r/musictheory

The first goes like this x02300 and the second like this x022x0 on guitar standard tuning

The first sounds sinister and awesome imo, and doesn’t seem to resolve to anything i know. The closest i ever got to a closure was by conjuring the second “chord” and it kinda worked i guess

I really like them, i even have a demo. It’d be nice to know anything about them if possible

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I’m interested in getting more seriously into music, possibly even studying something music-related, but I’ve always struggled with music theory and I’m not sure how much that should worry me.

I’m autistic, and I’ve noticed that I sometimes struggle with the way music is traditionally taught. I’m really bad at identifying notes/pitches when someone asks me to name them, and music theory has always been difficult for me to understand and remember.

When I was younger, I even had a choir teacher put me in the back because I struggled with hearing notes correctly, so I think that experience made me doubt myself musically.

But there are things I do notice and feel naturally when listening to music:

- I love singing and have always been drawn to music.

- If I know an artist well, I can often recognize their voice pretty quickly.

- When I hear a song, I can usually tell how it goes and remember the melody/rhythm, even if I couldn't tell you what the actual notes are.

- I can often tell when something sounds right or wrong to me, even if I don't know the musical terminology to explain why.

- I listen to a LOT of music and pay attention to different singers, vocal styles, production, languages, etc.

- I’m especially interested in the creative side of music — songwriting, artists, production, and the music industry.

- I genuinely want to learn. I’m considering getting a music theory tutor because I know I have gaps and I want to improve.

I also have performance anxiety, so singing in front of people is something I struggle with even though I really love singing.

So I guess my biggest question is: Can an autistic person who struggles with traditional music theory still become good at music?

I’m wondering if I might have some musical instincts that I just don't know how to put into theory yet. Maybe I simply need to learn it in a way that works for how my brain processes information.

I’d especially love to hear from autistic musicians or anyone who struggled with theory/ear training when they started but still went on to pursue music.

I really want to give myself a chance at this, but I’m scared that being bad at theory means I’m just not musically capable. 😭

Hi everyone! I’m new to this sub. I’ve been reading for a long time and have a hundred questions. I’ve always loved music, and particularly music theory and composition. For various reasons, I’ve never really had the time to study or dedicate myself to it.

My question is: if you could recommend how I could start exploring this world, what would you say?

Anything; books, videos, podcasts...

I want to finally get into something that I love :) Ty!

I was thinking about some unusual resolutions I heard in a song and they weren't really going to the dominant or subdominant. They felt like they shifted to a related but different key almost.

Hello, is there any good book for Spanish guitar (beginner), in the style of Dummies/Idiot's Guide/Demystified? I'm not a complete guitar beginner, but I'd like a step-by-step into Spanish guitar, hopefully with some more or less famous pieces as samples (and in somewhat increasing level of difficulty), like Tarrega Study in E Minor to maybe(!) Sor Opus n.13, op.35. Thank you.

Outside of standard notation/tabs, is there a naming system for conveying the middle bits of the chord that one might want to specify?

These are not necessarily inversions, because the root stays in the bass. But maybe the fifth is played second, then the third up an octave. Or even the seventh is played as the second highest note, then the third?

i learn better with trial and error so this is a very incomplete thing i made. i already noticed some issues but i cant point my finger on them

I want to write neoclassical metal, but am unsure of what to do to make “classical sounding”music, what I want to learn the most is the harmony of it, and what I can do harmonically to make it sound classical. I have a pretty solid music theory grounding but just do not know much about what gives classical music its sound and how to emulate that.

ignore the end bit after the chorus part im not really done with it yet and im not sure if im keeping it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i also will probably turn vocals down a bit... this is only my like 5th actual song and i want to finish it... if no advice on that then maybe some advice on the mixing? this would be extremely helpful! sorry if im breaking rules of this sub but i feel like it has to do with music theory.

I'll preface this by saying I have no musical theory knowledge, so I apologise if I phrase anything wrong.

I've picked up the guitar on and off for the last couple of months, mainly using chord charts to play songs I like.

Today I decided to make something up, and landed on the below. It sounds nice to my untrained ear, but looking to know if it makes 'sense' in music theory please!

Is it also 4/4 in terms of time signature, regardless of how often I strum in each bar? I'm counting a 'bar' as 4 evenly spaced foot taps.

Thank you!

My son started piano lessons about 6 months ago, and fiddling around on the piano has become a bit of an obsession with him (he will finish playing his assigned beginner piano pieces and scales a set number of times, check it off on daily practice chart, and then rush back to me and say, "Now can I play piano?").

He started playing the following "scale" frequently: B flat, D flat, D, E flat, G flat, A flat, B flat (I put "scale" in quotation marks because I don't know whether it counts as an actual scale?) and then also: E flat, G flat, A flat, A, B flat, D flat, E flat. I feel like there must be some logical reason for what's going on with these two sets of notes, but it's way beyond my musical theory knowledge. They sound pleasing (kind of jazzy?), and they contain many of the same notes, but don't follow a set half step, whole step pattern.

Would love to hear what better-informed minds think about this, thanks in advance!

I only really know music from the Western tradition, and I'm struggling to understand how the approach of the Arab world (in its huge variation) differs.

For context, I experiment with music. Recently I've spent a lot of time making VST plugins, many of them generative. ( https://danja.github.io/downspout/ ).

One of the experiments (below) has made me curious how Arabic rhythms differ from, say, regular polyrhythms/polymeters (which they kinda sound like). Wikipedia/Googling gives me the impression that it's done more like from a playbook - there are a bunch of known preset beats (plus improvisation).

I'd like to somehow get a VST to generate in this style, but I don't get it yet.

Yesterday I was playing with a setup that boiled down to a rhythm generator plus melody generator plus some harmony.

I'd chosen to use a Phrygian Dominant scale, so already the result had an exotic (to me) feel.

The drum beat I had was very much 4/4 based, basically EDM.

But what I hadn't noticed when I pressed play was that I'd accidentally left a loop section in the DAW - random amount, about a bar and a half. When that hit the whole nature changed. The whole thing sounded straight from Morocco or somewhere.

Rather than wait for happy accidents, I'd like to be able to get that kind of result intentionally.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the great American songbook stuff but I really like Irving Berlin’s Puttin’ on the Ritz. It’s in 4/4 but with extreme syncopation to the point that the melody sounds like it’s in a completely different metre sometimes. It falls out of sync with itself and then locks back in with a very irregular pattern.

I haven’t come across anything else that does this same trick. The closest examples I have off the top of my head are the bassline in “The Smoke” by the Smile or the guitar riff in King Crimson’s Frame by Frame. The former has the bass changing time signature over a 4/4 beat and the latter has two guitars playing the same riff in 7/8 and 6/8 until they loop back together. I can’t think of anything like Puttin on the Ritz where the effect is achieved by what appears to be syncopation alone in a strict 4/4. Is there a name for this technique?

I hope I’m in the right place. Let’s take Toto’s Africa for example. At 1:21 through 1:31 I find it really easy to ”find” other voices and harmonize along with the song. These lines:

There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do,

I bless the rains down in Africa …

But THEN it gets tricky. The next line (’We’re gonna take some time to do the things we never had’) is impossible for me to harmonize with. It does not sound good, I promise.

I’ve always wondered why this is the case. And don’t get hung up on this particular song. It is just an example.

I would love an explanation for this! Just a skill issue? 😄 Or are some keys/notes/tones more difficult to harmonize with? If so, why?

(Sorry for choosing such a silly song and lyrics. I also have no training whatsoever in music/musicality.)