r/musictheory

Hello, all. I'm looking for examples from the classical repertoire in which chord tones don't resolve as expected. I'm especially thinking of places where the seventh of a V7 chord (^4) doesn't resolve to ^3 in the same part when moving to a I chord (for example: if ^4 is in the viola, the viola might move to ^1 while the first violin moves from ^5 to ^3).

I'm not interested in irregular harmonic resolutions (for example, V-vi or I-III#). I'm looking for parts that don't go where traditional voice-leading theory says they should go, all during typical chord resolutions.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Hi everyone,

I'm a beginner adult violinist with not much prior ear training (2 years of lessons so far, and my intonation isn't great but according to my teacher I'm doing okay so far). I've been working with the Complete Ear Trainer app but struggled a lot on the first level, i.e. recognizing octaves from minor thirds. Today I tried changing the sound bank to pizz strings, and suddenly I got much, much better. I think I'm focusing too much on the tone vs the note frequency, and the default sound bank is a very resonant piano.

Is there any downside to using a "cleaner" sound bank? Is it a common issue?

Thanks! :)

My one question that I have (I’m not sure if there’s an answer or if it just comes with experience) is this: Outside of the bass note, how do you decide which note goes with which instrument and in which register?

For example, let’s say you end a piece with a B major chord like Stravinsky’s Firebird. Obviously it’s not going to be inverted, so our bass note is a B. But outside of that, there’s so many instruments. I mean what’s the difference in giving second and fourth horn and octave F# and an octave D# in the grand scheme of things.

Do composers consider how the notes would ring with the other horns? Does that really make a difference with that many other instruments playing?

Hi all,

I have never gotten formal musical training. I learned guitar (and music) through metal/rock covers and reverse-engineering than I pivoted to DAW/MIDI technologies and gotten a further grip on the technicalities of music (dynamics, harmonics, phase, loudness maximization, etc).

While most music I write is in the minor scale (or in Aeolian mode? I'm not sure I'm properly using terminology here), my rock/metal background has equipped me with some magic tricks to cut corner within a scale without the music breaking and sounding off-key.

The most classical (classical as in "oh that's a classic" not as in "classical music" haha) trick I employ may be injecting the triton (Root+6st) in a blues-y way (usually gliding downward or upward to land on the 4th or 5th of the minor scale). This trick is used all over music I listened to from rock/metal to 2000s R&B/pop.

An even more daring trick is injecting the major 3rd (Root+4st) or I guess playing directly or indirectly the major chord of the key instead of the minor. The internet search led me to just one particular instance of this referred to as the **Mario Cadence**. In a nutshell, it comes to playing the following chords given a tonic X: (X-4)maj -> (X-2)maj -> Xmaj. It ressembles a famous chord progression from the minor scale 6maj 7maj 1 found all over western music. Yet it lands on an unexpected major chord rather than minor.

However, it is not the only way I gravitate towards playing that tonic chord as major instead of minor. I found myself also replacing the tonic minor chord with its major version in my favorite family of chord progression involving 1, 4th, and 6th (0, 0+5, 0+8) in various orders. It's also found all over western music, and it works so well but that's another can of worm I'll be ready to dig into one day.

Here's an example from a breakdown of a recent piece of music I'm working on.

The harmony, carried by the bass and chords, is more of a power-chord progression from A 1st to F 6th to D 4th. In my pads and chords, I throw the major 3rd (tonic+4st) into it and it doesn't break, one can even say it gives a dreaminess to the whole thing. If you have a more informed description of what you hear, please let me know.

I also noticed that major 3rd (+4st) doesn't break when the minor 7th (+10st) is still ringing. Which cannot be necessarily said for other minor-only notes (like the 3rd (+3st) or the 6th (+8st)).

I'm open to any leads I can follow in order to understand these maneuvers. I sort of learned by ear and observation. Over the years, I luckily stumbled upon some music that cannot be explained or understood through a minimal understanding of keys and scales.

Does anyone know where I can get a music production course like Redbow's—but free—that covers all the same (or even more) information on music theory? I know the information is available for free, but I’m looking for something where it’s all gathered in one place and organized.

I’m a 26 year old man. I should not be having this issue, but at some point recently, I began hearing music one semitone higher than I should. What should sound like an E now sounds like an F, what once sounded like an A now sounds like an A#/Bb.

My point is, is there a quick solution to this problem. I don’t experience any other problems and it only started happening recently, about a month, maybe a month and a half ago. It happened not long after me and my family moved closer to the mountains out of apartment living so I had been sneezing a lot more because of the pollen. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with it (not sure though).

I do know the difference between 3/4 and 6/8. But occasionally I'll hear a song which is at just the right tempo that it feels like phrases could either be 2 measures of 3/4 or 1 measure of 6/8, depending on how you're counting the bpm. Is there a rule of thumb for differentiating them? Usually I try to imagine it written out. Would it make more sense or be more readable/playable one way or the other? Sometimes that helps, but sometimes not. What do y'all think?

So, I'm currently writing an orchestral piece with complex time signature changes. One part that I wrote has two quarter-note triplets defined as one beat. And I don't mean two triplet-groupings, but just two notes. Let's say I play that four times to get one bar, what would the time signature be?

This change comes after a 4/4 part, so length-wise (in seconds) it's two thirds of the 4/4. I guess you could argue it's just a tempo decrease, but like... in 100 BPM that would make it 66.666etc BPM, which obviously isn't possible. Plus, it isn't really, right? That would be like calling metric modulation a tempo change.

I thought at first that would make it 2/6, but after looking it up, apparently that would be two dotted eighth-notes, so I'm kinda lost as to what this would be.

Musescore automatically beams these rhythms as shown on the left in 4/4. I feel the right is much easier to read. What is more standard/what do you prefer?

https://preview.redd.it/2g22qt4i2abh1.png?width=912&format=png&auto=webp&s=408e46e25edaf75cfd10fd90a05903dfad64e578

Bmaj7 - Bm7 - Bbm7 - Eb7

sounds very bossa, or R&B to me

i know that when changing from a major key to another, the distance on the circle of fifths tell you how distant the jump is. my question is what happens when you want to go to a new key that is not major. like phrygian, or dorian. do you then use the relative major keys to figure out tonal distance? you can go to the modes of major keys close to your current relative major? this is sort of esoteric stuff to me, would appreciate your input.

With the 8va

Many ledger lines without the 8va

I'm transcribing Benny Andersson's demo of "When the Waves Roll Out to Sea" and the first passage has a higher range for the left hand that leaves too many ledger lines. Is it unusual to put a Bass Ottava Alta when notating for piano?

I'm becoming increasingly enamored with chord progressions that feel like they really go on a little journey rather than just loop over and over.

For example: a lot of Paul McCartney's writing in songs such as Your Mother Should Know, Penny Lane, Blackbird, Martha My Dear, etc.

Elton John is also someone that I'm noticing does this a lot.

It often feels epic and maybe a bit classical but not in a rigid way. It usually comes off as if the chord progression is talking (we rarely speak strictly in groups of 4).

Bonus points if it's in an odd time signature or contains a weird number of bars.

Also, is there a name for this style of writing in general?

TL;DR songs, albums, or artists that write progressions longer than 4 bars and contain non-diatonic, borrowed, or modulating chord progressions.

I'd like to make some music similar to TCoAaL, with this sinister sound, yet catchy... The problem is that I've never studied how to make music, and I've only done one music that is 2 minutes long: any help would be really appreciated if you want to