Music Theory for Beginners
Read a key signature, build any scale and chord, and understand why a chord progression pulls the way it does.
This course is for members
$9 unlocks every course in the library, this one included, plus a credit to build a topic of your own and at least 10 new courses every month.
What you will learn about Music Theory for Beginners
The 7-day sprint
- Notes, Half Steps, and the Keyboard. Western music uses twelve equally spaced pitches, and every distance in music is counted in half steps between them.
- Beat, Meter, and Note Values. Rhythm is organized by a steady pulse grouped into measures, and note values divide that pulse into halves.
- The Major Scale. A major scale is seven notes built from a fixed pattern of whole and half steps: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.
- Intervals. An interval is the distance between two notes, named by how many letter names it spans and refined by quality.
- Triads and Chord Quality. A basic chord is three notes stacked in thirds, and the quality of those two thirds decides whether it sounds major, minor, diminished, or augmented.
- Diatonic Chords and Chord Function. Building a triad on each degree of a major scale gives seven chords whose qualities are always the same, and they behave in predictable ways: home, motion, tension, return.
- Keys, Key Signatures, and the Minor Scale. A key signature is a shorthand for which major scale you are in, the circle of fifths organizes all twelve keys, and every major key has a relative minor built on its sixth degree.
The 80/20: the 7 concepts that matter most
- The half step is the unit of measurement
- The major scale is the ruler everything is measured against
- Chords are stacked thirds, and quality comes from the stacking
- Chord function: home, departure, tension, return
- Roman numerals and transposition
- Key signatures and the circle of fifths
- Melody sits on harmony: chord tones versus everything else
The core idea, explained like you are 5
Music is made of distances between pitches, not of the pitches themselves, which is why the same song sounds like the same song no matter what note you start on.
Then the quiz and the ladder
10 questions that correct you when you are wrong, and beginner, intermediate, advanced levels, each with a practical exercise.