Musical Scales and How They Are Structured

Once you have a sound understanding of tones (whole tones) and semitones (half tones), then you can work out what the various scales are. Major Scale – this scale has seven notes in it but when you play it on the piano you finish on the note you start just an octave higher. The pattern is … Read more

Musical Intervals and Why They Are Important to Understand

In order to understand chords and scales and how they are structured, you need to understand what an interval is. Quite simply an interval is the distance between any two notes. Semitones are also known as Half Tones in the US, which is really the same thing as the word semi literally means half. Semitones are … Read more

Purpose of a Time Signature Part 2 – Analyzing Compound Time

So in my previous article, I discussed what simple time signatures are and attempted to help you find ways not to just understand the theoretical definitions, but truly understand how each time signature sounds and feels. (If you would like to  review the previous article, then click here.) In Part Two here, I will be … Read more

The Value of Learning Music Theory

From time time, there has been the argument that to play the piano, you don’t really need to learn to read the music and you certainly don’t need to understand music theory. To a certain extent this argument is actually valid but my question would be “Why would you not want to understand what is … Read more