Music Theory in 5 Minutes

I couldn't make a series about music theory without talking a little about rhythm. So there will be 3 episodes about rhythm. In this first one we'll see how we divide time and we'll see all the types of notes we can use to build our rhythms.

Back with another episode about music theory. This is the second one about rhythm, and today we'll talk about time signatures. These are the numbers we sometime see at the beginning of a bar, and it tells basically how many beats fit in one bar. We'll see exactly what these numbers tell us and how to find where are the weak and strong beats for each time signature. From there, you would have all the blueprints to create your own rhythms, but don't hesitate to move these accents (strong beats) around to find other rhythms that fit in these same bars.

In this episode we take this a little further by layering different rhythms and time signatures to create polyrhythms and polymeters.

It's been 18 episodes of Music Theory in 5 minutes already! I feel like I talked about everything I had in mind when I started this series, so it feels like the right time to sum things up. It is the perfect opportunity to leave you with a handy document that gather a lot of useful info for composing. I find myself going back to it while composing, as it seems easier to have everything layed down in one place. I hope you'll find this document useful too!

Pentatonic scales are awesome, they are easy to use, it is hard to get something dissonant with it so is works with everything, and it is used in many cultures. Speaking of which, it is a good time to highlight the fact that our occidental music theory is not the only way to make music out there. This video is a little different from the previous ones, as we are taking a brief look at other cultures way of approaching music writting. I hope you like it, and thanks for passing by!

For this 21st episode of Music Theory in 5 minutes, let's talk about the most used scale for improvisation, namely the Blues scale. It is a scale that is the result of years of repetitive use of unoxthodox practices. And then it became one of the first a beginner guitarist wouldl earn for improvisation. We'll see what makes it unique and we'll also have a look at the special 7#9 chords, also called the "Hendrix chord".

Today we'll talk about 9th chords, all the different types of 9th chords we can find in a major scale, a natural minor scale and in the harmonic minor scale. We'll see how all these types of 9th chord are built and how to use them.

Today, let's apply everything we learnt in the series "music theory in 5 minutes" to harmonize a melody. We'll see how to find the tonality of a song, how to find the chords that fit in that tonality, and how to use these chords to support the melody, so it can shine to its full potential!