Harmony
Diatonic Chords in Major and Minor Keys Explained
Diatonic chords are the triads built on each scale degree from the key's own notes. Here are their qualities in major and minor, worked out in C and A.
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Glossary
- TonicThe first degree of a scale, the note that a key is named for and that tonal music treats as its home and…
- TonicisationA brief passage that makes a chord other than the tonic sound like a temporary home, usually through a…
- DiatonicDescribes notes drawn from a single seven-note scale, such as the white keys of the piano, with no chromatic…
- Octatonic scaleAn eight-note scale that alternates whole and half steps, also called the diminished scale, such as C D E♭ F…
- Pentatonic scaleA five-note scale per octave with no half steps, such as the major pentatonic C D E G A.
- SubtonicThe seventh degree when it sits a whole step below the tonic, as in the natural minor scale and the…
- SupertonicThe second degree of the scale, a whole step above the tonic, which supports the ii chord.
- Syntonic commaThe small interval of 81:80, about 21.51 cents, equal to the difference between a Pythagorean major third and…
Articles
Fundamentals
Pentatonic and Blues Scales: Patterns With a Purpose
Major and minor pentatonics plus the blues scale: the patterns, the blue notes, and why five notes carry so much melody.
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
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.
Fundamentals
Scale Degrees Explained: Numbers, Names and Solfège
Scale degrees number each note of a scale from its tonic, and solfège names the same positions do, re, mi. Degree names, movable and fixed do, and why degrees travel between keys.
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.
Ear Training & Practice
Ear Training for Intervals: A Method You Can Practise Daily
Interval recognition comes faster with a method: three intervals tied to a tonic, sung before they are named, and a short daily routine you can keep.
Fundamentals
Relative and Parallel Keys Explained: Major and Minor Partners
A major key has two close minor partners. The relative minor shares its key signature, the parallel minor shares its tonic, and each pair connects keys in a different way.
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.
Ear Training & Practice
How to Transcribe Music by Ear: A Step-by-Step Procedure
Transcribe by ear in a fixed order: key and bass first, then chords by root and quality, then the melody by scale degree, and rhythm last.
Songwriting & Composition
How to Write a Melody Over Chords, Note by Note
Put chord tones on strong beats, approach tension notes by step, and keep the line singable. A worked melody over C, G, Am and F shows each choice.
Fundamentals
The Major Scale Formula: Whole and Half Steps Explained
The major scale is seven notes spaced whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Here is the formula, four scales built from it, and the sharps and flats it forces.
Harmony
Roman Numeral Analysis: How to Label a Chord Progression
Roman numerals label each chord by the scale degree of its root and its quality. Here is a step-by-step method, with I vi IV V worked in C and G.
Form
The Twelve-Bar Blues: Form, Chord Plan and Variations
Twelve bars of 4/4 in three four-bar phrases, moving through I, IV and V. The standard plan in C and F, the quick change, the turnaround and the minor blues.
Form
Binary and Ternary Form: Dance Patterns to Art Music
Simple and rounded binary, ABA and da capo: the cadence plans that define each section and how dances grew into art forms.
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.
Harmony
The ii V I Progression in Major, Minor and Jazz Styles
Why ii V I is the backbone of tonal music: voice leading, turnarounds, minor-key forms, and the jazz reharm toolkit.
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.
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.
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.
Counterpoint
Fugue Subjects and Answers
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.
Fundamentals
Key Signatures and the Order of Sharps and Flats
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.
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.
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.
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.
Songwriting & Composition
Song Form: Verse, Chorus and Bridge Explained
How verse, pre-chorus, chorus and bridge are arranged in common song forms, what each section is for, and how contrast makes the chorus land.
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.
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.
Scales
- Major pentatonic scaleMajor pentatonic: five notes taken from the major scale without the fourth and seventh, an open, consonant collection with no semitones.
- Minor pentatonic scaleMinor pentatonic: five notes from natural minor without the second and sixth, the core scale of blues and rock guitar and of countless solos.
- Diminished (whole–half) scaleWhole-half diminished: eight notes alternating whole and half steps, built from two diminished seventh chords, used over dominant sevenths.