I love music and I want to get a degree in it but I already have a D in the class and it’s only the 4th week of school. I am very passionate about music and I want to make a career out of it but I feel like after looking at my grade in the class, that I it’s probably better off for me to just drop my degree in general and give up on my dream career because I am not as well informed in music as I thought I was and that I should probably drop the class. It also doesn’t help that I have a learning disability that takes me longer to understand and grasp things than everyone else. So maybe I am just too stupid to follow my dreams and pursue a degree in a career I have been passionate about since I was a kid

I'm a guitarist learning about intervals and triads around the neck. I'm practicing playing triads right now, and playing the intervals that ''enclose'' each triad. Like I'll play a minor triad and find the flat seventh and second next to the root, the fourth and second next to the flat third, etc.
I'm practicing playing triads along with this song (''Hold on Magnolia'' if it matters.) The song is in the key of E. The chord progression goes I vi iii V IV I IV. Ill play the I chord, then mess around with that chord's root's second and fourth and stuff. Then I'll play the vi chord and do the same. Then I'll play the iii chord, and I'll mess around, but then I hit that chord's root's second, it sounds really weird. I can't make it sound good along with the song. It's an A#, which I know isn't in the key of E, but it is in the key of G# minor, and its G#m's second.

I thought that was what playing with the changes was-- playing the corresponding scale for each chord, because even though some notes might not be in the song's key they'll sound good with the chord and it causes tension and tasty stuff. But this A# never sounds good. Why not? Only playing the A along with the G#m sounds good. Apparently I've really misunderstood what ''playing with the changes'' means. People say that to really advance, you should learn to do more than just play the key's scale over the whole song. So how do I really know which notes are good and bad?

Thanks a lot guys. I didn't really know how to ask this question so I gave a lot of information so that i hope yall can find what im confused about.

I ran into a new music theory question trying to learn a song by ear using a chord diagram - Mississippi Waltz by Kenny Baker in F. I'm a novice when it comes to theory, slowly self-learning what I need to play at the local bluegrass jam. I am working on learning melodies by ear starting with the pentatonic scale

I was trying not to cheat by looking up a tab but got stuck working out the notes because they don't fit the F Scale. The chords are F Ab C7 and I started with the F major scale but the Ab chord has Ab and Eb which would be F Minor, but A and E natural are in the F and C chords.

So I don't think I can use a standard scale for this tune so do I just combine all the notes for F Major and F minor and work from all of those?

Any insight into the topic would be appreciated!

Genuinely need a piece converted to guitar tab and I don't know how to and all the online converters are hot garbage at conversion. Its called The Rune Of Hospitality by Alf Houkom. Can anyone at least give pointers? I can read sheet music but this is just past my ability to be able to convert to tab.

About myself - I can play the drums enough to make myself happy. I actually got good at hand feet coordination after my college, and never played the drums in a band. I played the Congo and Octopad with people.

Now onto my question - I tried learning the Guitar online a few years ago. Back then I found is extremely mechanical - I was trying to get used to all these chords etc, but I never understood WHY did musicians decide a chord works. Also, I felt any tune can technically be played with just one string, why do we need 6.

I thnk the questions I'm asking belong to music theory. I also have always been really into jazz and will want to play jazz music, and I think I need to understand music theory to get a good feeling of jazz?

So yeah, I thnk I should try to understand music theory to make my guitar learning experience better. Are there resources (hopefully books) that can help me?

Edit - I also need to mention that on drums/Congo/cajon, I can often listen to a song and start jamming. I feel it's probably much harder on a guitar, but I want to be able to do that. While I was trying the guitar the last time, I always had to look up a sheet music to play along. I didn't really like that.

I've been playing a lot of older RPGs lately and I'm noticing something interesting. Some composers use really unexpected chord changes in background music. It's not always functionally clear why they make those jumps. It creates a cool, unsettling, or often majestic feeling. I'm wondering if there's a specific term for these kinds of less conventional harmonic progressions in game music.

I'm thinking about those progressions where each chord just seems to lead downward to the next one but never really resolves in a typical sense. It's not necessarily sad or dark just a continuous descent. Like a musical Sisyphus. Does anyone know if there's a name for this kind of harmonic movement?

I've been playing a lot of RPGs lately and it feels like every other major boss theme has that distinct raised 4th and flattened 7th. It creates such a dramatic yet heroic feel. Am I just imagining this or is it a recognized trope in game music composition?

Apologies for the repost of an earlier question but I wanted to get some feedback on this screenshot of my workbook. My understanding is that the major scale formular is WWHWWWH? So why does descending from the interval not start on a Half step instead of a whole step? I realize its a 6th but why would that change the formula?

Sorry I am a beginner😭

In the left hand of this measure at the top of the page (time signature is 4/4), aren’t there some missing rests? Shouldn’t there be a quarter rest at the beginning of the measure and an eighth rest in each gap?

80bpm. meant to be played on strings + choir.

If your reply is B, do you have any exemple of a famous score showing it ?

For context, the piece is in regular 4/4, strong beats being 2 and 4

depending on the piece i might use that rythm either repeatedly or only once or twice

So in G I played Am7>Am6>Bm6>G

I use the ii6 voicing a lot because it shares the same notes as the viim7b5 (F#) so it has a nice pull to I.

Today I played a m6 on the B as well, playing essentially the same notes as a G#m7b5.

Seems like a cool sound, was wondering if anyone had any insights or other examples of this and why exactly a bii half diminished works here? My initial guess was something to do with tritone subs with it being a half step above the root and all. But idek if you can do that with diminished chords.

Also, the reason I’m not definitively saying Bm6 vs G#m7b5 is because I guess I don’t really know the function here and I’ve been yelled at for conflating minor 6 chords as inversions of the half diminished lol. So I’d appreciate some clarification there as well.

Cheers!

Qual é o nível de ensino que consideram adequado para aplicar este tipo de Musicogramas?

A “caça aos doces” é uma nova versão pedagógica em formato Musicograma inspirada no tema "Great Candy Hunt" de Sidney Miller!
Para tornar este recurso ainda mais eficaz nas aulas de Educação Musical e AECs, foram feitas várias otimizações pedagógicas:
1 - Sons Reais do Instrumentário Orff: Gravado/produzido com os timbres reais dos instrumentos de percussão escolar.
2 - Leitura Visual Pauta + Orff: Cada figura rítmica apresenta a imagem do respetivo instrumento Orff, permitindo uma rápida identificação e execução por parte dos alunos.
3 - Forma e Ritmos Simplificados: Reorganização formal por ostinatos rítmicos repetidos na 1.ª e 2.ª secções para garantir o sucesso imediato da prática de conjunto.
4 – Figuras Rítmicas simples: Neste MUSICOGRAMA só aparecem 3 figuras rítmicas diferentes (Mínima, Semínima e Colcheia + Pausa da Semínima).
DICA: Caso a escola não tenha instrumentos pode substituir o som das clavas por “TAC” e o som do Triângulo por "PLIM".

The chord progression in this sax solo goes Em7 Am7 Em7 C7 B7 Em7. So assuming we're in the key of Em and taking only the last four chords, I think of if as a i VI V i progression. But because it's a minor key, I expected the VI chord to have a major 7th (Cmaj7 here but we get C7) and the v chord to be minor (Bm7 but we get B7). It sounds really cool, very tense during C7 and B7, but I don't really understand why. Any help?

Sorry if this is a simple question, I'm kinda new to chord progressions.

Hello, I'm doing some exercises on scales right now, and I'm not quite sure if I categorized those three scales correctly. My notes were:
1. Ab-Minor aeolian/Cb-Major

1. F#-Minor melodic

-> VI. and VII. are increased (E->E#, D->D#)

1. F-Minor harmonic

-> VII. (Eb->E) Is increased

Are those notes right? And if not, could you please explain what I did wrong?
Thanks in advance!

It gives us such a headache trying to understand it, even though it is pure logic and a system of its own. And yet, I see that people all over the world struggle to understand it. I don't understand how logic itself can be unclear when, by its very nature, it is supposed to be clear and logical.

I mean harmony of music theory the most

Hey guys,

I think I understand chord progressions. However, I am struggling to understand the concept of major triads. For instance, If a chord progression is as follow C-F-C-F what would the major triads be of the individual chords?

My guess is:

C-E-G

F-A-C

C-E-G

and F-A-C

Sorry for the hand written notation. My problem is that the tenor in bar 3.4 leaps down to a chordal 7th, which I would like to avoid if possible, but moving stepwise to B produces parallel fifths going into bar 4 and I can’t see any way I could alter the proceeding material which would make the voice leading any better. Please help!

As a person who has studied music for around 60 years, I don't remember the word "tuplets" being used until I started using Finale in the late 80s. Is it possible that Finale's creators invented the term? Before that, I only recall references to specific groupings, like duplets, triplets, quadruplets, etc., without any generic term. It occurs to me that maybe musicians didn't need that term until a tool had to be invented that treated them all as one category.

Essa música dos Beatles tá na minha apostila de teclado e quando fui tentar tocar ela tudo parecia certo menos essas partes. A transição entre o B e o A parece ser mais lento que o original, nessa partitura. É só impressão minha ou tá errado mesmo? E se tiver errado, como seria a forma certa de se escrever?

I'm interested in learning how to write complex jazz fusion, like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A1nL9D_z3M

I have played the drums for many years and am very comfortable with rhythmic music theory but have effectively zero experience with tonality (chords, intervals, etc.). I've written some basic songs in a DAW's piano roll, but that's mostly from noodling around without much theory. I feel like practicing theory in that way is wildly inefficient, but I also figure learning piano must be a huge time investment.

So like good investor, I want to know: how much time? How much time should I expect to spend learning piano before being able to write jazz fusion songs?

Similarly, are there aspects of piano playing I can skip/ignore since I care about composition and not performance? Or would skipping those aspects be a bad idea?

must read books before grad degree in theory?

Hi everyone! I need help transposing a Turkish classical song from Hicaz makam. Since Turkish music uses a different accidental system than Western notation, I want to make sure I explain this correctly.
Current notation:
• Key signature: one flat (B♭) – this is how it appears in the Western-style notation
• But in Turkish music theory, this piece is in Hicaz makam on Dügâh (A), and the actual tonal center feels like A with a Hicaz tetrachord (A, B♭, C#, D)
What I need:
Transpose everything down a perfect fourth (5 diatonic steps down).
The tricky part – Turkish accidentals:
In Turkish makam music, we use commas (Holderian commas), not just semitones. The accidentals work differently:
• B♭ (Si bemol) in the current notation → becomes F natural (no accidental needed)
• F# (Fa diyez) → becomes C# (Do diyez) – this needs an explicit sharp sign every time it appears (not in the key signature)
• G# (Sol diyez) → becomes the new key signature (one sharp)
So the new key signature should be: one sharp (G#), with C# accidentals appearing explicitly throughout the score.
Concrete example:
The vocal line starts on: G – A – A (Sol – La – La)
Should become: D – E – E (Re – Mi – Mi)
And the current B♭ notes become F natural (clean, no accidental).
What stays the same:
• Lyrics under the notes
• 4/4 time signature
• Repeat signs and 1st/2nd endings (viyola)
I've attached the original sheet music. Can someone help me create the transposed version, or explain how to handle the Turkish accidentals correctly in MuseScore/Finale?
Teşekkürler! (Thanks!)