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Identifying added-note chords
My NYU aural skills students are working on chord identification. My last post talked about seventh chords; this post is about chords with more notes in them, or at least, different notes. My theory...
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Identifying standard pop chord progressions
This week in aural skills, we are practicing identifying pop schemas, that is, chord sequences and loops that occur commonly in various kinds of Anglo-American top 40, rock, R&B and related styles....
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Identifying song forms
Song structure is a strange music theory topic, because there is not much “theory” beyond just describing it. Why are some patterns of song sections so broadly appealing? The answer has something to...
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Identifying tritone substitutions
This is one of those jazz theory ideas that gets explained endlessly online and in texts and is relatively rare in a typical American’s listening experience. But when you do hear it, it does sound...
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What is syncopation?
(Meta-level note: I rewrite this explainer every few years and now that I have a couple of new music theory gigs, I am rewriting it yet again.) Syncopation is to rhythm what dissonance is to harmony:...
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What is tempo?
The basic idea of tempo is simple: how many beats there are per minute. More beats per minute means the music is faster, fewer beats per minute means the music is slower. The image below shows a tempo...
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The minor key universe
In a previous post, I suggested that we think of an expanded major key universe that includes the major scale, Mixolydian mode, Lydian mode, and maybe also Mixolydian b6. In this post, I present a...
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Maceo Parker’s blue notes in a James Brown classic
I got interested in tuning theory because of the blues. The first instrument I learned to play well was the harmonica, and an essential part of blues harmonica is bending notes to make them go flat....
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Ray Charles sings “You Are My Sunshine”
I am mildly obsessed with this recording, both as a work of art and as a music teaching resource. While I have mentioned this track several times on here, I haven’t really dug into the details. So it’s...
View ArticlePodcast episode on swing
Here’s a subject that I tried hard to explain using songs, without apparent success. Maybe the podcast format will work better. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing by Ethan Hein But what...
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