Composer, Educate Thyself: How to Build a Custom Music Theory Study Program

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the vastness of music theory? You have a dozen tabs open on film scoring, a book on classical counterpoint you’ve been meaning to read, and a DAW full of half-finished ideas that could use some structural help. The desire to learn is there, but the path is scattered.

Build a custom music theory study program for yourself

Suspended & Added Chords: A Deep Dive for Pop, Folk, and Rock Musicians

If there's one chord that's used a lot (often overused) in pop and rock music, it's the suspended chord. It's a traditionally classical and folk music idiom that has found it's way into mainstream pop, rock and even metal. It's used in classic rock like Van Halen's "Panama," Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine," and Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." It also often appears in more modern, power-chord-driven music like Pierce the Veil's "Props & Mayhem".

We're going to go through all of the variations and the way this chord is used over and over in everything from pop to classic rock to metal.

Starting Your String Writing Journey: The Essentials

So you're looking to dive into writing for strings. Whether you're aiming for a soaring pop ballad or an epic film score, understanding the fundamentals is an important first step. This guide is your starting point, covering the essential basics you'll need to begin crafting beautiful and effective string parts. 

Think of this as your foundational roadmap for string writing. We'll be exploring each of these principles in much greater depth in future articles.

How Music Works: A Guide to Chords, Progressions, and Their Functions in Classical Music

Classical music, with its profound emotional depth and intricate structures, often captivates us without us fully understanding how. Much of this power lies in the masterful use of chord progressions – the purposeful sequence of chords that guides our ears through a sonic journey. This blog post will delve into the fascinating world of classical harmony, exploring how understanding scale degree characteristics and chord families can unlock the secrets behind these compelling musical narratives.

Classical theory doesn't need to be complicated. There are basic rules that all music follows. Here are the basics. 

Deconstructing Grunge: The Simple Yet Potent Chord Progressions of Nirvana

Nirvana was known for their raw, aggressive, yet melodic sound. While they often utilized simple chord structures, their genius lay in how they manipulated and combined these elements, often defying traditional music theory.    

While classic rock often relied on straight up I - IV - V -blues progressions and the I - ♭III  - IV - ♭VII progression, Nirvana relied on other chord progressions and patterns to achieve that distinct "grunge" sound.    

Analyze Kurt's creations for yourself

How To Write A Song Part 2

Last post we talked about how to go about writing a song. We talked about all of the different ways  that you can go about writing. This post is going to be all about the different things you have to consider when writing your masterpiece.

Blues Chord Progressions

When it comes to popular music, it's hard to overlook the influence of the blues. You can hear it in everything from Led Zepplin to Nora Jones. It has also had a huge effect on jazz, pop and many types of folk music. There are a number of ways that you hear these effects. One of them is on chord progressions used in songs. Most people think that this is simply a matter of the I-IV-V blues form but it goes way beyond that. Today we'll look at some of the other common blues type progressions.

I-bIII-IV

This is the one that's used in all types of music from metal to dance. Some may think that it's a version of a minor chord progression but the main difference is the melody is a major scale played over the progression. A number of scales can be used over this progression; the major, blues and mixolydian scales are all available. This progression is used in two ways. First it's often used as the main idea in a rock song, usually played with a riff or reocurring line. It's also used in sequences where you would use a I-bIII-IV using the I chord and then transpose the entire progression up a fourth to be used over the IV chord. For example a E-G-A progression to a A-C-D progression.

Intro To Pentatonic Scales

Most musicians are familiar with the pentatonic scales in one way or another. Most of the time it's usually learned early as a preparation for soloing and improvising. There are many pentatonic scales and many ways of using them.

It's Worldwide

Pentatonic scales are used in many types of music all over the world. Many different types of folk music use this scale. If fact most people are familiar with this scale without even knowing it because it's used so often. There's a great clip by Bobby McFerrin who sings a pentatonic melody to an audience and to their surprise, they finish the tune without him! African and European (Celtic, Scottish, Russian) folk music use pentatonics quite frequently.

Harmonic Elaboration

So you've written a memorable hook, or a nice little melody. You put together some chords to go with your creation and that's it. What a lot of musicians don't seem to realize is that with any given set of notes, there are a ton of different ways to harmonize it. If you've ever heard some of the mash-ups of well known songs put on top of other tracks, you can see how there are many things you can do with the background.

The Basics

Whenever you've written a melody, there are a set of chords or harmonies that we may 'automatically' hear. For example if it's a simple melody that doesn't move around much or have any weird leaps and accidentals, we will probably hear a basic I IV V I. Since we hear these progressions so often, we may automatically hear them in our head. That doesn't mean that we have to use them, or even that they're 'right'. For example if you have a simple melody you may want to use other chords because you want a different 'feel' for the song. Or, you want to invoke some surprise, or you want to change it into a different genre, or you just may want to make the song 'more interesting'.

Cadences for the Rest Of Us

While studying theory and composition at university, one of the first things they talked to us about was voice leading. Voice leading is simply trying to find the best way of connecting the different voices in your harmony. You would start with a Cantus Firmus (fixed song) and work at writing counterpoint to that melody.

A big part of voice leading and counterpoint are cadences. Cadences are simply a way of ending musical phrases and ideas. There are a number of different cadences that happen in music. These are still just as relevant today although not used in exactly the same way. Today we're going to look at the different 'classical' cadences and see how they are used in today's music.