Harmony
The Neapolitan Sixth Chord: Sound, Spelling, Resolution
The flat-II chord that darkens minor keys: how the Neapolitan sixth is built, voiced, resolved, and used from Bach to Schubert.
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
Harmonic Sequences and Circle Progressions That Modulate
Descending fifths, ascending 5-6 patterns, Pachelbel loops: how sequences work, when they modulate, and how to write them.
Harmony
Triads and Inversions: Root Position, Sixth, Six-Four
Root position, first and second inversion: how triad voicings shape the bass line, when to invert, and what the figures mean.
Harmony
Tritone Substitution: The subV7 Chord That Still Resolves
Replace any dominant with the dominant a tritone away: why subV7 works, how it smooths bass lines, and where jazz standards hide it.
Harmony
Borrowed Chords: Modal Mixture in Practice
Mixture borrows chords from the parallel mode. What the common borrowed chords do to a phrase, how they resolve, and where labelling fails.
Harmony
Cadences: How Phrases End in Tonal Music
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.
Harmony
Figured Bass: Reading Intervals Above the Bass Line
Figures name intervals above the bass, not chords. What each shorthand means, how accidentals override the key, and what the player decides.
Harmony
Functional Harmony: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant
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.
Harmony
Modulation: How a Key Change Is Confirmed
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.
Harmony
Secondary Dominants and How Tonicization Works
A secondary dominant makes any chord a temporary tonic. How to spell one, where it turns up, and what cancels the effect.
Harmony
Seventh Chords and How They Resolve in Tonal Harmony
The chordal seventh falls, the leading tone rises, and the tritone at the centre of V7 resolves by step. What each diatonic seventh chord is for.
Harmony
Voice Leading: Why the Rules Exist in Four-Part Writing
Parallel fifths, tendency tones, spacing and doubling, read as solutions to one problem: keeping four lines heard as four lines.
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.
Featured releases
