A new rule (#9) has been added here at r/musictheory

I've been playing guitar and writing electronic music for more than a decade and playing piano for about 6 years, both self taught. I find myself naturally gravitating to the same grooves and rhythms. I'd like to expand my vocabulary. Apart from listening to different styles of music (I've already been doing this for a long time), are there any other practical suggestions?

Is this specific progression going to feel that way regardless? Or does it have more to do with the melody motif I pick?

Just was surprised to hear that the piece sounded rambling since I set it up so it returns to the tonic twice

Just learned about chord progressions in more detail last week, and I’m doing a chord change per bar, which might be a bit excessive

It’s a nocturne in B Major

Edit: thanks everyone for the helpful comments! I think I need a better melody and I’m going to review the voice leading more too. These comments/discussion are helping me learn a lot. Appreciate it!

Hi everyone,

I'm a self-taught guitarist of 3 years that learned songs from consistent practice/muscle memory and reading from tabs. I have no background in music theory or arranging and was simply inspired to play after seeing covers made by Sungha Jung. Over the past couple years, I've gotten better & have learned different techniques in fingerpicking such as slaps, thumps, harmonics, rasgueado etc. and I have a vision for how I would want my own arrangement of songs to sound but have no idea how I can get to the level of executing these techniques and adding my own spice to my own original arrangements of songs.

Today, I tried practicing for fun by attempting arrange a little of Grandeur by Snow Man. I looked up chords and noticed that there was a lot of barring on the 1st fret, so I put my capo there. I was able to hear out the notes on the guitar for the first chord/two words "We're gonna" but I couldn't find the notes for the syllables for the 3rd word "awakening" and I got stuck.

I want to get to the level of detail that Sungha Jung has in his arrangements. I know it's a big ask, but I'm asking for advice on how to learn and practice so I can achieve this. Does anyone have a solid guide/roadmap where I can start learning?

i've been messing with progressions and noticed that ending on vi after building tension feels incomplete in a way that's almost uncomfortable, like the song is just stopping mid-thought. is there actual theory behind why our brains expect i, or is it just conditioning from hearing thousands of songs that resolve properly?

I feel like the first chord is Cm7 but I am having trouble with the other 3 chords in the progression. I would really like to learn this song so bonus points if you can identify the correct voicing as well.

i know it's partly cultural conditioning and exposure, but i'm curious if there's anything in the actual physics or math of the intervals that makes major thirds and perfect fifths feel resolved and "bright" compared to minor. or is it literally just learned association?

Enharmonically is seems like Cdim or “i dim” but that doesn’t make sense…?

Hi all, I found a music piece in the key of G for clarinet, and I saw that the piece has some very high notes that I cannot reach yet (in the altissimo register) - so I used sibelius to transpose it (I a beginner)- and it transposed it down by interval, 3, So instead of being in the key of G it became the key of Eb - and everything is perfect! Except....now there is one note, the lowest E, that is unplayable on the clarinet, because the lowest E is the lowest possible on that instrument, but because of the key, the E becomes a Eb or D#... any advice what I can do in this instance? I am really happy with the results except for the fact that I cannot play that one note, is there another note I could change it with without it sounding weird? And also, the score has a part for violin so I transcribed both and they sound really good together, such a shame that there is only this one proble,. Any advice really appreciated!!

I think it could just be 3 eigth notes but the 3 makes me think its a triplet

Basically expanding them more than just common time for 4/4 and cut time for 2/2, so far I have:

2/2 - Cut time (Ȼ), still in use

2/4 - Ordinaire time (O), comes from ”ordinaire” which is French for ”common”, because 2/4 used to be “French common time”

3/4 - Waltz time (W), comes from most 3/4 music sounding “waltz-y”, used to be grouped with common and cut time, but fell out of use

4/4 - Conmon time (C), still in use

5/4 (3+2) - Brubeck time (B), named after Dave Brubeck, composer of Take Five, the most popular jazz piece - if not music piece in general - in 5/4 - u/Barry_Sachs for the suggestion

7/4 (2+2+3) - Gabriel time (G), named after Peter Gabriel, composer of Solsbury Hill, one of the most popular mainstream songs to use 7/4 2+2+3

9/4 (3+3+3) - Zarabanda time (Z), comes from ”Zarabanda”, Spanish for Sarabande, a Spanish dance mostly written in 3+3+3 9/4 - u/victotronics for the suggestion

6/8 - Viennese time (V), comes from Viennese Waltz, a form of ballroom dancing with music in a fast 3/4 meter that sounded like 6/8 - u/MagicWolfEye for the suggestion

9/8 (2+2+2+3) - Rebetiko time (P), comes from Rebetiko, a Greek dance mostly written in 2+2+2+3 9/8 - u/victotronics for the suggestion (symbol comes from “P” or “Rho”, the Greek equivalent of the English R)

9/8 (2+2+3+2) - Tamzara time (T), comes from Tamzara, an Armenian dance mostly written in 2+2+3+2 9/8 - u/victotronics for the suggestion

10/8 (3+2+2+3) Jurjuna time (J), comes from Curcuna (also called Jurjuna), an Armenian dance mostly written in 3+2+2+3 10/8 - u/victotronics for the suggestion

12/8 - Sicilian time (S), comes from Siciliana music mostly being in 12/8 - u/victotronics for the suggestion

I'm a big of Hamauzu work and wanted to ask if any has some tip or know of any common techniques he use that could my songs sound a bit more like his

Edit:Or if know anything about saber edge or the travel agency

Hey bros, I am trying to find the chords for a song but i'm having some trouble. Could someone lend me their wonderful ears?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5JBFYLII4g

What i found so far is E - Am - D - and a G somewhere.

Thank you so much and I hope this isn't against community guidelines, if so i'll take it down immediately.

I want to sing this particular song in a particular way, but Im having hard time to identify in which key the male and female are singing in different parts. Especially in the chorus. If somebody has some spare time and help a stupid guy out? For my ear its sounding like both are singing in third or fifth at some points, and I dont know if its correct, since then nobody is singing in the main key :D

This is the song (sorry its in finnish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpkvvq2V3OY&list=RDwpkvvq2V3OY

And here are chords I found for it: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/ida-paul-kalle-lindroth/kunnes-sammutaan-laulu-rakkaudelle-chords-5261307

Thank you in advance :)

C/F (or Fmaj9no3)-Dmaj9-C/F-E6/9, im using a saxophone to solo over it

i need help finding the time signature to the song Murdoch by the band Trees (added a link to the song above)

it sounds really odd and i could be wrong, but i feel like it changes in some parts, like there's no single time signature to the song (i could be wrong tho)

any help would be kindly appreciated!!!

thanks :))

Does anyone know where that g# major chord is coming from? This is from the Grieg concerto in a minor, and for some reason I can’t think of a logical way to explain it?

Been working on this all day, and a long time before this, so I have a better understanding before i perform it in december/january. Here's a draft of my harmonic analysis of the Grieg piano concerto in a minor first mvmt. I do have to say that I used AI to put the text in because my handwriting was too messy, and I did double check that everything was the same but there still might be some things that are off. I also kind of suck at this since it's my first time doing analysis of a romantic piece, so corrections and feedback would be much appreciated 🙏🙏

(I'm not actually sure if I did the access thing right so please lmk if i need to redo it)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EAJYN9hSuMZ-XpLqvkJsranZ94bySUQX/view?usp=sharing

I can think of lots of melodies in a minor key that are made 'happy' by their tempo and rhythm [e.g. "What Shall We Do With the Drunker Sailor?"]

But I genuinely can't think of any melody in a minor key that is 'happy' despite being slow and in a minor key.

Can anyone give me an example?

[NB - instrumental melodies only. There are slow, minor songs that might have uplifting lyrics which make them 'happy' overall, but I'm thinking of melody only]. Also, I realise that some minor melodies are so beautiful that they make us happy just to hear them [e.g. a slow Chopin nocturne, or whatever] but I'm not counting them either]

Been working on this all day, and a long time before this, so I have a better understanding before i perform it in december/january. Here's a draft of my harmonic analysis of the Grieg piano concerto in a minor first mvmt. I do have to say that I used AI to put the text in because my handwriting was too messy, so there might be some things that are off. I also kind of suck at this since it's my first time doing analysis of a romantic piece, so corrections and feedback would be much appreciated 🙏🙏

(I'm not actually sure if I did the access thing right so please lmk if i need to redo it)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EAJYN9hSuMZ-XpLqvkJsranZ94bySUQX/view?usp=sharing

This guy has a huge discography of songs like this, this is one that happens to be stuck in my head right now. On first listen they sound kind of bad/dissonant/random, but a few listens later once you’ve learned how it goes, you can feel where the chords are going and it makes sense. But how do you compose something like this? I don’t know much music theory but these chords/progressions are a lot more unique and hard for me to understand than most other music. You may have heard of the band he co-leads now, Fievel is Glauque. I believe in an interview he said he starts with singing, then harmonization.

I have a question about music theory - As someone who used to play the piano 10 years ago and would like to get back into it from scratch, how would the experts recommend starting to learn about music theory, with books etc? Are there any specific books you'd recommend? Or YouTube channels/videos? My goal is to re learn the piano/keyboard and maybe guitar as well, later. Any tips would be helpful!

I've harmonized a Turkish makam melody. Audio and score at www.justintonation.com

This is the result of nearly 20 years of personal on-and-off research into what the human brain perceives as "in-tune", how our brains quantizes the functional pitch space, tonality and the inherent rules of harmony and counterpoint.

This short makam, Hüzzam seyir after an old melody by Rauf Yekta Bey, served as a test and a first demonstration of my theories.

The spelling is not arbitrary. It is exact and follows what I believe to be the correct functional interpretation of the music.

One of the things you'll see is that the melody is highly chromatic and distinct from simpler enharmonic equivalents.

For instance one of melodic steps is a doubly diminished fourth instead of a simpler minor third or augmented second. And is harmonized as such.

One of the things this shows is that it is now possible to interpret and harmonize traditional music that has "microtones" that we perceive as functionally distinct from more standard western intervals.

Opening up a wide range of new colors for polyphonic composition.

This Hüzzam is just one example, other exotic scales and microtones can be handled in the same way (for instance makam Rast can be interpreted as having a diminished fourth above the tonic instead of a major third).

I'll share my new theory of harmony and counterpoint at a later time. It applies to common practice western music as well as extending into new extreme chromaticism as is demonstrated with this Hüzzam seyir.

Tuning is Pythagorean just intonation. As my research has found this corresponds to how our brain handles the functional pitch space (contrary to popular believe where it is often thought that a major third would be "just" as the simpler 5/4 ratio).

Audio is done quickly with a piano sound.
At a later time I'll upload more harmonized makams and will spend some time making better sounding audio renderings with more authentic Turkish sounds. But at the moment I'm quite busy with another project and this will have to do for now.

Hope some of you can appreciate this and find it interesting.
At the very least I hope you can recognize it has lead to highly original sounding music :)

Enjoy!