Music Theory

A plain-language guide to reading the bass clef: what the F clef means, the line and space note names with...

A practice-method guide for making scales stick: slow metronome work, naming notes, learning across the instrument, using scales musically, spaced...

A theory-teacher explainer on modulation: what changing key really means, the four reasons songwriters do it (energy lift, marking a...

Catchiness is not luck. A theory-teacher breakdown of the mechanisms behind an earworm — repetition with variation, melodic contour, expectation...

An explainer on the structure of Pachelbel's Canon in D: the eight-note ground bass, the descending sequence that makes it...

A step-by-step guide to writing chord progressions: choosing a key, numbering chords with Roman numerals, the three harmonic functions, the...

A plain-language, step-by-step roadmap to reading standard notation: the staff, clefs, note names, note values, time and key signatures, plus...

No, and the two things that genuinely change after childhood are not the ones people fear. What fine motor patterning...

Why the I-V-vi-IV progression keeps producing hits — consonance, tonal gravity, the relative minor inside, and seamless looping. A theory-teacher...

An honest comparison of how hard piano and guitar really are: which is easier to start, where each gets difficult,...

A structural and harmonic walkthrough of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody — through-composition, descending chromatic bass, secondary dominants, pivot modulations, and chromatic...