Harmony
Harmonizing a Melody: How to Choose the Chords
Harmonizing a melody means choosing a chord for each strong beat that contains the melody note. This worked example uses the opening of Ode to Joy in C.
The archive
Articles
100 pieces on how music is built and how it is written down — with playable examples, tables you can check, and no filler.
♮ intro · ♯♯ intermediate · ♯♯♯♯ advanced — like key signatures, more marks means more to hold in mind
Harmony
Pedal Point and Ostinato Explained: Holding and Repeating a Bass
Pedal point holds one bass note while the harmony above it changes. An ostinato repeats a short pattern. This covers the kinds of pedal, how clashes resolve, and the ground bass.
Harmony
Diminished and Half-Diminished Sevenths Explained
The fully diminished seventh is four notes stacked in minor thirds, and the half-diminished seventh is a diminished triad with a minor seventh. This is how each one spells and resolves in C.
Fundamentals
Interval Inversion and Compound Intervals Explained
Inverting an interval moves its lower note up an octave, and the two numbers add to nine. Compound intervals are wider than an octave and take a simpler name.
Rhythm & Meter
Calculate Loop BPM from Bars and Seconds, Even in 6/8
Work out a loop’s BPM from its trimmed duration, choose the right beat unit and calculate tempo-change ratios without confusing speed with stretch.
Acoustics & Sound
Room Modes in a Small Studio: Calculate, Then Measure
Find a rectangular room’s first bass resonances, read the mode numbers and understand what a frequency list cannot tell you about your listening position.
Guitar & Fretboard
String Tension in Drop Tunings: Pitch and Scale Length
Estimate how retuning and scale length change the same string’s tension, with a Drop D example and clear limits on gauge, feel and instrument safety.
Fundamentals
Whole-Tone and Diminished Scales: Structure, Spelling and Sound
The whole-tone scale uses only whole steps, and the octatonic scales alternate whole and half steps. Here are their spellings on C and the chords they fit.
Harmony
The Tonnetz Explained: Euler's Lattice and Chord Moves
The Tonnetz is a lattice of fifths and major thirds whose triangles are triads. Leonhard Euler described it in 1739, and this is how to read it.
Music History
Word Painting in the Madrigal: Music That Depicts Its Text
Word painting sets a single word to a melodic shape that mirrors its meaning. Late sixteenth-century madrigalists made it central, and critics objected.
Fundamentals
Enharmonic Equivalents and Double Accidentals Explained
Enharmonic notes share one pitch under two names, such as C♯ and D♭. Learn why the spelling matters, what double sharps and flats do, and where they appear.
Guitar & Fretboard
CAGED System Explained: Five Shapes That Cover the Neck
CAGED turns five open chords into movable shapes. This explains how the shapes connect, how to name a moved chord from its root string, and how to find one chord in several places.
The ebook
Music Theory: the site as a book
The site's working library as a structured ebook: intervals, keys, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, form, tuning, orchestration and the history behind them.
- 78 pages
- PDF format
- $2.87
- By The musics.name project
The Gumroad link opens the seller’s listing and checkout. Review the current total and purchase terms there; the free site does not require a purchase.
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