When it comes to chords, I like to categorise chords in 3 broad categories. We have the different types of dyads which are 2 note chords, mostly used as power chords in rock/heavy music. Then we have the triads, the most…
All related major and minor pairs
A musician needs to memorize all the related major-minor pairs as this is very useful for songwriting and improvisation. Feel free to create a mnemonic to make it easier to remember. I memorized these just by playing them over and over,…
Related major and minor for all the diatonic modes
The seven diatonic modes that we studied previously (click here) can be categorised between major and minor flavoured modes. Just how every major key has a related minor and vice versa, all the modes also have a related key which can…
Mixolydian mode
The third brightest of all modes is the Mixolydian mode. If you are not familiar with the ranking of modes from brightest to darkest, please read this before moving onto the Mixolydian mode. One very useful thing to remember is that…
7 modes of the major scale and their applications (Part 1)
The first two columns of the following table provides the names of all 7 modes of the major scale and their tonal characteristics. The third column gives a ranking of the modes based on how they sound. This is the first…
Songwriting hack
This is one simple method you can use to write beautiful chord progressions. It is easy to remember and it always works! To learn this hack, you need to understand the scale degree (read this to know more). The rule of…
12 bar blues
Blues is considered as the backbone of modern western contemporary music. Understanding blues requires understanding several aspects but the best place to start is to start with the 12 bar blues. As the name suggests, this is a structure comprising of…
The difference between simple meter and compound meter
Simple meter: The simplest way to explain a simple meter is that each beat in a simple meter is felt separately. The most common ones are 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4. On 4/4 we have 4 counts per bar and each count…
The key of C
The key of C is usually the first key covered in any music study. It doesn’t have any accidental meaning there are no sharps or flats, only natural notes. Therefore in the key of C, the notes are C D E…
Difference between Major and Minor scales
The three notes that create the distinction between Major (Ionian mode) and Natural Minor (Aeolian mode) scales are 3rd 6th and 7th. One easy way to remember this is that on MAJOR, as the name suggests, we have all the larger…