Theory

Note

Distinct and isolatable sound that act as the most basic building block of music. There are primarily 7 notes - A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Plus 5 additional Sharp (#), also denoted as Flats (b).

Observations:

  • the piano is divided into repeating notes as Octaves (8 notes) and the more rightwards we go, the higher the pitch gets
  • E# and B# don’t exist

Steps/Tones

Half-Step or Semi tone: 1 note higher. Ex - C to C#.

Whole-Step or Whole tone: 2 note higher. Ex - C to D.

Scale

Also called Key: preferred ordered sequence of notes.

Major Scale: start at a major note (called Tonic) and all WWHWWWH steps are “on scale”. DAW trick is to mark all whites from C and shift to any other note whose major scale we want.

Minor Scale: start at a minor note and all WHWWHWW steps are “on scale”. DAW trick is to mark all whites from A and shift to any other note whose minor scale we want.

Ex - we can have A# minor, C major, etc.

Chord

Notes played simultaneously, commonly 3 or 4 at a time.

Usually, chords are played by skipping one note in the scale (135 Rule).

Interesting observations can be drawn when we draw all possible chords for a scale.

Figure above shows all chords for C Major scale (135). Observations:

  • start note of the chord is called root note
  • chords can be major, minor, or diminished. This quality of a chord can be judged by its interval
  • there are 3 Major chords, 3 minor chord, and 1 diminished chord
  • major chords have 1 major third interval (3 whole tone gap) and minor have 1 minor third interval (2 whole tone gap; can be said perfect fifth too), diminished chord has 2 minor thirds
  • 7th chord is diminished with major scale. If we do the same for a minor scale, it will always have 2nd schord diminished

A scale has limited chords that we can play around with. Ex - C minor chord is impossible in C major scale since a gap of 2 after C in C major scale is impossible.

Other Chords

Inversions: take root note one octave up (1st inversion), following that bottom most note one octave up (2nd inversion).

At first glance, the second chord may look like E minor, but its actually C major 1st inversion chord.

Suspended: violates the rule of 2 gap and 3 gap (i.e. the major or minor third) and play notes at other available positions (i.e. perfect fourth or a major second).

Reference