I made a big spreadsheet with all the chords in it. It’s not all the possible chords, but it’s the ones you most commonly encounter in Western classical, jazz, rock and pop. I also made some videos explaining how chords work, with handy aQWERTYon visualization. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: aQWERTYon
Online music teaching resources
This is my curated collection of online music teaching, learning and creation resources. Use in good health. Big collections: A spreadsheet of online music theory resources and projects, plus my New School syllabus that uses many of these things. A spreadsheet of online music technology resources and projects. The NYSSMA Best Practices Database.
Scales, keys and modes on the circle of fifths
If you want to understand Western music theory, the circle of fifths is an invaluable tool. For one thing, it can help you understand how key signatures work. But it also helps explain how the major scale and diatonic modes relate to each other, and gives a possible explanation for why they sound good. Here’s …
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How to record from the aQWERTYon
People ask us a lot if there’s a way to record the output of the aQWERTYon. We might introduce recording functionality some day, but in the meantime, there are two methods for recording your aQW performances.
Learning minor key harmony from the Bach Chaconne
Major keys are easy to understand, at least in classical music, because a major key and a major scale are coextensive. Minor keys are harder, because you can’t just equate them to particular minor scales. To understand how chords work in minor keys, I’m going to walk you through a standard progression that happens throughout …
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Announcing the Theory aQWERTYon
A few years ago, the NYU Music Experience Design Lab launched a web application called the aQWERTYon. The name is short for “QWERTY accordion.” The idea is to make it as easy to play music on the computer keyboard as it is with the chord buttons on an accordion. The aQWERTYon maps scales to the …
Samuel Halligan’s awesome Pop-Up Piano for Ableton Live
I recently met a gentleman named Samuel Halligan, who, among other things, makes music education utilities using Max For Live. One of them is called Pop-Up Piano. If you use Max or Ableton and you could use some help learning music theory, you should go and download it immediately. It’s a Max For Live Device …
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The aQWERTYon pitch wheels and the future of music theory visualization
Update: we have implemented these changes to the aQWERTYon, try them here Try the scale wheel visualization here The MusEDLab will soon be launching a revamped version of the aQWERTYon with some enhancements to its visual design, including a new scale picker. Beyond our desire to make our stuff look cooler, the scale picker represents a …
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Cranes in the Sky
Solange Knowles is Beyoncé’s artsier younger sister. “Cranes In The Sky” is her biggest hit so far. It manages the rare feat of being both extremely catchy and extremely weird. Solange helpfully explains her songwriting process on the invaluable Song Exploder podcast. https://soundcloud.com/hrishihirway/song-exploder-solange
Designing a more welcoming aQWERTYon experience
This post documents my final project for User Experience Design with June Ahn Overview of the problem The aQWERTYon is a web-based music performance and theory learning interface designed by the NYU Music Experience Design Lab. The name is a play on “QWERTY accordion.” The aQWERTYon invites novices to improvise and compose using a variety of …
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