Discovered this song in an awesome playlist by AAA Badboy, which was 60s, 70s and 80s soul music sampled in Jungle records. Check the playlist out here.
Category Archives: Theory
This article serves as a guide for my first year Understanding Music Theory students but is also a go-to for anyone who wants to improve their musical ear.
This article is designed for my foundation Understanding Music Theory students but is available to anyone else who is staring out with composition or production and wants to understand how scale construction works.
In this post I’m going to discuss some types of cadences and turnarounds. Cadences are a topic that comes up for my first year foundation Understanding Music Theory students (as well as for many others), and this will acts as a resource to demonstrate the four types of cadence they need to know.
This article was originally published in 2014 and has been updated for 2022.
This is a brief guide to the altered scale – how you can figure it out and some basic harmonies derived from it.
Ondine is the first movement from Ravel’s fabled 1908 composition Gaspard de la nuit. The piece is regarded by many as one of the most demanding piano works.
Pedal tones and inverse pedal tones are two ways of adding interest to a harmonic part by use of a static tone or tones, and in some cases repeated ostinato.
This was originally published in December 2017. I am giving the graphics and writing an update.
I was walking along the canal a while back with my good pal discussing saxophone and how his work rota had allowed him more time at home during the day, meaning he can practise the (often) unwelcoming sound of overtones.
This article was originally published back in 2014. As with other well-read posts on this site, I’m trying to revisit some to tidy up some of the writing and audio and generally make them a little more professional.
As part of a module I’m teaching at the moment I’m compiling Spotify playlists for a range of different time signatures. As the vast majority of popular music including dance/EDM, hip hop, rock, pop, soul, country etc is in 4/4 time, it can often be tricky for people to compile examples of a range of different time signatures.