Lessons
Class Overview
01:51 2The Piano Roll Editor
06:16 3Octaves
10:01 4Using Octaves
06:13 5The Black Keys (not the band)
07:55 6Finding C and Middle C
06:08 7Section 1 Summary
03:40 8The Perfect Fifth
06:06Finding Fifths
05:25 10Being "In Key"
05:00 11The Pattern of a Key
06:53 12Fifth Examples
08:52 13Moveable Patterns
05:20 14The Major and Minor Third
04:28 15Building Triads
12:32 16Chord Progressions
05:47 17What is Diatonic?
04:16 18Finding All The Chords
09:10 19Roman Numerals
05:02 20Example Song Analysis No. 1
09:58 21Inversions
08:22 227th Chords - Overview
04:25 23Diatonic 7th Chords
02:02 24Maj7 (Major 7) Example
08:26 25Dominant 7th Chords
06:11 26Blues and the 7th Chord
02:20 27The Fourth
06:45 28The Second
04:37 29The Sixth
01:58 30Song Analysis No. 2
15:54 31Wrap Up
02:32Lesson Info
Maj7 (Major 7) Example
So let's go back to our diatonic chord progression here now and let's just redraw it. Then we're gonna add the seventh and see how everything shakes out. So here's my one chord, right? Here's my two Chord is my three chord. Here's my four chord Five chords Put it there. Six chord, My seventh chord The weird one And then we're back to our one quart. Okay, let me just stretch all of these out. Okay, let's zoom out Just a hair so we can see that better. Okay, so here's our diatonic chord progression again with thirds. Right? So now we remember our pattern, right? This is gonna be a major chord. Minor chord, minor chord, Major Major, minor diminished. And then we're back to the one chord from Major. So let's see how that changes when we add our seventh. Now, whether or not the court is major or minor is not going to change, because remember, that's all in the third. We're not changing. The third were adding a note. So if we go up and add another note, let me just go through and do it here.
So thistles gonna be our seventh tone of each chord. Uh uh. Okay, so this 1st 1 has that nice, soothing kind of sound to it, Not the way I displayed it there. It sounded clunky, but, um so this is a major seventh chord. The zoo mounts the hair more here, get this on the screen. That should work. So this is a major seventh chord. So I can tell because it's a major chord with a major seven. Now, to tell the quality of the seven, there's two ways I can do it. One is I can look at its different its distance from the fifth. And thats in this case is a major third because as 5/2 steps in it, So that's gonna be a major seventh chord. Another way in the slightly more accurate way will be to look at its different, its distance from the root. So from here to here is a major seventh. And there's ah, quick way to tell if you're on a major seventh in that amount of distance and that is toe look at its distance from the next route up. Right, so we know it's a major seventh. If we're 1/2 step away from the root again in Octave Higher, right? So this is a quick way to tell for a major seven. Let's look at the next one. So this is our two chord. So this is minor. But what is our seventh? Well, here's the Route D. The next D is here, and it's a whole step away, so that means things is a minor seventh. We can also check the distance between the fifth and the seventh to tell us that's a minor. Seventh court took the next one e g b. That's our minor three Triad with 1/7 on it. This one is a minor third away from the fifth, and our route and octave higher would be right there, which there's a whole step there. So that means it must be a minor seventh court as well. Moving on our F is a major court because of our diatonic chord progression. We know that that's major. Our seventh is from here to here a major third, and our roots oven f would be an octave higher right there, and there's that's only 1/2 step away, so we know that this must be a major seventh. Another one of the really pretty ones. Now the fifth. The five court is where we get that were dominant situation where we have a minor or sorry, a major triad, but a minor seventh. That's just what is naturally occurring, and we call that a dominant chord or just a shorthand is 1/7 chord When we talk about 1/7 chord, the kind of common lingo we use is if it's a major seventh chord, rewrite this M A J seven. It's a minor seventh chord. We write this lower case M and then a seven. If it's a dominant chord like this, we just write the letter or the number seven after the ah court name. So in this case, we would write G seven, meaning that it's a G major triad with a minor seventh on it. Okay, so that's the one exception. That's the one place in the scale that that's going to show up. Let's move on. Our six chord is a minor chord, and it has a minor seventh on it. The route would be here if we took it up Inactive R B chord. This is our diminished chord, right? So this is a minor Actually, this is a major triumph. So this this one is just all kinds of weird. So let's just continue to call this diminished. But we'll call it a diminished seven in this case because what we have is a minor triad with that major third, Um, but it's a major third here, but it's a minor third here, right? So that's just all kinds of weird and goofy, and it sounds ugly, so we don't often use it in popular music Are electronic music are really very much We tend to avoid this like the plague. Um, it's just not very useful for us. So file that one away. For now, we're still gonna call it a diminished chord. Let's call it a diminished seventh chord. Let's do it. Let's hear it. I'm gonna get rid of all our sevenths. Okay, let's get rid of those in here it and then we'll play it a second time and I'll put the seventh back in. So here it is without the Seventh Way. Theo. Here it is with the seventh so you can hear hopefully that the cord quality is unaffected. It's still a major or a minor chord, adding the seventh just gives it a little more color, right? So more colorful. It sounds a little bit more jazz like to me. Um, cords that use a lot of sevens or music that uses a lot of seventh chords tends to be have a more jazz flavor to it s so if you want that kind of sound at a bunch of seventh chords to your harmony Ah, if you don't want that kind of sound, don't. Now there is a special reason why we might use this dominant chord. So I want to put that into a little bit of context. Ah, and focus on that quickly. So let's do that in the next video.
Ratings and Reviews
exoslime
this is great and very helpfull class, i make and wirte music for more than 2 decades and never gave much about theory, i trusted my feelings to what sound good and what not. Bu t recently i became interested but it all seemed very difficult to me and i didnt got the points behind music theory and how everyhing works together. This class was a game changer for me.. music theory is so simple if you have somebody to explain it in words so that you finally can understand it, and thats Anthony, he is a brilliant guy and he explains it in a simple way that you can easily understand whats going on. This is perfectly the case with this course, the sections are short and to the point, not much talking around and leaving the path, you can make fast progress end learn how music theory works, this is a 5 Star ***** course and hopefully there is more to come
Emane Filali
Fabulous course. As a person with dyslexia, trying to remember the notes and chords as letters only is impossible. I love the visual way the chords are demonstrated and explained. I was originally put off by the "electronic" aspect, thinking it was only for learning how to use piano edit roller. However, as a beginner in playing the piano, this course is applicable to all who want to learn and understand music theory in an interesting visual way. Looking forward to next lesson. Will definately be purchasing the course after. Fantastic tutor and course.
Giulio Lazaretti
Very good class!! Makes it much easier to understand and apply the rules of theory. Anthony is also very wise to suggest to trust your ears, even if what you've written doesn't fit into those same rules. I am so very grateful for you putting this together, Anthony, and for making it available for the general public, Creative Live. I am also very glad I was given the opportunity to learn english in my home country (Brazil), in which many barely know how to read and write in our own native language (portuguese) due to our public education being so bad (which, by its turn, has to do with the myriad of vile creatures that inhabit our representative chambers). Tks XoXo!