Learn Easy Music Theory

The information found here will fast-track your music education:
You'll waste no time (in some cases years) practicing irrelevant things. You'll bypass your peers, with information that teachers feed you in only small amounts (if at all).

You may want:

• a career in music
• to actually get paid for your efforts
• fame
• to play as well as you possibly can

You'll find the means to those ends as you read. Plus, no sheet music knowledge is required!

There's nothing better than a good song. But it's hard to play music! I want to help you get to where you want in your musical education.

You know the ABC's. Music theory goes from A-G and stops. Yep, ABCDEFG. On your instrument, the fingerings, or buttons, or voice will produce the sounds that these letters represent. Sound is very important, and the theory part only tells you how to make the sound. Together, we'll attempt to improve our sound output.

Did you know there are steps, or sounds, between some of the letters? That means more fingerings (don't worry, we'll take it slow). We'll get to these steps further down the page. For example:

A (step) B C (step) D (step) E F (step) G

Half and Whole Steps

The steps between the ABCDEFG letters are labelled half steps. Half of what? I guess a whole, like from A to B. So A to (step) is a half step, and (step) to B is a half step also. A to B is a whole step, with a half (step) between. Why is that important? We'll have to learn about Sharps and Flats to answer. Remember, we're talking about Sound, and we just need to label the different sound increments.

You know, you're a good music student, 'cause you actually want to know about theory!

A Sharp is like a nail that points up. It raises a letter a half step. So the sound is going up, such as from A (step) B. Now it's called A (sharp) B. Keep going up the musical alphabet: A (sharp) B C (sharp) D (sharp) E F (sharp) G

Don't worry about the steps I skipped, it's for a reason I'll get to later. Just know the sound is going up half steps, and some of those are Sharps. The symbol for Sharp in music is '#' (the number, or pound, or hash mark, symbol). So,

Sharp = #

A Flat is the tire that nail punctured. Just like a flat will deflate, and bring you down too, the sound goes down a half step. B (step) A now becomes B (flat) A, as the sound is going down a half step. Keep going down the musical alphabet:

G (flat) F E (flat) D (flat) C B (flat) A

We start on G because we need to reverse the direction of the sound (since our sharp nail gave us a flat). Again, the missing steps between the letters will be explained further on. Now we're down with the sound, half step style. Flat's symbol looks like a lowercase 'b'. So, Flat = ^b

Don't ask me why music uses these symbols, but I guess they have to use something.

# = sharp (up a half step)  ^b = flat (down a half step)

Remember those Sharps and Flats? Also those Alphabet Letters? Well, the steps between the letters are not ALL half steps. Some have no steps, or in between notes, at all.

Here is the music alphabet:

A B C D E F G

Here are the steps between the letters:

A (step) B C (step) D (step) E F (step) G

Remember we can now call the steps in between the notes either #(sharp) or b(flat). So the sharps and flats fall as follows:

A (#,^b) B C (#,^b) D (#,^b) E F (#,^b) G

BC , EF:

Notice that between B and C, and between E and F, there are no steps? So this means when you are playing a B#(Bsharp), you are actually playing the letter C. And when you are playing an E#(Esharp), you are actually playing an F.

CB , FE:

On the other hand, when you play a Cb(C flat), you are actually playing the letter B. And when you play an Fb(F flat), you really play an E. Therefore, B to C has no steps between them, and E to F has no between steps. Here's the order again: A (#,^b) B C (#,^b) D (#,^b) E F (#,^b) G

If you are confused about this, listen to the SOUND. From B to C, you cannot play a step between them, because it doesn't exist. As soon as you go up from B, you have to play C. So when you try to play B#, you end up playing C.

You might remember these exceptions with the phrase,
'Bake Cakes, Eat Food' for BC,EF.