How to transpose a melody from one key to another. Suitable for students preparing for Grade 5 theory exams. Are you confused about transposition? Do you need to transpose some music by playing or writing out music in a different key? Do...

What are passing notes? Find out how they work and how best to use them. Melodic notes must either belong to the prevailing chord or should be inessential notes. The most common inessential note is the passing note, which moves by step....

What is Enharmonic equivalent in music? Why is the same note sometimes called A# and sometimes Bb? Why is F sometimes known as E#? Why do we have double sharps and double flats? This music theory lesson explains the matter of...

As we continue our Chords series, today we look at the chords that can be made using the major and minor keys - which are called Diatonic Chords.

Learn all about the Picardy Third and Picardy Cadence, otherwise known as the Tierce de Picarde. The Tierce da Picardie is a musical device often used by composers to provide an optimistic finish to a piece in a minor key. The Tierce da...

Major Federal Securities Laws - Explained

A conversation with Steven Smith, Associate Director for International Space Station Science Directorate at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

The famous Dido’s Lament from ‘Dido and Aeneas’ by Henry Purcell. Features of Purcell’s style are unpacked and the word painting & emotional life of the music are explored. A Ground Bass is repeated 11 times, while the melodic line and...

What is the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures? Mathematically it appears that 3/4 and 6/8 are two versions of the same thing. On the face of it, there may appear to be little difference between music in 3/4 time or music in...

What are some important things to remember about an ellipse

So far we have only looked at cadences that end back on the tonic. Today we are going to look at a cadence that goes in a completely DIFFERENT direction - the deceptive cadence. Instead of ending on the tonic, this cadence starts on the...

What are major scales? How do we build them? Why should you never use E# Major? Is there a Formula for Major Scales? All this and more today on Two Minute Music Theory! Season 3, Episode 3

I've gotten a lot of questions about Interval Inversions over on Twitter, so I give a run down of inversions on today's Q+A.

Lack of Information and Corporate Governance Issues - Explained

A look at the beauty of Schubert’s melodic writing and how it interacts with his use of harmony and texture. This composer insights lesson takes the opening of Schubert’s Andante from his Piano Sonata in A and explores the melodic design...

How good is your harmony? Are there mistakes that commonly catch you out when writing harmony. This music theory lesson presents a passage of four-part harmony, test your harmony knowledge and try to answer these questions about chords,...

How to find and choose chords to fit a melody. Have you ever written a melody but didn’t really know how to find chords to fit it? If you have a melody and you’re searching for chords to harmonise with it this music composition lesson...

Learn from the master of harmony and find out how Bach uses suspensions to enrich the chords within this chorale. We examine the choice of harmony and modulation, the part writing, the use of inessential notes and suspensions, plus...

This week we talk about Roswell, UFO stories, and how state secrets can make a blank canvas for conspiracy theorists to go wild.

How to build augmented and diminished chords

This video will cover what I expected as in incoming engineering student vs what I actually encountered with the major. I personally majored in electrical engineering and went to school at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Obviously everyone's...

Suzy Klein talks about the first movement in Spring from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Learn how to write the equation of an ellipse from its properties. The equation of an ellipse comprises of three major properties of the ellipse: the major radius (a), the minor radius (b) and the center (h, k). The ellipse is vertical...

Halloween special of composing for the piano. In this episode, we look at how to present the Music Matters theme in a spooky style just for Halloween. This suitably spooky arrangement demonstrates how to use tritones and corruptions of...