music theory is a practice most musicians desire to learn. Music theory doesn’t need to be learned, especially in this day and age, but can be extremely useful when writing and playing music. Music theory examines the fundamentals of the music you listen to. It also provides a system to interpret musical compositions. We learned some of the basics in the first few sessions of the project, and this is what we learned.
Melody- the melody is a succession of notes put into a musical phrase. Melodies can be created with vocals or instruments, but the melody line is often sung by the vocalist. The two primary elements of melody are pitch and rhythm. The pitch is how high or low the musical vibration is played by the instrument or vocalist, and rhythm is the duration and length of each note.
Harmony- Harmony is when two or more voices or notes play together simultaneously to produce a new sound. Harmon is used in nearly every song that is created in modern music. Chords and chord progressions are an example of melody. Two or more notes are played to create a new sound. combining vocal parts also creates harmony. Harmony typically sounds nice, but may not always be pleasing to the ear.
Rhythm- There are different definitions of rhythm, rhythm can be the recurring movements and rests of notes or the pattern of strong and weak notes that repeat throughout the song. Understanding rhythm can help a musician make great melodies and harmonies. Rhythm is essentially the backbone of a track.
Notes are the building block of all music. The music alphabet consists of 7 notes. C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Each note has a unique pitch. The black notes on a keyboard play ‘flat’ or ‘sharp’. The notes are A#/B♭, C#/D♭, D#/E♭, F#/G♭, G#/A♭. A semitone is a next note up from the note you are playing. For example, if I am playing a C, a semitone up is a Db. A tone is 2 semitones up from the note you are playing, so if I am playing a C, the tone up is a D.
The last thing we learned is major and minor scales and the difference between a major sound and a minor sound. Minor is the music equivalent to a sad, gloomy, or moody feeling. The minor scale is used in a lot of house music as it sounds deeper and more dramatic. Major sounds a lot happier. It can also be used for calmer music, but it always tends to carry this happier tone. The major and minor tones can be used to portray a feeling through your music.
These are the basics of music theory I learned and it helped me a lot while making my compositions on Logic, Ableton, and in real life.