Basic Music Theory: The Complete Beginner’s Guide
Music theory is your composition blueprint.
It will help you craft the best sequence of notes, avoid ones which may sound displeasing and grab your listeners attention by making them feel a variety of emotions.
Knowing music theory to craft a great song isn’t necessarily essential, some will just dive in and play what sounds nice to them, which is great.
But what music theory does is allow you to find that sound a lot quicker, understand how its created so you can replicate its structure to make more awesome sounds.
So if you’re on a journey to make music, getting to grips with the basics of music theory will make your creative process a lot easier.
Note: Music theory is a guideline you can use to assist you in your creative writing process, however it is NOT a strict rulebook and should not limit or prohibit your creativity.
Let’s learn more…
Music notes
What is the musical alphabet?
Music is made using the musical alphabet, these are: A B C D E F G.
12 keys of music
Each letter of the musical alphabet can be distinguished by its own unique natural pitch, as well as a sharp (#) / flat (b) pitch.
A sharp has a slightly higher pitch than the natural pitch, and a flat has a slightly lower pitch.
Below are the 12 keys of music.
With consecutive letters of the musical alphabet, the sharp (#) / flat (b) notes both represent the same pitch, however depending on the key signature they would be phrased differently.
Note: We discuss key signatures later in this post.
B to C, and E to F are the only consecutive letters that don’t have a #/b pitch. However, in certain scales they can be phrased as a #/b pitch. For example:
- B can be phrased as Cb
- C can be phrased as B#
- E can be phrased as Fb
- F can be phrased as E#
Notes that can be phrased differently but still have the same pitch are known as enharmonic notes, for example A# and Bb are enharmonic notes.
Natural and flat/sharp keys
Understanding the layout of notes is best represented using a piano/keyboard.
White keys on a piano are known as ‘natural’ notes of the alphabet, and the black keys on a piano are the ‘flat/sharp’ notes.
And as we can see B to C and E to F don’t have a black key between them.
When we play the notes we can hear that the pitch gets higher as we move up the keyboard, and lower as we go down.
Music intervals (steps/semitones)
A music interval is the distance between each note in terms of pitch, which is measured in semitones (aka half step) and whole tones (aka whole step – equivalent to 2 semitones/2 half steps).
So for example the distance between D and D#/Eb is a semitone, same with the distance between E and F.
The distance between D and E is a whole tone.
Music intervals helps us to distinguish music scales and prefixes attached to a chord.
Note: We discuss music scales and chord prefixes later in this post.
Octaves
As we know, there are 12 keys in music which are on a cycle, and eventually on that cycle you will reach the same note but at a higher or lower pitch. You have reached the octave.
A notes octave is the same note played at a higher or lower pitch. These two notes will be 12 semitones apart.
Our example below shows the note D (the one in the centre), the D to the left is an octave lower, and the D to the right is an octave higher.
Music scales
What is a music scale?
A music scale is a set of notes within an octave.
The type of music scale is determined by the music intervals between each note.
Types of music scales
There are several types of music scales, however we are going to go through the two most common ones used in Western music. These are major and minor (natural) scales.
Major scales
Major scales have seven notes containing each letter from the musical alphabet.
Each key has a major scale, therefore there are 12 major scales.
This scale tends to have a sound that is happy, bright and uplifting.
It follows a music interval pattern of: W – W – S – W – W – W – S (W = one whole tone / S = semitone).
The major scale formula is: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. All other scales use this formula, however some numbers may be altered depending on the scales relationship to the major scale.
This is best demonstrated when we get to minor scales later.
The example below is creating a major scale starting at the key of A.
Following the major interval pattern:
- A to B is a whole tone
- B to C#/Db is a whole tone
- C#/Db to D is a semitone
- D to E is a whole tone
- E to F#/Gb is a whole tone
- F#/Gb to G#/Ab is a whole tone
- Finally, G#/Ab to A is a semitone
The next step is to determine if we label some notes as a sharp (#) or a flat (b). As you can see with the A major scale example we have 3 notes that have two names (enharmonic notes), C#/Db, F#/Gb and G#/Ab.
You will only use sharp or flat symbols in a scale, not a mixture of both. Therefore, if you figure out the first is a sharp note, the following enharmonic notes will also be sharp.
Also, another way to do this is to make sure each musical letter has been used.
This would be:
Minor scales
Minor scales also have seven notes containing each letter from the musical alphabet.
This scale tends to sound emotional, sad and dark.
Each note has a minor scale, therefore there are 12 minor scales.
It follows a music interval pattern of: W – S – W – W – S – W – W (W = one whole tone / S = semitone).
Minor scales has the formula: 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7. What this means is that the 3rd, 6th and 7th note is a semitone lower than the note that appears in the major scale starting at the same key.
The example below is creating a natural minor scale starting at the key of A.
Following the minor interval pattern:
- A to B is a whole tone
- B to C is a semitone
- C to D is a whole tone
- D to E is a whole tone
- E to F is a semitone
- F to G is a whole tone
- Finally, G to A is a whole tone
In this scale we have no sharps or flats.
If we compare A major and A minor we can see that the differences are: C#, F# and G# are in the major scale, however for the minor scale these three notes have been lowered by a semitone to: C, F and G.
You can practice learning these major and minor scales by working them out yourself for each key.
Note: Major and minor have a special relationship. Every minor scale starts at the 6th note of a major scale. We discuss this more in ‘Relative keys’ later in this post.
Scale degrees
Each note in a scale, regardless of if it’s part of a major or minor scale, has a name attached to it which relates to its position and function in the scale.
These are: tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant and leading tone/subtonic.
Tonic (1st note) and dominant (5th note) are perceived to be important in any given scale.
Let’s go into more detail for each one:
- 1st note – Tonic
- The tonic note is the tonal center of the key you are playing in – it’s the beginning of the scale and is usually referred to a lot during a piece of music. It acts as home.
- 2nd note – Supertonic
- The supertonic note strengthens the dominant note. You may hear that this note often appears before or after the dominant note in a piece of music.
- 3rd note – Mediant
- The mediant note is rather harmonically weak compared to other degrees.
- 4th note – Subdominant
- The subdominant note offers a gentle resolution leading to the tonic note.
- 5th note – Dominant
- The dominant note is harmonically strong and uplifting and works well with the tonic note.
- 6th note – Submediant
- The submediant strengthens the dominant note.
- 7th note – Leading Tone (major scales) / Subtonic (minor scales)
- The leading tone/subtonic note creates tension, and is often harmonically weak and unstable.
Let’s use the key of A using a major scale as our example, this is how the scale degrees work out:
- A = tonic
- B = supertonic
- C# = mediant
- D = subdominant
- E = dominant
- F# = submediant
- G# = leading tone.
Therefore, A and E are our important notes in the A major scale.
Understanding a notes scale degree in a given scale will allow you to create and release tension throughout your music.
Music keys
What is a key signature?
A key signature tells you what and how many notes in a scale are sharp (#) and flat (b).
The image below shows how many sharps and flats are in each major scale.