Tuning & Temperament
What Are Cents? The Unit That Measures Small Pitch Differences
A cent is one hundredth of an equal-tempered semitone. Here is the formula, what the common intervals measure in cents, and what a tuner is showing you.
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Type a chord symbol or a scale name and go straight to it, or search tools, glossary terms and every article. Results are ranked by where the words appear.
Glossary
- CentA unit for small pitch differences: 1/100 of an equal-tempered semitone, so an octave is 1200 cents.
- KeyThe tonic and scale that a passage centres on, against which its notes and chords are heard.
- TessituraThe part of a voice or instrument's range where most notes lie and where the performer sounds most…
- SyncopationAn accent placed where the meter does not expect it, on a weak beat, an offbeat or across a bar line through…
Articles
Rhythm & Meter
Syncopation, Accent and Groove: Rhythm That Pushes Back
Tied overbeats, attacked offbeats, hemiola and groove: how syncopation displaces accent and why the body keeps the score.
Music History
Romantic Chromaticism and the Expanding Tonic
Chromatic harmony widened a key without leaving it: the resources that do the work, the Tristan chord, and how to analyse it without over-labelling.
Rhythm & Meter
Compound Meter: 6/8 vs 3/4 and How to Hear the Difference
Six eighth notes per bar can group as 3+3 in 6/8 or 2+2+2 in 3/4. Accent, contour, hemiola and conducting show which grouping you are hearing.
Tuning & Temperament
Pythagorean Tuning: How Stacked Pure Fifths Build a Scale
Pythagorean tuning builds every interval from pure 3:2 fifths. Here is the seven-note scale it produces, its whole tones and semitones in cents, and the wolf fifth it leaves behind.
Acoustics & Sound
The Harmonic Series: Why Octaves, Fifths and Thirds Come First
A vibrating string or air column sounds a fundamental and a set of partials at whole-number multiples of it. Here are the first sixteen, their cents, and where they differ from equal temperament.
Music History
From Ars Nova to the Renaissance: How Notation Changed Music
Rhythm took two centuries longer than pitch to notate. Mensural notation solved it with ratios, and the Renaissance then replaced black ink with white.
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
Non-Chord Tones: Passing, Neighbour, Suspension and More
A non-chord tone is a note that sounds over a chord without belonging to it. Here are the main types, how each is approached and left, and how to write them.
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.
Rhythm & Meter
Odd Meters in 5/4 and 7/8: Counting, Feeling, Writing
Hear 5/4 and 7/8 as beat groups, not math: counting systems, conducting, repertoire from Brubeck to Balkan dance.
Orchestration
String Bowing and Articulation: A Practical Arranger Guide
Legato, detache, spiccato, staccato, martelé: what each bowing sounds like, how to mark it, and writing playable string parts.
Tuning & Temperament
Equal Temperament: What It Costs and What It Buys
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.
Tuning & Temperament
Just Intonation, Beating and Why Intervals Sound in Tune
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.
Tuning & Temperament
Meantone and Well Temperament: Why Keys Used to Sound Different
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.
Rhythm & Meter
Meter, Beat Hierarchy and Hypermeter in Performance
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.
Music History
After Tonality: What Composers Replaced It With
When chromatic harmony outgrew the tonal hierarchy, composers tried serial rules, rhythm, folk modes, and sound mass. What each method actually solved.
Music History
The Rise of Functional Tonality: From Modes to Keys
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.
Fundamentals
Scientific Pitch Notation: What C4 Actually Means
Middle C is C4 in scientific pitch notation, C3 on some manufacturers' labelling, and MIDI note 60 in every sequencer. The numbering is a convention.
Rhythm & Meter
Swing Timing: What the Notation Does Not Say
Jazz notation asks for swing and leaves the ratio to the players, because the timing is tempo-dependent and a fixed written value would be wrong at most speeds.
Music History
Gregorian Chant and Neumes: How Early Scribes Wrote Melody
Gregorian chant is unaccompanied Latin liturgical song. Neumes were the signs that recorded its melodies, first showing only the direction of movement and later placed on lines.
Form
Sonata Form: The Tonal Plot
Sonata form is a tonal argument, not a set of labelled boxes. What matters is which key you are in, and how the music gets home again.
Rhythm & Meter
Time Signatures Explained: Simple, Compound and Beyond
A time signature gives beats per bar and the note value that counts as one beat. Simple meters split each beat in two, compound meters split it in three.
Harmony
Augmented Sixth Chords: Italian, French and German Types
Italian, French and German sixth chords: how each type is built, how they resolve to V, and their use in enharmonic modulation.
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.
Rhythm & Meter
Note Values, Rests, Ties and Dots Explained
Each note value is half the one above it. Whole to sixteenth notes and their rests, plus how dots, ties and beams change what you count.
Music History
Baroque Ornamentation: Trills, Mordents and Turns
Execute trills, mordents, turns and appoggiaturas correctly: on-beat starts, national styles, and reading ornament tables.
Fundamentals
Church Modes From Dorian to Locrian: A Practical Guide
Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian explained by pattern and color, with hearing tips and modern uses.
Fundamentals
Circle of Fifths Explained: Keys, Signatures, Changes
The circle of fifths organizes every key by signature and closeness. How to read it, memorize it, and use it for modulation and chord choice.
Form
Rondo Form: How Refrains and Episodes Structure a Movement
Rondo form alternates a returning refrain with contrasting episodes. Learn classical key plans, sonata-rondo hybrids, and why refrains return altered.
Intervals
- Major secondThe major second is a whole tone of two semitones, with a just ratio of 9:8, and it is the step between most neighbouring degrees of the major scale.
- Major seventhThe major seventh spans eleven semitones with a just ratio of 15:8, a sharp dissonance that the ear hears as a leading tone pulling toward the octave.
- Major sixthThe major sixth spans nine semitones with a just ratio of 5:3, an open imperfect consonance that sounds bright and lifted.
- Major thirdThe major third spans four semitones with a just ratio of 5:4, the bright imperfect consonance that gives major chords their sound.
- Minor secondThe minor second spans one semitone with a just ratio of 16:15, the narrowest step used in Western tonal music.
- Minor seventhThe minor seventh spans ten semitones with a just ratio of 9:5, a dissonance that sounds unresolved at the top of the dominant seventh chord.
- Minor sixthThe minor sixth spans eight semitones with a just ratio of 8:5, a dark imperfect consonance that inverts to the major third.
- Minor thirdThe minor third spans three semitones with a just ratio of 6:5, the darker of the two thirds and the interval that gives minor triads their colour.