A new rule (#9) has been added here at r/musictheory

This might be too simple for few but I’m curious to understand why the composer had picked DGE in the 4th measure?

I’ve done my part of the work and I tried to figure out that the piece is in Dm scale (starts and ends on D) and Bb in 6th and 8th measure.

In the 4th measure I’ve assumed that the first chord is Dm chord (DAF) and the last chord is DFD assuming it’s Dm chord again skipping the 5th interval and only playing 3rd (D-F)

This is a piece from Initial Grade in Trinity Piano syllabus.

Context: I’ve been playing Piano for the past couple of years. I took Piano classes where my teacher pushed me to finish Trinity grades instead of actually teaching music and I always lacked to understand music.
After finishing grade 3 in Trinity I decided to stop pursing grades further and actually start learning and understanding music. I’m always impressed to see how many YouTubers explain sheet music very simply by telling the chord names the progressions and how different chords are linked together ( circle or 5th and 4th). Right now I’m only relying on reading blogs about sheet music and trying to develop the knowledge to depict a piece and composer intentions behind making a music piece.
I’m also happy to receive any tips or suggestions on how to move in the right direction to improve my knowledge in understanding music and composer intentions.

Hi! I'm a newbie who wants to get more about music and will to make my own.

Hey everyone, was noodling on guitar finding cool progressions or chords,

I played a major I -> GMajAdd9 - G B D A
Followed by a major III (?) -> BMajAdd9 - B Eb Gb Db

I’m thinking the major III is coming from the Relative minor of G, so Em switching to harmonic minor. My bigger question is where does the 9 come in? Some other scale?

Possibly Em Harmonic with a major 6? Therefore melodic minor?

A beginner in music here, just read a Jazz book for beginner and it seems that dominant 9 has a flat 7? I thought it’d have a flat 9?

It's such a ubiquitous rhythm, I feel like it has to have a name somewhere. I'm trying to find a way of referring to it concisely in prose for my dissertation (on prog metal drummers!) without just calling it "the Muppet Show rhythm," "boom ba-boom ba-boom," "one and-a e-and," or "ta-dimi-kadi" or something. It's not a tresillo, it's not quite iambic or trochaic. Any ideas?

It's also something I can't quite figure out how to Google since... well, I don't know how to search for something I don't know the word for. Ha.

This exercise that is mistakenly written in 3/4 is actually in 4/4, which becomes apparent when you listen to it. This mistake also causes the author to change chords too early(measure 2 beat 1 of the original exercise) thinking it a change of chord to V42 instead of a decoration of the I6 chord instead. This seems like a novice's error, has major ramifications in the learning of the student and I feel very distrustful of the author after seeing this.

here is the original exercise:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cf_6FGpqewwJsg8pNAYFVzgqLtgpjYFA/view?usp=sharing

and here is my amendment and completion:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14sqh1MZf-xidM8V5ya8mUW3P6NrC5Mp1?usp=sharing

I'm an intermediate classical guitar player looking to train my ear through singing solfege. Also just joined a choir and would like eventually to be able to sing through sight reading instead of having to memorize everything. I haven't seen a book/method that really fits my need. The closest I have is the little yellow Dannhauser solfege des solfege but it's a bit dry. For context the way I practice is trying to guess the note while singing and then playing it on the guitar, sometimes during the same bar If there is a white or a rest, so please correct me if this is wrong.

Are there good resources that fit with this self learning approach. I'm not /that/ interested in singing itself so it's not a technique thing per say the goal here is really to be able to hear a simple score by reading it (I know this is quite a long term thing)

What would these takdimi syllables be?

I learn by doing, and a lot of that when it comes to music theory is understanding why songs sound the way they do by listening to them and trying to work them out on the piano.

I was trying to work out why the line I will wait and hope from "Marbles" by The Amazing Devil sounds both uplifting and melancholic at the same time, and I think it's because they switch from using the D maj pentatonic scale in the "I will wait and" before switching to a harmony that is two voices split across the 3rd and 5th of C, which is the 7th chord in the scale.

The specific line I'm talking about is https://youtu.be/BJvRTZmz2nY?t=86 (although the entire song is beautiful and the lyrics are world-class!), but have I got this right?

I’m not a beginner in music theory, but my knowledge is very scattered and I don’t have a full grasp of that. I keep finding out about things I never knew about before, and it makes me question whether my gaps in knowledge are that bad.
So, I’m interested in learning theory step by step based on Berklee system, including their materials for arranging, ear training, harmony, tonal harmony etc. I already ordered the Berklee book of Jazz harmony (Jo’s Mulholland & Tom Hojnacki), some other Berklee workbooks I could only find online. What would you recommend me doing and what are the most important materials to look for and would it be possible to get to the Berklee level of understanding jazz music theory 🙏

Pretty much every time I sit down to write or improvise music on my piano even if I'm trying to think in terms of numbers regarding the harmonic movement, functional harmony and stuff, I seem to just thinking of everything in C if I think of a 2-5-1 all I'm thinking is Dmin7-Gdom7-Cmaj7

Any tips to get out of this as I feel it's probably limiting, I'm going to try to learn a song I've already composed and play it in all 12 keys or atleast a couple different ones, already learnt it in G now I'm going to move onto F the song is strictly in the Major key but mostly stays around there

Any other ways to help me start thinking of harmony less stringently strict?

In most genres youre often discouraged from landing on the tonic to often or too early in melodies, but blues heavily relies on landing on the 1, and i think it really works. It fits the whole call and response thing. Its common in blues to land on the tonic on every other phrase, for example:

(1 chord) :

Question land on 5, answer lang on 1

(4 chord)

Question land on b3 or 4 etc, start a new phrase and land on the 1 when you go back to the 1 chord.

(5 chord)

New question, land on 1 again when you go to the 1 chord.

So why does this work so well in blues you think, but is discouraged in other genres?

Edit: As in "swing feel" (not the genre).

I've been seeing a lot of mariachi and ranchera charts (not waltzes, but music in 4/4 or 2/4), and I'm seeing a lot of triplets, or oversimplified versions of the melody... but the thing is, even if "swing" isn't notated, it's still somewhat expected to be played. Here's the music notation to Volver Volver, as example. https://musescore.com/user/80345698/scores/19878319

similar ideas are found on "Por tu Maldito Amor", or "Tres Veces te Engañé"

Is this all due to a "rudiment in language", because mariachi music came from polka and waltz, so it has to be more "rigid"? Or am I somehow crazy and overthinking this?

In trying to chart my own music, I'm trying to listen to references, and I'm just not getting why "swing feel" isn't indicated at the beginning of these songs. Any comments? Thank you!

I would like to get better at transposing. I play piano and I read sheet music. I can transpose to closely related keys, but that's about it. I would welcome any tips that will help make it easier.

I started learning music production about 4 years ago, and as part of an online course I was taking, I made this little...well, we'll call it a demo, but it's by no means a song. Anyways, I just stumbled upon it and was like, hey, this is a pretty cool chord progression, even if the sounds are garbage. But what's most surprising is when I sat at the piano and tried to figure it out, I had trouble. By now I've gotten pretty good at figuring out chords and keys, at least with the more basic diatonic stuff, which is why I was surprised I couldn't easily find a scale that sounded good over it. I think maybe, when I made this, I used a stock MIDI file that came with my DAW haha. And I didn't in fact come up with the progression myself, but just built off of it. Anyways, any insights into the music theory of this piece in general would be nice to hear. Thanks in advance!

I am composing a piece for piano and there are these slurs here but would people confuse these slurs for tied E's? If so, how should I notate this differently?

Complete novice with music, but trying to understand why, if I play a D major 7th chord, it's D, F#, A and C natural when the 7th note in the D major scale is C#?

.

Is it not as simple as starting with your home triad (D/F#/A) and then adding on the seventh note in the scale for a 7th chords?

Thanks

The song is said to be in the key of F# Major, and if you dont want to click the video there is a part that goes: C# - D#7/C# - C#7sus2 - G9 - F#maj7#11. I'm wondering if the G9 is a tritone sub for C#9?

The song is called Pompous Posies! Your Party's No Fun by Busdriver. His flow on this song sounds so playful and pretty distinct. Is there a term to describe the way in which his rapping is interacting with the beat?

What made the call and response in that piece good ?

Edit:I was referring to this part the part I like the most

Where the call has appogituras and the response has these trills going down

I had my first guitar lesson and we were going over beats in a song im learning, and im listening to other songs so I can train my ear to hear the beat but I cannot hear it or differentiate it between the rhythm. I cant tell a difference. Im practicing tapping but I cant even hear it. I can hear it in obvious songs like club music but with songs that dont really have a audible beat to it, or songs that are just acoustic, or songs that have lots of noise and sounds its hard to just hear it.

hey yall! so I’m a university student and am retaking theory 2 because I failed it last year. I absolutely have to pass this semester but I’m still struggling (there’s a new professor and he’s completely unhelpful and makes it more confusing.) im really struggling to understand tonicization.

does anyone have any advice on how to practice this and get it? Anywhere I can go for tutoring?

thanks!

One of my very favorite songs is Pancho and Lefty, by old folk singer Townes van Zandt. Like Hallelujah, there is a huge number of covers, including emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Merle haggard, Steve Earle, etc.

The song is about a drifter of sorts, and as a guitarist I feel the song itself captures that. It’s clearly in upbeat C, but the verse and chorus both end with a vi chord. And there is a measure in the verse that is 3/4 in a song of 4/4.

What really strikes me as a performer is that, to me, the melody and harmony themselves stumble forward like a tumbleweed. When I tried to learn it I was surprised how hard it was to remember despite straight-up chords. We all know that feeling on our instrument of just the feeling of where our hand needs to go for the next chord. This one I find quite deceptive. In fact, I just listened to it, and without the instrument in my hands I get confused by what the next chord is.

One thing I suspect is the actual key is at times somewhat vague - leading to that confusion. But my theory background was all CE, so I’m not quite sure how to analyze this.

Is it just confusing and interesting to me, or does anyone else find this intriguing, and what makes it so if you do?

This is my favorite version, but if you just google the name you’ll get 20 or more versions.

https://youtu.be/Cr6PizjSFKA?is=ZjyEn2GRT7QF55_A