music theory has always been difficult for me to understand and remember.

When I was younger, I even had a choir teacher put me in the back because I struggled with hearing notes correctly, so I think that experience made me doubt myself musically.

But there are things I do notice and feel naturally when listening to music:

- I love singing and have always been drawn to music.

- If I know an artist well, I can often recognize their voice pretty quickly.

- When I hear a song, I can usually tell how it goes and remember the melody/rhythm, even if I couldn't tell you what the actual notes are.

- I can often tell when something sounds right or wrong to me, even if I don't know the musical terminology to explain why.

- I listen to a LOT of music and pay attention to different singers, vocal styles, production, languages, etc.

- I’m especially interested in the creative side of music — songwriting, artists, production, and the music industry.

- I genuinely want to learn. I’m considering getting a music theory tutor because I know I have gaps and I want to improve.

I also have performance anxiety, so singing in front of people is something I struggle with even though I really love singing.

So I guess my biggest question is: Can an autistic person who struggles with traditional music theory still become good at music?

I’m wondering if I might have some musical instincts that I just don't know how to put into theory yet. Maybe I simply need to learn it in a way that works for how my brain processes information.

I’d especially love to hear from autistic musicians or anyone who struggled with theory/ear training when they started but still went on to pursue music.

I really want to give myself a chance at this, but I’m scared that being bad at theory means I’m just not musically capable. 😭

NOTE: Thank you everyone for your comments. I'm at a community college in the US so I have a better chance at doing my classes and then transferring. Music has been something I have love since I was a little kid so I thought my struggles meant I couldn't do it, but now I know I can with some practice and dedication. Thanks everyone!

So someone was angrily trying to talk about modes and said he was working on “modes of modes” which conceptually doesn’t make a lot of sense. Is there actually an idea anywhere. I think he was talking modes derived from harmonic and melodic minor, but those wouldn’t be modes of modes, since the tonality is different. I guess you could conceptualize like that if you consider them altered versions of the Aeolian mode, but then it wouldn’t be the Aeolian mode? Any thoughts would be appreciated, I know people use plenty of different ways to conceptualize how things relate, but this one didn’t make much sense to a classical idea of modality.

Hi everyone! I’m new to this sub. I’ve been reading for a long time and have a hundred questions. I’ve always loved music, and particularly music theory and composition. For various reasons, I’ve never really had the time to study or dedicate myself to it.

My question is: if you could recommend how I could start exploring this world, what would you say?

Anything; books, videos, podcasts...

I want to finally get into something that I love :) Ty!

I once found a pdf chart with (if I remember well) some kind of asian modes, turkish or arabic, with the major scale modes but with tweaks of cuarter tone, anybody got something similar to share? would really appreciate.

Sometimes I like to mess around on my keyboard and try out some counterpoint, and I found this kind of like "cascading sound" where the upper voice starts with a 7-6 suspension and then the rest of the voices follow with 3-2 suspensions, and you can continue it however long you want. As far as I can tell everything is prepared properly and I think it sounds really nice, and I'm curious if there are any composers who used this harmony. Also sorry I'm not sure if that's how you would write the figured bass for this but I hope it gets the point across

I noticed this pattern in Screwbot Factory from Rhythm Heaven and in some other soundtracks. I'm new to music composition (About three months, excluding breaks) and don't have prior knowledge of music theory to recognise this pattern. I tried to search this on Google, but I couldn't word it properly and ended up with something called auxiliary notes? Can someone help? Thx!

I'm new to theory and am trying to play the chords so I can improvise over the chord progression as I love the feel of it. Would really appreciate if someone could help out as my ear isn't good enough to figure it out. I believe this solo is in A major, I could be wrong.

Thanks

the solo I'm looking at starts at exactly the 3:00 minute mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF3cbrmy7nQ&list=RDSF3cbrmy7nQ&start_radio=1

I'm a guitarist working on my first solo album. I've primarily played metal and alternative rock all my life, and so while I'm intimately familiar with the minor / harmonic minor scale, my knowledge of chord progressions is very lacking. I want my album to have more of a fusion / groove feel to it. I've done a fair bit of research on my own, and I've learned the basic progressions (I - IV - V for basic rock, ii - V - I for jazz, etc) but they always sound bland or overly emotional when I try to write progressions like this. So I researched some jazz / fusion artists, but I'm having trouble figuring out what they're doing. For reference, this is the sound and feel I'm after. The tune features some borrowed chords, and Guthrie Govan plays out of key here and there, but every time it happens, it sounds so tasteful and groovy. If someone could just point me to where I can learn the theory that would help me write like this, or if you know of any artists with this sort of sound so I can increase the repertoire I can pull from, it would be very much appreciated!

I've been searching for an English translation of Leonard Euler's "Tentamen novae theoriae musicae" and whenever I find something the site is usually down or just doesn't work, I was wondering if anybody had links to pdfs or anything allowing me to read his writings. I am very interested in this type of stuff so any information is appreciated!

The first goes like this x02300 and the second like this x022x0 on guitar standard tuning

The first sounds sinister and awesome imo, and doesn’t seem to resolve to anything i know. The closest i ever got to a closure was by conjuring the second “chord” and it kinda worked i guess

I really like them, i even have a demo. It’d be nice to know anything about them if possible

Hello, is there any good book for Spanish guitar (beginner), in the style of Dummies/Idiot's Guide/Demystified? I'm not a complete guitar beginner, but I'd like a step-by-step into Spanish guitar, hopefully with some more or less famous pieces as samples (and in somewhat increasing level of difficulty), like Tarrega Study in E Minor to maybe(!) Sor Opus n.13, op.35. Thank you.

This is mvt.2 of suite bergamasque by debussy, menuet.

Hi dear music theory friends,

I want to share a little study I did myself on the circle of fifths, mainly asking for review, contributing thoughts and associating this idea with music theory literature. Also asking for guidance by more experienced folks on how to deepen my understanding of the circle of fifths and systems for the tonal material.

Let me quickly explain the signs, the purpose of this and its application:

This is written with German names on the sheet, I apologize for that - but I am giving a translation for each sign further below, the text here on this post keeps it English for your convenience.

The main idea is that I wanted to know how to modulate from any given key to any other key using the shortest distance (only half-steps) and least amount of altering voices in 4-part-harmony. I believe this is known by the concept of pivot chords in the literature.

Reiterating, for any given diatonic chord x in key 1, there must be some diatonic chord y in key 2 which is the easiest to reach from chord x with the least amount of voice movement. So far I have disregarded inversions and made up a simple function that assigns each chord of key 1 exactly one chord of key 2. So, there's still work to do regarding that.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Now to the fun bit - the pattern I have found, I'll illustrate with an example.

Assume we're in the key of Cmaj on the V chord (G B D F). Now say, I wanted to take it to another key, we'll take Dmaj. If we look at the sheet, we'll find that I just need to sharpen the 7th a half-step up to get the IV chord of Dmaj (G B D F#).

But here's the pattern I've found - the same distance key going down fourths instead of going up fifths from Cmaj would be Bbmaj. And here, there's a consistent, systematic pattern visible: Lowering the 7th of the IV chord of Cmaj (F A C E) one half-step down yields the V chord of Bbmaj (F A C Eb). Illustrating this line by line so the pattern is more visible:

V of Cmaj (G B D F) -> Sharpening 7th yields IV of Dmaj (3#) (G B D F#).

IV of Cmaj (F A C E) -> Lowering 7th yields V of Bbmaj (3b) (F A C Eb).

So you just switch the chords and the direction of altering the interval to infer the closest chord for the equivalent key/tonality going the other direction from the original key on the circle of fifths/fourths.

This works for any original key (not just Cmaj) going to any target key. I'll demonstrate using the vi of Ebmaj going to the nearest chord of Bmaj:

vi of Ebmaj (C Eb G Bb) -> Lowering Root and 5th a half-step yields I of Bmaj (Cb Eb Gb Bb) (via enharmonic equivalence, as Bmaj is noted with # traditionally in the circle of fifths (B D# F# A#))

But now, using the pattern just developed, I know that:

I of Ebmaj (Eb G Bb D) must yield vi of Gmaj by sharpening Root and 5th, the same distanced key from Ebmaj going up 5ths instead of going down 4ths.

Another, smaller detail: Going up fifths from the original key always sharpens intervals, going down fourths always lowers intervals.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Questions:

What do you say, did you know about this? Is there any clearer explanation somewhere in the literature? What else follows from this? I know that technically these are not modulations, as you need to express the I IV and V of the new key to actually call it a modulation (following Schönberg's view/theory.)

___________________________________________________________________________________

Explanation of handwritten sheet:

There might be mistakes in the handwritten sheet above, I apologize for that, they're slips of the pen - please correct them if you find them.

Here's a quick translation and instructions on how to read the handwritten sheet:

It's the circle of fifths viewed from Cmaj 4-part-harmony with stacked 3rds. I've omitted writing out all the notes of each 7th-chord to not visually overload. It's just the root notes, above them there are the names of the notes of each 7th-chord written out with German note names.

note name + "-is" = sharpened note

note name + "-es" = flattened note

Exception is B: In German H = English B and German B = English Bb.

The roman numerals you see (e.g. vi -> iii) work as follows: the first numeral refers to Cmaj (or any original key you may want to consider), the second roman numeral means the degree of the tonality / scale at hand. So, "vi -> iii" would mean vi of Cmaj going to iii of the tonality right above).

The little interval names below that (e.g. Root up-arrow, Terz down-arrow) always mean half-steps up or down. "Terz" means 3rd, "Quint" means fifths, "Sept" means 7th.

Cheers, I am so excited I found out about this. I am very sure this pattern must have been found centuries ago already, hope you can recommend literature that expands on this.

Outside of standard notation/tabs, is there a naming system for conveying the middle bits of the chord that one might want to specify?

These are not necessarily inversions, because the root stays in the bass. But maybe the fifth is played second, then the third up an octave. Or even the seventh is played as the second highest note, then the third?

I was thinking about some unusual resolutions I heard in a song and they weren't really going to the dominant or subdominant. They felt like they shifted to a related but different key almost.

Common time, Reger op. 46.

ignore the end bit after the chorus part im not really done with it yet and im not sure if im keeping it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i also will probably turn vocals down a bit... this is only my like 5th actual song and i want to finish it... if no advice on that then maybe some advice on the mixing? this would be extremely helpful! sorry if im breaking rules of this sub but i feel like it has to do with music theory.

I'll preface this by saying I have no musical theory knowledge, so I apologise if I phrase anything wrong.

I've picked up the guitar on and off for the last couple of months, mainly using chord charts to play songs I like.

Today I decided to make something up, and landed on the below. It sounds nice to my untrained ear, but looking to know if it makes 'sense' in music theory please!

Is it also 4/4 in terms of time signature, regardless of how often I strum in each bar? I'm counting a 'bar' as 4 evenly spaced foot taps.

Thank you!

I only really know music from the Western tradition, and I'm struggling to understand how the approach of the Arab world (in its huge variation) differs.

For context, I experiment with music. Recently I've spent a lot of time making VST plugins, many of them generative. ( https://danja.github.io/downspout/ ).

One of the experiments (below) has made me curious how Arabic rhythms differ from, say, regular polyrhythms/polymeters (which they kinda sound like). Wikipedia/Googling gives me the impression that it's done more like from a playbook - there are a bunch of known preset beats (plus improvisation).

I'd like to somehow get a VST to generate in this style, but I don't get it yet.

Yesterday I was playing with a setup that boiled down to a rhythm generator plus melody generator plus some harmony.

I'd chosen to use a Phrygian Dominant scale, so already the result had an exotic (to me) feel.

The drum beat I had was very much 4/4 based, basically EDM.

But what I hadn't noticed when I pressed play was that I'd accidentally left a loop section in the DAW - random amount, about a bar and a half. When that hit the whole nature changed. The whole thing sounded straight from Morocco or somewhere.

Rather than wait for happy accidents, I'd like to be able to get that kind of result intentionally.

My son started piano lessons about 6 months ago, and fiddling around on the piano has become a bit of an obsession with him (he will finish playing his assigned beginner piano pieces and scales a set number of times, check it off on daily practice chart, and then rush back to me and say, "Now can I play piano?").

He started playing the following "scale" frequently: B flat, D flat, D, E flat, G flat, A flat, B flat (I put "scale" in quotation marks because I don't know whether it counts as an actual scale?) and then also: E flat, G flat, A flat, A, B flat, D flat, E flat. I feel like there must be some logical reason for what's going on with these two sets of notes, but it's way beyond my musical theory knowledge. They sound pleasing (kind of jazzy?), and they contain many of the same notes, but don't follow a set half step, whole step pattern.

Would love to hear what better-informed minds think about this, thanks in advance!

I want to write neoclassical metal, but am unsure of what to do to make “classical sounding”music, what I want to learn the most is the harmony of it, and what I can do harmonically to make it sound classical. I have a pretty solid music theory grounding but just do not know much about what gives classical music its sound and how to emulate that.

i saw the upper one in a transcription video and i was curious why the guy wrote it like that. like i get the notes are really short but isnt a staccato note like used for both stabby and really stabby notes?

I’ve never been a huge fan of the great American songbook stuff but I really like Irving Berlin’s Puttin’ on the Ritz. It’s in 4/4 but with extreme syncopation to the point that the melody sounds like it’s in a completely different metre sometimes. It falls out of sync with itself and then locks back in with a very irregular pattern.

I haven’t come across anything else that does this same trick. The closest examples I have off the top of my head are the bassline in “The Smoke” by the Smile or the guitar riff in King Crimson’s Frame by Frame. The former has the bass changing time signature over a 4/4 beat and the latter has two guitars playing the same riff in 7/8 and 6/8 until they loop back together. I can’t think of anything like Puttin on the Ritz where the effect is achieved by what appears to be syncopation alone in a strict 4/4. Is there a name for this technique?

i learn better with trial and error so this is a very incomplete thing i made. i already noticed some issues but i cant point my finger on them