BEAT BIBLE BLOG
COMMANDMENT 3
Commandment 3 - Thou Shalt Learn the Basics of Music Theory
Written by Kamil Cejmer - September 8th 2023
Commandment 3 - Thou Shalt Learn the Basics of Music Theory
Welcome to the third commandment, where we will take you on the start of your music theory journey, if you haven't already started it.
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This is a highly theoretical commandment, however, it is one of the most important ones.
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Music theory is the language we speak when we communicate our musical ideas, if we want to do it on paper.
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If you refrain from learning the theory as soon as you can, you will only do yourself wrong in the long turn. Eventually, you will need music theory at some point in your musical career.
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However, it is not always necessary to know music theory to be a good musician. This is a matter of opinion, as it's a widely controversial one, which has already been debated many times again by musicians and enthusiasts in the past.
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In my opinion, it is better to just learn the theory, as the basics are not challenging at all, so there is no chance that this will be a waste of time for your development.
Table of Contents
3.0 - Your First Chords
3.1 - Scales Explained
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3.2 - Modes Explained
3.3 - Polyrhythms
3.4 - Practical Listening Exercises
3.5 - Test Your Knowledge - Commandment 3
3.6 - Useful Sources
3.0 - Your First Chords
Chords are a series of notes played at once, which harmonize. Harmonization happens when notes sound good together, however, the term 'harmonization" can be very broad and should not just be regarded as something that simple, but for now we will use this term.
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Later on in your musical journey, you will learn that harmonization in itself can be more complicated, as it's not only a matter of "notes sounding well together", but also how notes and chords would get resolved. David Collier said it best himself: "You aren't playing the wrong note, you're just playing it at the wrong time".
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Later on in the book we will dive much deeper, so if you are willing to skip this chapter because it's too easy, or because you know the basics already, then please feel free to do so.
Major & Minor Chords
Let's start with the two most basic triads (chords that consist of three notes). Afterwards, I will show you all of the basic chords and how to play them.
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It is important to understand how counting semitones works. It's pretty simple: count the semitones between each note. However, I remember I struggled with this because I didn't know if I'm supposed to count the notes in the scale, or in general. Turns out that you need to just count the semitones, without any further regard to any scale.
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If you play a chord, it will already be present within a scale. More on this later.
Major Triad
To play a major triad, start with the root note, which is simply said the most important note in the chord, as the chord is based on that note. From the root note, you will count semitones. For each particular type of chord, there is a fixed formula.
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For the major triad, it's the root note, major 3rd, and perfect 5th. For now, those names might not be important to you, but I will still include it in case you want to return to this chapter once your knowledge is richer.
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To create a major triad, take the root note, which is your first note.
The second note has three semitones between itself and the root note.
The third note has two semitones between itself and the second note.
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(NOTE: A lot of people like to use the numbers system, which is also really good because it's easy to memorize. In this case, it will be 1-3-5.
Please be aware that this could be misleading, as the 1-3-5 simply stands for root note, major/minor 3rd, perfect 5th. This means that 1-3-5 could be a major chord, or minor chord depending on the positioning of the 3rd note.)
Minor Triad
To play a minor triad, you need to make a small adjustment. The first and third notes are the same. What makes a minor chord different than the major is it's 3rd note. By playing the 3rd note just one semitone flat.
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To create a minor triad, take the root note, which is your first note.
The second note has two semitones between itself and the root note.
The third note has three semitones between itself and the second note.
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More Chords! (Introduction to Basic Triads)
Below, more types of basic triads which you will definitely come across at some point.
Suspended Chords
There are two types of suspended chords, the sus2 and sus4. Those chords sound very intimidating, but are very easy to memorize, and will serve you as an easy way to increase the depth of your chord progressions.
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It's in the name. Suspended chords add suspense due to their nature. You can for instance, instead of playing one simple chord for a bar, play the suspended chord on the first half of the bar, and then play the major/minor chord on the second half.
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Obviously, you can use this as you wish. Just know that suspended chords are a great way to spice things up in the mix.
The easiest way to memorize this particular triad is to take the major chord of the suspended chord you want to play, and then just move the middle note two semitones to the left.
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This is exactly the same for the suspended 4 chord, with the only difference is the middle note being moved to two semitones to the right.
Diminished Chords (a.k.a. the minor flattened fifth)
This is a form of a minor chord, so it's easiest to learn how minor chords work, and then go from there.
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To turn a minor triad into a diminished triad, just take the right-most note and move it to the left by one semitone. That's the reason why it's called a "flattened fifth", as the fifth note is flattened by one semitone.
Augmented Chords
This is similar as the diminished chord, except this is considered a major chord, with the fifth note sharpened, meaning you move the most-right note one semitone to the right.
3.1 - Scales Explained
It's finally time to move to scales. Scales are essentially building blocks for music, because all notes within a scale harmonize well together.
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By picking a particular scale, it will be easier for you to create compositions. You will be able to pick the right chords, apply chord progressions, and play melodies on top without worrying too much about relying on your ears.
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You don't need to memorize each scale, as this is too tedious. There are many scales which convey different moods and vibes just like chords do.
My advice: simply use the scales in your compositions, and at some point you will have them memorized automatically.
Basic Scales (Minor & Major)
Just as for the chords, there is a basic formula for all types of scales. We will first explore the basic minor and major scales, and then further on in the commandment, we will show you modes, which are more advanced versions of the major and minor scales.
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Later on in the book, we will come back to more advanced versions of scales, such as exotic scales from Arabia, Japan, etc. (commandment 9).
Just like the triads, determining scales is done by counting semitones (you can also just Google them, which I still do to make sure I'm playing the right notes)
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Simply start from the root note, and then count the (semi)tones as shown in the chart above.
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As you can see, you will sometimes need to count whole tones instead of semitones, so keep that in mind.
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