The basic idea of tempo is simple: how many beats there are per minute. More beats per minute means the music is faster, fewer beats per minute means the music is slower. The image below shows a tempo map of “Dear Prudence” by the Beatles that I made with Ableton Live. The song’s tempo ranges …
Category Archives: Music
What is syncopation?
(Meta-level note: I rewrite this explainer every few years and now that I have a couple of new music theory gigs, I am rewriting it yet again.) Syncopation is to rhythm what dissonance is to harmony: conflict, surprise, defiance of expectation. If you place your rhythmic accents where listeners expect them, then the music gets …
The major key universe
Minor keys are complicated, because there are so many different minor scales. Major keys seem simpler, because there is only the one major scale. At least, that is how things worked in Western Europe between 1700 and 1900. In present-day Anglo-American pop, though, we need to expand our idea of what a major key is.
New MusicRadar column on Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”
I had fun with this one. I love Tom Breihan’s Stereogum column The Number Ones, in which he is reviewing every number one Billboard hit in chronological order. His best columns are often about the most insubstantial or annoying songs, because then he can apply a cool objectivity to the processes of the pop machine. …
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The bottom number in time signatures has always confused me
The top number in a time signature is easy to understand. Is the song in four? Count “one, two, three, four.” Is it in three? Count “one, two, three.” Is it in five? Count “one, two, three, four, five.” That’s all there is to it. However, the bottom number is another story. What is going …
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Happiness is a Warm Gun
The White Album is full of cobwebby subterranean corners, and this song is one of the cobwebbiest. The title comes from an issue of American Rifleman that John Lennon thought was funny in a bleak way. The joke became quite a bit more bleak after his death. You can listen to the isolated tracks here. …
The Beatles multitracks
As of this writing, you can download a big collection of isolated Beatles multitracks from the Internet Archive. These multitracks have been in circulation for a while, but due to their complete illegality, they can be difficult to find. The Internet Archive is a stable download source, but we’ll see how long it takes for …
What are harmonics?
For our last day of pop aural skills class, I did a crash course on historical tuning systems. This involved a brief introduction to harmonics. As I was talking, I realized that my verbal explanation of this concept is still clunky and imprecise. This is a problem, because harmonics are important, not just for music …
Back to Black
For my latest column, MusicRadar assigned me to write about “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse, since the movie of the same name is about to come out. I didn’t have a relationship with the song or with Winehouse generally before starting on the research, but my students are very attached to her. The column …
Identifying major and minor
This summer I am writing more music theory teaching materials for beginners. In this post, I will be explaining major thirds, minor thirds, major chords, and minor chords. So, what are these things? The definitions are annoyingly circular. A major third is the interval between the first and third degrees of the major scale. And …