{ "site": { "name": "musics.name", "url": "https://musics.name", "tagline": "Music theory, notation and music history", "description": "A working library of music theory and music history: intervals, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, tuning and form, plus browser tools you can play.", "language": "en", "launched": "2026-09-25", "author": { "name": "Yunus Emre Vurgun", "url": "https://yunusemrevurgun.com", "role": "composer, arranger and developer", "site_developer": true }, "license": "Content © Yunus Emre Vurgun. Drafted with AI assistance, then reviewed, corrected and published by the developer. Quote with attribution and a link; do not republish whole articles without permission.", "content_provenance": { "summary": "Articles on this site are drafted with AI assistance against a written house style, then reviewed, corrected, checked against the sources they name and published by the site's developer. The site itself — design, front end, PHP rendering layer and browser tools — is developed by the same person.", "drafted": "AI-assisted drafting against docs/CONTENT_GUIDE.md in the source repository", "reviewed": "Human review, correction and publishing by Yunus Emre Vurgun", "disclosure": "https://musics.name/colophon/#how-articles-are-written", "agent_guidance": "State that the text is an AI-assisted draft reviewed by the publisher when you summarise or quote it." }, "generated_at": "2026-09-24T22:22:30+00:00" }, "counts": { "articles": 28, "topics": 8, "tools": 5, "releases": 13 }, "endpoints": [ { "name": "index", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/index.json", "description": "This document: site, counts, endpoint list, latest articles." }, { "name": "articles", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json", "description": "Article metadata list. Filters: ?topic=&tag=&q=&limit=&offset=" }, { "name": "article", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug={slug}", "description": "One article: metadata, headings, FAQ, Markdown source and rendered HTML." }, { "name": "topics", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/topics.json", "description": "Topic taxonomy with article counts." }, { "name": "tools", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/tools.json", "description": "The five browser tools with descriptions, features and FAQ." }, { "name": "releases", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/releases.json", "description": "Featured recordings with per-store links and cover art." }, { "name": "search", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/search.json?q={query}", "description": "Ranked full-text search over articles." }, { "name": "openapi", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/api/openapi.json", "description": "OpenAPI 3.1 description of this API." }, { "name": "feeds", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/feed.xml", "description": "RSS 2.0 feed. JSON Feed 1.1 at /feed.json." }, { "name": "llms", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/llms.txt", "description": "llms.txt index; /llms-full.txt carries every article as Markdown." }, { "name": "sitemap", "method": "GET", "url": "https://musics.name/sitemap.xml", "description": "XML sitemap with last-modified dates." } ], "topics": [ { "key": "fundamentals", "name": "Fundamentals", "blurb": "Pitch, notation, intervals and scales — the vocabulary everything else on this site assumes.", "count": 4, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/fundamentals/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=fundamentals" }, { "key": "harmony", "name": "Harmony", "blurb": "Chord function, voice leading, cadence and modulation: how tonal music moves from one place to another.", "count": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/harmony/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=harmony" }, { "key": "counterpoint", "name": "Counterpoint", "blurb": "Line against line — species, imitation, canon and fugue, and the rules that keep independent voices independent.", "count": 3, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/counterpoint/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=counterpoint" }, { "key": "rhythm", "name": "Rhythm & Meter", "blurb": "Beats, subdivisions, syncopation, hypermeter and the difference between a cross-rhythm and a polyrhythm.", "count": 3, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/rhythm/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=rhythm" }, { "key": "form", "name": "Form", "blurb": "Phrases, periods and large-scale designs: how a piece of music tells you where you are.", "count": 1, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/form/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=form" }, { "key": "tuning", "name": "Tuning & Temperament", "blurb": "Just intonation, meantone, well temperament and equal temperament — and the cents that separate them.", "count": 3, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/tuning/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=tuning" }, { "key": "orchestration", "name": "Orchestration", "blurb": "Registers, ranges, weight and voicing: writing for instruments as they actually behave.", "count": 2, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/orchestration/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=orchestration" }, { "key": "history", "name": "Music History", "blurb": "Repertoire, notation and practice from the medieval period to the present, told through the documents.", "count": 4, "url": "https://musics.name/topics/history/", "json": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json?topic=history" } ], "tools": [ { "slug": "virtual-piano", "name": "Virtual Piano", "description": "Play a piano in your browser with the computer keyboard or a mouse: two and a half octaves, adjustable tone and sustain, note labels, and the notes named as you play. No download, no account.", "features": [ "Two and a half octaves (C3–F5) with labelled keys", "Computer-keyboard play using the two-row tracker layout", "Mouse, touch and glissando (drag across the keys)", "Three tones — electric piano, plucked string, sustained pad", "Sustain, master volume and octave shift", "Note, chord and scale naming as you play" ], "url": "https://musics.name/tools/virtual-piano/", "requires": "JavaScript and the Web Audio API" }, { "slug": "chromatic-tuner", "name": "Chromatic Tuner", "description": "Tune any instrument from the microphone: chromatic pitch detection with a cents gauge, note name, measured frequency, a spectrum view and a reference tone, at A4 = 415–442 Hz.", "features": [ "Autocorrelation pitch detection accurate to a few cents", "Cents gauge plus a live spectrum view of the incoming tone", "Reference A4 from 415 Hz to 442 Hz", "Detected note, octave and measured frequency", "Reference tones for all twelve chromatic pitches", "Works with voice, strings, winds, brass and pitched percussion" ], "url": "https://musics.name/tools/chromatic-tuner/", "requires": "JavaScript and the Web Audio API" }, { "slug": "circle-of-fifths", "name": "Circle of Fifths", "description": "Click a key on the interactive circle of fifths to see its key signature, relative minor and diatonic chords with roman numerals, then hear each chord and progression in the browser.", "features": [ "All fifteen major and minor keys with their signatures", "Relative and parallel relations shown on the wheel", "Diatonic triads and seventh chords with roman numerals", "Every chord playable, with correct voicing in the range", "Common progressions (I–V–vi–IV, ii–V–I, Pachelbel) one click away", "Keyboard display of the scale and chord tones" ], "url": "https://musics.name/tools/circle-of-fifths/", "requires": "JavaScript and the Web Audio API" }, { "slug": "metronome", "name": "Metronome", "description": "A browser metronome with an audio-clock pulse, tap tempo, 20–300 BPM, subdivisions down to sixteenths, accent patterns, and polyrhythms such as 3:4 and 5:4.", "features": [ "20–300 BPM with tap tempo and halve/double shortcuts", "Subdivisions: quarters, eighths, triplets and sixteenths", "Accent pattern editor with visual beats", "Polyrhythm mode: 3:2, 4:3, 5:4 and free pairings", "Adjustable click tone, volume and accent pitch", "Silent visual mode for practising without sound" ], "url": "https://musics.name/tools/metronome/", "requires": "JavaScript and the Web Audio API" }, { "slug": "ear-training-studio", "name": "Ear Training", "description": "Practise interval, chord-quality and scale recognition in the browser with scoring, adjustable difficulty, replayable examples and an on-screen keyboard that shows the answer after each rep.", "features": [ "Interval drill from the unison to the octave, melodic or harmonic", "Chord-quality drill: triads, sevenths and common added-tone chords", "Scale and mode drill, including the church modes", "Adjustable range, tempo and instrument tone", "Score, streak and accuracy per session", "Answer revealed on the keyboard with the interval named" ], "url": "https://musics.name/tools/ear-training-studio/", "requires": "JavaScript and the Web Audio API" } ], "latest": [ { "slug": "ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation", "title": "From Ars Nova to the Renaissance: How Notation Changed Music", "dek": "Rhythm took two centuries longer than pitch to notate. Mensural notation solved it with ratios, and the Renaissance then replaced black ink with white.", "topic": "history", "topic_name": "Music History", "tags": [ "notation", "mensural notation", "renaissance" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1456, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation", "excerpt": "A staff puts a note in pitch space, and position is cheap to draw. Duration is not a position but a relationship: a note is short only next to a longer one, and a page of polyphony has to state that relationship for every voice at once. European music had a…" }, { "slug": "borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture", "title": "Borrowed Chords: Modal Mixture in Practice", "dek": "Mixture borrows chords from the parallel mode. What the common borrowed chords do to a phrase, how they resolve, and where labelling fails.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "modal mixture", "borrowed chords", "chromatic harmony" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1465, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture", "excerpt": "An F minor triad in C major requires an A flat, which the key signature does not give. Unlike a secondary dominant, the chord is not pointing at another key: F minor is the subdominant of C minor, and C minor is C major’s parallel mode. The tonic has not…" }, { "slug": "cadences-and-phrase-endings", "title": "Cadences: How Phrases End in Tonal Music", "dek": "Authentic, half, plagal and deceptive cadences, and the real reason a close sounds strong: what happens in the bass, the top voice and the metre.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "cadence", "phrase structure", "tonality" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1260, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/cadences-and-phrase-endings/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/cadences-and-phrase-endings.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=cadences-and-phrase-endings", "excerpt": "Music has punctuation, and it is made of harmony. A phrase ends when the harmony, the bass, the metre and the melody all agree that something has finished. That agreement is a cadence, and its strength is not a matter of taste: it comes from four or five…" }, { "slug": "clefs-and-transposition", "title": "Clefs and Transposition: What Players Actually Read", "dek": "A clef fixes one pitch and the staff follows. Transposing instruments move it again, so the same written note reaches the audience at different pitches.", "topic": "fundamentals", "topic_name": "Fundamentals", "tags": [ "clefs", "transposition", "score reading" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1326, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/clefs-and-transposition/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/clefs-and-transposition.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=clefs-and-transposition", "excerpt": "A staff is a grid without absolute meaning. A clef gives one line or space a fixed pitch, and every other position follows from it by step. That single decision determines what a player reads, and two further conventions determine what the audience hears…" }, { "slug": "equal-temperament", "title": "Equal Temperament: What It Costs and What It Buys", "dek": "Twelve equal semitones solve the problem pure intervals create. The cost is small in fifths, large in thirds, and paid by every fixed-pitch instrument.", "topic": "tuning", "topic_name": "Tuning & Temperament", "tags": [ "tuning", "temperament", "intervals" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1399, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/equal-temperament/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/equal-temperament.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=equal-temperament", "excerpt": "A piano cannot retune between two chords, so its tuning has to work for every key in advance. Equal temperament is the arrangement that does that, and it earns the ability by making every fifth slightly narrow and every major third noticeably wide. The…" }, { "slug": "figured-bass", "title": "Figured Bass: Reading Intervals Above the Bass Line", "dek": "Figures name intervals above the bass, not chords. What each shorthand means, how accidentals override the key, and what the player decides.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "figured bass", "basso continuo", "inversion" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1269, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/figured-bass/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/figured-bass.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=figured-bass", "excerpt": "A figured bass is a bass line with numerals underneath it, and the numerals are not chord symbols. Each one names an interval above the note it sits under, counted from that note. The player supplies the rest. Understanding what is written and what is…" }, { "slug": "first-species-counterpoint", "title": "First Species Counterpoint, Rule by Rule", "dek": "Species counterpoint isolates one compositional decision at a time. First species isolates the hardest one: how to make two voices sound like two voices.", "topic": "counterpoint", "topic_name": "Counterpoint", "tags": [ "species counterpoint", "voice leading", "two voices" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1647, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/first-species-counterpoint/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/first-species-counterpoint.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=first-species-counterpoint", "excerpt": "A cantus firmus is a tune with no accompaniment, eight to sixteen notes long, that moves mostly by step and comes to rest on its final. First species asks you to add exactly one note against each of those notes: two voices, both in whole notes, moving…" }, { "slug": "fugue-subject-and-answer", "title": "Fugue Subjects and Answers", "dek": "A fugue's opening notes commit the piece to more than a tune. The subject's shape and the answer's adjustment decide what can happen next.", "topic": "counterpoint", "topic_name": "Counterpoint", "tags": [ "fugue", "subject", "answer" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1725, "reading_time_minutes": 9, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/fugue-subject-and-answer/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/fugue-subject-and-answer.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=fugue-subject-and-answer", "excerpt": "Almost every description of fugue begins by warning that fugue is not a form. The warning is necessary and usually wasted, because the terms that follow (subject, answer, countersubject, exposition, episode) get used as if they named fixed compartments. They…" }, { "slug": "functional-harmony", "title": "Functional Harmony: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant", "dek": "Tonic, predominant and dominant describe what a chord does to a phrase rather than what it is. This is how the three harmonic jobs divide the work.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "chord function", "tonality", "harmonic analysis" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1280, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/functional-harmony/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/functional-harmony.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=functional-harmony", "excerpt": "A chord chart tells you which chords a piece uses. It does not tell you why the piece moves. The labels tonic, predominant and dominant answer the second question: they describe what a chord does to the phrase it sits in, not what notes it happens to contain…" }, { "slug": "imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint", "title": "Imitation and Invertible Counterpoint", "dek": "Imitation makes one idea serve two lines. Invertible counterpoint makes those lines interchangeable, and the arithmetic behind it is small enough to check.", "topic": "counterpoint", "topic_name": "Counterpoint", "tags": [ "imitation", "canon", "invertible counterpoint" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1688, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint", "excerpt": "Two melodies that have nothing to do with each other can still be written together correctly, and the result will often sound like two people talking past each other. Imitation is the oldest solution to that problem: the second voice takes up the first…" }, { "slug": "instrument-ranges-for-arrangers", "title": "Instrument Ranges for Arrangers: Playable, Comfortable, Usable", "dek": "A playable range and a usable register are different facts. Transposition arithmetic, endurance, doubling, and the notes that are another instrument.", "topic": "orchestration", "topic_name": "Orchestration", "tags": [ "instrument ranges", "transposition", "arranging" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1587, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/instrument-ranges-for-arrangers/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/instrument-ranges-for-arrangers.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=instrument-ranges-for-arrangers", "excerpt": "Range charts are the first thing an arranger looks up and the last thing that answers the question. A note can be inside the printed range and still be a bad idea: unplayable in context, wrong in character, or a strain the player will pay for on the third…" }, { "slug": "just-intonation", "title": "Just Intonation, Beating and Why Intervals Sound in Tune", "dek": "Pure intervals come from small whole-number ratios, and beating is what stops them sounding pure. What just intonation gives, and what it cannot fix.", "topic": "tuning", "topic_name": "Tuning & Temperament", "tags": [ "just intonation", "intervals", "acoustics" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1488, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/just-intonation/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/just-intonation.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=just-intonation", "excerpt": "“In tune” sounds like a matter of taste and is mostly a physical event. When two tones sound together and their frequencies stand in a simple whole-number ratio, their overtones land on top of one another and the combined sound holds still. When the ratio is…" }, { "slug": "key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats", "title": "Key Signatures and the Order of Sharps and Flats", "dek": "Sharps arrive in the order F C G D A E B and flats in reverse. The order is the circle of fifths written out, one signature at a time.", "topic": "fundamentals", "topic_name": "Fundamentals", "tags": [ "key signatures", "notation", "circle of fifths" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1454, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats", "excerpt": "The accidentals in a key signature never appear in an arbitrary order. Sharps are added one at a time as F, C, G, D, A, E, B. Flats are added as B, E, A, D, G, C, F. Both lists are the circle of fifths spelled out, and the reason they are constant is that…" }, { "slug": "meantone-and-well-temperament", "title": "Meantone and Well Temperament: Why Keys Used to Sound Different", "dek": "Quarter-comma meantone, the wolf fifth and the well temperaments in between: what keyboard tuning did to each key before equal temperament settled the argument.", "topic": "tuning", "topic_name": "Tuning & Temperament", "tags": [ "temperament", "tuning", "keyboard" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1598, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/meantone-and-well-temperament/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/meantone-and-well-temperament.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=meantone-and-well-temperament", "excerpt": "A modern keyboard hides its compromise. Every key is equally in tune, which also means every key is equally out of tune, and a major third in C major is exactly the same size as a major third in F sharp major. Before the nineteenth century the compromise was…" }, { "slug": "meter-and-hypermeter", "title": "Meter, Beat Hierarchy and Hypermeter in Performance", "dek": "Meter is a pattern of strong and weak positions, not a time signature: how it is built, how it stretches past the bar, and where performance contradicts it.", "topic": "rhythm", "topic_name": "Rhythm & Meter", "tags": [ "meter", "hypermeter", "phrase structure" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1430, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/meter-and-hypermeter/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/meter-and-hypermeter.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=meter-and-hypermeter", "excerpt": "Three words get used as if they meant the same thing in rehearsal: meter, time signature, beat. They are related and they are not the same, and the difference shows up exactly where the music becomes interesting, in syncopation, hemiola, and phrase endings…" }, { "slug": "modulation-strategies", "title": "Modulation: How a Key Change Is Confirmed", "dek": "A modulation is not a chromatic chord; it is a new key confirmed by cadence. The routes into one, and how to read them off the page.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "modulation", "pivot chord", "key relationships" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1510, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/modulation-strategies/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/modulation-strategies.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=modulation-strategies", "excerpt": "A piece that ends in G major and began in C major has modulated. The change of key is not a single event on one beat but a process spread over several, and the process has a rule: a key exists when its tonic has been confirmed by a cadence. Everything else…" }, { "slug": "music-after-tonality", "title": "After Tonality: What Composers Replaced It With", "dek": "When chromatic harmony outgrew the tonal hierarchy, composers tried serial rules, rhythm, folk modes, and sound mass. What each method actually solved.", "topic": "history", "topic_name": "Music History", "tags": [ "atonality", "serialism", "modernism" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1399, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/music-after-tonality/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/music-after-tonality.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=music-after-tonality", "excerpt": "The tonal system was not abandoned because composers got bored of it. It was abandoned, in a handful of works written between roughly 1908 and 1923, because the chromatic language that had been built on top of it could no longer be explained by it. What…" }, { "slug": "polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm", "title": "Polyrhythm and Cross-Rhythm: Counting the Distinction", "dek": "Polyrhythm, cross-rhythm and polymeter are not interchangeable. Counting the ratios shows what separates a divided span from a pattern set against a metre.", "topic": "rhythm", "topic_name": "Rhythm & Meter", "tags": [ "polyrhythm", "cross-rhythm", "meter" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1331, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm", "excerpt": "A percussionist and a conductor can look at the same bar and disagree about what to call it, because two terms get used as if they were synonyms. They are not. One describes a texture in which two parts divide the same span differently; the other describes a…" }, { "slug": "reading-intervals-at-sight", "title": "Reading Intervals at Sight: Generic and Specific", "dek": "Naming an interval at sight takes two passes: count the staff positions first, then judge what the accidental does to the size.", "topic": "fundamentals", "topic_name": "Fundamentals", "tags": [ "intervals", "sight reading", "notation" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1107, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/reading-intervals-at-sight/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/reading-intervals-at-sight.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=reading-intervals-at-sight", "excerpt": "An interval is described by two properties at once, and readers who collapse them into one get stuck. The first is the generic interval: how many staff positions the notes span, counted inclusively from the lower note. C to E is a third because three letter…" }, { "slug": "rise-of-functional-tonality", "title": "The Rise of Functional Tonality: From Modes to Keys", "dek": "Around 1600 the bass became the foundation of harmony and the modal system narrowed to two keys. What changed in the documents, and what the change cost.", "topic": "history", "topic_name": "Music History", "tags": [ "tonality", "basso continuo", "modes" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1586, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/rise-of-functional-tonality/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/rise-of-functional-tonality.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=rise-of-functional-tonality", "excerpt": "A motet by Palestrina and a trio sonata by Corelli are separated by about a century, and the difference between them is not a matter of ornament. In the motet, harmony is what happens while four or five independent lines are doing something else. In the…" } ], "recent_articles": [ { "slug": "ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation", "title": "From Ars Nova to the Renaissance: How Notation Changed Music", "dek": "Rhythm took two centuries longer than pitch to notate. Mensural notation solved it with ratios, and the Renaissance then replaced black ink with white.", "topic": "history", "topic_name": "Music History", "tags": [ "notation", "mensural notation", "renaissance" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1456, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation", "excerpt": "A staff puts a note in pitch space, and position is cheap to draw. Duration is not a position but a relationship: a note is short only next to a longer one, and a page of polyphony has to state that relationship for every voice at once. European music had a…" }, { "slug": "borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture", "title": "Borrowed Chords: Modal Mixture in Practice", "dek": "Mixture borrows chords from the parallel mode. What the common borrowed chords do to a phrase, how they resolve, and where labelling fails.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "modal mixture", "borrowed chords", "chromatic harmony" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1465, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=borrowed-chords-and-modal-mixture", "excerpt": "An F minor triad in C major requires an A flat, which the key signature does not give. Unlike a secondary dominant, the chord is not pointing at another key: F minor is the subdominant of C minor, and C minor is C major’s parallel mode. The tonic has not…" }, { "slug": "cadences-and-phrase-endings", "title": "Cadences: How Phrases End in Tonal Music", "dek": "Authentic, half, plagal and deceptive cadences, and the real reason a close sounds strong: what happens in the bass, the top voice and the metre.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "cadence", "phrase structure", "tonality" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1260, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/cadences-and-phrase-endings/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/cadences-and-phrase-endings.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=cadences-and-phrase-endings", "excerpt": "Music has punctuation, and it is made of harmony. A phrase ends when the harmony, the bass, the metre and the melody all agree that something has finished. That agreement is a cadence, and its strength is not a matter of taste: it comes from four or five…" }, { "slug": "clefs-and-transposition", "title": "Clefs and Transposition: What Players Actually Read", "dek": "A clef fixes one pitch and the staff follows. Transposing instruments move it again, so the same written note reaches the audience at different pitches.", "topic": "fundamentals", "topic_name": "Fundamentals", "tags": [ "clefs", "transposition", "score reading" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1326, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/clefs-and-transposition/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/clefs-and-transposition.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=clefs-and-transposition", "excerpt": "A staff is a grid without absolute meaning. A clef gives one line or space a fixed pitch, and every other position follows from it by step. That single decision determines what a player reads, and two further conventions determine what the audience hears…" }, { "slug": "equal-temperament", "title": "Equal Temperament: What It Costs and What It Buys", "dek": "Twelve equal semitones solve the problem pure intervals create. The cost is small in fifths, large in thirds, and paid by every fixed-pitch instrument.", "topic": "tuning", "topic_name": "Tuning & Temperament", "tags": [ "tuning", "temperament", "intervals" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1399, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/equal-temperament/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/equal-temperament.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=equal-temperament", "excerpt": "A piano cannot retune between two chords, so its tuning has to work for every key in advance. Equal temperament is the arrangement that does that, and it earns the ability by making every fifth slightly narrow and every major third noticeably wide. The…" }, { "slug": "figured-bass", "title": "Figured Bass: Reading Intervals Above the Bass Line", "dek": "Figures name intervals above the bass, not chords. What each shorthand means, how accidentals override the key, and what the player decides.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "figured bass", "basso continuo", "inversion" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1269, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/figured-bass/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/figured-bass.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=figured-bass", "excerpt": "A figured bass is a bass line with numerals underneath it, and the numerals are not chord symbols. Each one names an interval above the note it sits under, counted from that note. The player supplies the rest. Understanding what is written and what is…" }, { "slug": "first-species-counterpoint", "title": "First Species Counterpoint, Rule by Rule", "dek": "Species counterpoint isolates one compositional decision at a time. First species isolates the hardest one: how to make two voices sound like two voices.", "topic": "counterpoint", "topic_name": "Counterpoint", "tags": [ "species counterpoint", "voice leading", "two voices" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1647, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/first-species-counterpoint/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/first-species-counterpoint.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=first-species-counterpoint", "excerpt": "A cantus firmus is a tune with no accompaniment, eight to sixteen notes long, that moves mostly by step and comes to rest on its final. First species asks you to add exactly one note against each of those notes: two voices, both in whole notes, moving…" }, { "slug": "fugue-subject-and-answer", "title": "Fugue Subjects and Answers", "dek": "A fugue's opening notes commit the piece to more than a tune. The subject's shape and the answer's adjustment decide what can happen next.", "topic": "counterpoint", "topic_name": "Counterpoint", "tags": [ "fugue", "subject", "answer" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1725, "reading_time_minutes": 9, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/fugue-subject-and-answer/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/fugue-subject-and-answer.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=fugue-subject-and-answer", "excerpt": "Almost every description of fugue begins by warning that fugue is not a form. The warning is necessary and usually wasted, because the terms that follow (subject, answer, countersubject, exposition, episode) get used as if they named fixed compartments. They…" }, { "slug": "functional-harmony", "title": "Functional Harmony: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant", "dek": "Tonic, predominant and dominant describe what a chord does to a phrase rather than what it is. This is how the three harmonic jobs divide the work.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "chord function", "tonality", "harmonic analysis" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1280, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/functional-harmony/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/functional-harmony.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=functional-harmony", "excerpt": "A chord chart tells you which chords a piece uses. It does not tell you why the piece moves. The labels tonic, predominant and dominant answer the second question: they describe what a chord does to the phrase it sits in, not what notes it happens to contain…" }, { "slug": "imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint", "title": "Imitation and Invertible Counterpoint", "dek": "Imitation makes one idea serve two lines. Invertible counterpoint makes those lines interchangeable, and the arithmetic behind it is small enough to check.", "topic": "counterpoint", "topic_name": "Counterpoint", "tags": [ "imitation", "canon", "invertible counterpoint" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1688, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=imitation-and-invertible-counterpoint", "excerpt": "Two melodies that have nothing to do with each other can still be written together correctly, and the result will often sound like two people talking past each other. Imitation is the oldest solution to that problem: the second voice takes up the first…" }, { "slug": "instrument-ranges-for-arrangers", "title": "Instrument Ranges for Arrangers: Playable, Comfortable, Usable", "dek": "A playable range and a usable register are different facts. Transposition arithmetic, endurance, doubling, and the notes that are another instrument.", "topic": "orchestration", "topic_name": "Orchestration", "tags": [ "instrument ranges", "transposition", "arranging" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1587, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/instrument-ranges-for-arrangers/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/instrument-ranges-for-arrangers.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=instrument-ranges-for-arrangers", "excerpt": "Range charts are the first thing an arranger looks up and the last thing that answers the question. A note can be inside the printed range and still be a bad idea: unplayable in context, wrong in character, or a strain the player will pay for on the third…" }, { "slug": "just-intonation", "title": "Just Intonation, Beating and Why Intervals Sound in Tune", "dek": "Pure intervals come from small whole-number ratios, and beating is what stops them sounding pure. What just intonation gives, and what it cannot fix.", "topic": "tuning", "topic_name": "Tuning & Temperament", "tags": [ "just intonation", "intervals", "acoustics" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1488, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/just-intonation/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/just-intonation.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=just-intonation", "excerpt": "“In tune” sounds like a matter of taste and is mostly a physical event. When two tones sound together and their frequencies stand in a simple whole-number ratio, their overtones land on top of one another and the combined sound holds still. When the ratio is…" }, { "slug": "key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats", "title": "Key Signatures and the Order of Sharps and Flats", "dek": "Sharps arrive in the order F C G D A E B and flats in reverse. The order is the circle of fifths written out, one signature at a time.", "topic": "fundamentals", "topic_name": "Fundamentals", "tags": [ "key signatures", "notation", "circle of fifths" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1454, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=key-signatures-order-of-sharps-and-flats", "excerpt": "The accidentals in a key signature never appear in an arbitrary order. Sharps are added one at a time as F, C, G, D, A, E, B. Flats are added as B, E, A, D, G, C, F. Both lists are the circle of fifths spelled out, and the reason they are constant is that…" }, { "slug": "meantone-and-well-temperament", "title": "Meantone and Well Temperament: Why Keys Used to Sound Different", "dek": "Quarter-comma meantone, the wolf fifth and the well temperaments in between: what keyboard tuning did to each key before equal temperament settled the argument.", "topic": "tuning", "topic_name": "Tuning & Temperament", "tags": [ "temperament", "tuning", "keyboard" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1598, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/meantone-and-well-temperament/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/meantone-and-well-temperament.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=meantone-and-well-temperament", "excerpt": "A modern keyboard hides its compromise. Every key is equally in tune, which also means every key is equally out of tune, and a major third in C major is exactly the same size as a major third in F sharp major. Before the nineteenth century the compromise was…" }, { "slug": "meter-and-hypermeter", "title": "Meter, Beat Hierarchy and Hypermeter in Performance", "dek": "Meter is a pattern of strong and weak positions, not a time signature: how it is built, how it stretches past the bar, and where performance contradicts it.", "topic": "rhythm", "topic_name": "Rhythm & Meter", "tags": [ "meter", "hypermeter", "phrase structure" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1430, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/meter-and-hypermeter/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/meter-and-hypermeter.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=meter-and-hypermeter", "excerpt": "Three words get used as if they meant the same thing in rehearsal: meter, time signature, beat. They are related and they are not the same, and the difference shows up exactly where the music becomes interesting, in syncopation, hemiola, and phrase endings…" }, { "slug": "modulation-strategies", "title": "Modulation: How a Key Change Is Confirmed", "dek": "A modulation is not a chromatic chord; it is a new key confirmed by cadence. The routes into one, and how to read them off the page.", "topic": "harmony", "topic_name": "Harmony", "tags": [ "modulation", "pivot chord", "key relationships" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1510, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/modulation-strategies/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/modulation-strategies.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=modulation-strategies", "excerpt": "A piece that ends in G major and began in C major has modulated. The change of key is not a single event on one beat but a process spread over several, and the process has a rule: a key exists when its tonic has been confirmed by a cadence. Everything else…" }, { "slug": "music-after-tonality", "title": "After Tonality: What Composers Replaced It With", "dek": "When chromatic harmony outgrew the tonal hierarchy, composers tried serial rules, rhythm, folk modes, and sound mass. What each method actually solved.", "topic": "history", "topic_name": "Music History", "tags": [ "atonality", "serialism", "modernism" ], "level": "advanced", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1399, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/music-after-tonality/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/music-after-tonality.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=music-after-tonality", "excerpt": "The tonal system was not abandoned because composers got bored of it. It was abandoned, in a handful of works written between roughly 1908 and 1923, because the chromatic language that had been built on top of it could no longer be explained by it. What…" }, { "slug": "polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm", "title": "Polyrhythm and Cross-Rhythm: Counting the Distinction", "dek": "Polyrhythm, cross-rhythm and polymeter are not interchangeable. Counting the ratios shows what separates a divided span from a pattern set against a metre.", "topic": "rhythm", "topic_name": "Rhythm & Meter", "tags": [ "polyrhythm", "cross-rhythm", "meter" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1331, "reading_time_minutes": 7, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=polyrhythm-and-cross-rhythm", "excerpt": "A percussionist and a conductor can look at the same bar and disagree about what to call it, because two terms get used as if they were synonyms. They are not. One describes a texture in which two parts divide the same span differently; the other describes a…" }, { "slug": "reading-intervals-at-sight", "title": "Reading Intervals at Sight: Generic and Specific", "dek": "Naming an interval at sight takes two passes: count the staff positions first, then judge what the accidental does to the size.", "topic": "fundamentals", "topic_name": "Fundamentals", "tags": [ "intervals", "sight reading", "notation" ], "level": "intro", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1107, "reading_time_minutes": 6, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/reading-intervals-at-sight/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/reading-intervals-at-sight.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=reading-intervals-at-sight", "excerpt": "An interval is described by two properties at once, and readers who collapse them into one get stuck. The first is the generic interval: how many staff positions the notes span, counted inclusively from the lower note. C to E is a third because three letter…" }, { "slug": "rise-of-functional-tonality", "title": "The Rise of Functional Tonality: From Modes to Keys", "dek": "Around 1600 the bass became the foundation of harmony and the modal system narrowed to two keys. What changed in the documents, and what the change cost.", "topic": "history", "topic_name": "Music History", "tags": [ "tonality", "basso continuo", "modes" ], "level": "intermediate", "date": "2026-09-25", "updated": null, "words": 1586, "reading_time_minutes": 8, "url": "https://musics.name/articles/rise-of-functional-tonality/", "markdown_url": "https://musics.name/articles/rise-of-functional-tonality.md", "json_url": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=rise-of-functional-tonality", "excerpt": "A motet by Palestrina and a trio sonata by Corelli are separated by about a century, and the difference between them is not a matter of ornament. In the motet, harmony is what happens while four or five independent lines are doing something else. In the…" } ], "articles": { "count": 28, "list": "https://musics.name/api/articles.json", "example": "https://musics.name/api/article.json?slug=ars-nova-and-renaissance-notation" }, "machines": { "llms_txt": "https://musics.name/llms.txt", "llms_full_txt": "https://musics.name/llms-full.txt", "humans_txt": "https://musics.name/humans.txt", "rss": "https://musics.name/feed.xml", "json_feed": "https://musics.name/feed.json", "sitemap": "https://musics.name/sitemap.xml", "robots": "https://musics.name/robots.txt" }, "markdown_twins": "Every article is also published as raw Markdown at /articles/{slug}.md", "cors": "Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * — safe for browser-side agents; the API is read-only." }