Theoretically Correct: Chord Finder, Song Transposer, Chord Transposer, Free Online Music Theory and Music Lessons Become better at Sight Reading with Practice Sight Reading.com Outline of basic music theory - www.oscarvandillen.com Professional music theory: an outline of basic music theory. Preface and Chapter 1 of the Outline of basic music theory – by Oscar van Dillen ©2011-2014 The beginner’s learning book can be found at Basic elements of music theory. Overview of chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Sound and hearing Chapter 3: Musical notation Chapter 4: Basic building blocks of melody and harmony Chapter 5: Consonance and dissonance Chapter 6: Circle of fifths and transposition Chapter 7: Concerning rhythm, melody, harmony and form Chapter 8: Further study Preface This outline offers a concise and complete overview of basic music theory. In order to speed up consulting this online book, its chapters can as of now be found on separate pages; unfortunately the original one-page version exceeded acceptable download times, because of the length of the total materials presented. © Oscar van Dillen 2011-2014 Chapter 1: Introduction integrating hearing-reading-singing-writing
Lyric Writing Exercises: a 5-Day Workshop Guest post by Maria Rainier If you’re anything like most songwriters, you’re all too familiar with that frustrating sensation of being stuck in a rut. You know it’s important to write something – anything – every day, but there are times when that just seems impossible. Maybe you don’t have enough energy, you might be too critical of your first attempts, or you could be missing out on the muse. Whatever the reason, you can still get your daily writing done in a productive way if you introduce new exercises into your routine. Day 1: Research Mix & Match The first step is to give yourself something interesting to work with. Day 2: Collaborative Brainstorming Contact a friend by chat or email. Day 3: Titles & Nuggets Using what you’ve written from the previous two exercises (or relying on your notebook), construct some potential song titles. Day 4: Songwriting Surgery Now, pick a popular song that appeals to you and completely rewrite the lyrics. Day 5: Open Season Related Articles
Piano Chord Dictionary Online Piano Chords Songwriting Exercises - Handout Songwriting Exercises by Joel Mabus Scaffolding Stuck? Try this exercise: A) Take some song you like — any song at all from any era, any style — just so long as it is familiar to you. B) Write a new lyric to that song. C) Take that new lyric and write completely new music to it. D) Edit. (Or you could do A-C-B-D — write the new music to the “scaffold” song and then write a new lyric.) What remains is a new song with only a hint of the “ghost” song that acted as a scaffold for the process. Listmaking Out of ideas? A list could become a song (remember “My Favorite Things” or Tom T Hall’s “I Love...”) or could be a starting pad for an essay song, enumerating facts or feelings. Focused Imaging Similar to listmaking, but more purposeful, is putting your imagination to work in creating a scene, place or mood. Imagine a perfect day in your childhood – or the day your childhood sweetheart left you. Out-of-context Images Brain dead? Do this a few times and you start to see language in a new light. Journal
The Chord Guide: Pt III – Chord Progressions Chord progressions are the canvas on which musicians paint their masterpieces, and it’s a canvas which is a piece of art in itself. A chord progression can be subtle and in the background or it can be blatant and up front; it can be simple and catchy, or it can be technical and complex, it can stay in one key or it can change like the seasons. In any of these cases a chord progression is what drives the song as it literally shapes the music that accompanies it. This guide is meant to inject an interest in songwriting in new and old guitarists alike, I hope that at some point after reading this you will pick up your old guitar, blow off the dust, and join me in playing music. Chord Progression Guide This handy little guide will help all musicians create their own catchy chord progressions on the fly! Major Chord Chart Above is a chord chart for the 7 most used keys. Minor Chord Chart Above is a chord chart for creating minor chord progressions. Progressions With 2 Chords Chord Theory
Something Out of Nothing: 21 Songwriting TipsFeedback We aim to provide impeccable customer service and a high quality product Something Out of Nothing: 21 Songwriting Tips by Ken Hill - Torchlight Creek Music This is not a how-to article. This is just on some songwriting tips that I want to share with you to help you become a more versatile songwriter. #1) Authors and Musicians... Writing a song is much like being an author. Authors work at their abilities, often every day. This is where our first tip comes into play: Never stop working at your abilities. If our main goal is to connect emotionally, we should want to have as many tools as we possibly can to achieve that goal. The more abilities that we have, the more choices we can make musically. #2) Who are you writing your music for? If you are making music for other people, you will have to be aware of how people relate to it. It is like this: when you are a computer genius and you want to tell someone how to fix their computer, you have to speak in their terms so they can understand what the heck you are saying. We, as musicians, face the same predicament.
Harmonic Progressions | Learning and Loving Music Theory Kelvin, You actually caught a mistake on the roman numerals! Thanks, I’ll have to fix that. In the classical tradition, for the sake of stability, the first and last chords of a circle-of-fifths progression are usually triads, not 7th chords. Harmonic Sequences Part 2 In the jazz tradition all chords usually are 7ths, in which case the progression will start and end with 7th chords. Thanks again for your interest and input.
Songwriting Techniques Article - Part 1 by Tom Hess Most people approach songwriting in the same general way. For those that write music, versus lyric writing only, that process is to go to their instrument and improvise until they stumble upon something that sounds good. They choose to focus only on the "goal of having a completed song" instead of focusing on the wide range of available "processes" to compose music. In other words, these people focus on the "what" (the song they want to write) instead of the "how" (which processes and methods can be used). Once the decision is made to write a new song, they begin with the one process that is easiest and comes most naturally to them - improvising at their instrument. For the purpose of illustrating the examples below, let us assume your main instrument is electric guitar. This is the easiest songwriting process for most songwriters. Any single songwriting process will be limiting. Go to your instrument and begin improvising, notice what types of things you do naturally.