A similar project: <a href="https://www.teoria.com/en/tutorials/" rel="nofollow">https://www.teoria.com/en/tutorials/</a><p>Focused more on practitioners. Includes exercises with MIDI/USB piano keyboards in the browser: <a href="https://www.teoria.com/en/exercises/" rel="nofollow">https://www.teoria.com/en/exercises/</a><p>These resources also can be useful:<p>1. <a href="https://www.musictheory.net/lessons" rel="nofollow">https://www.musictheory.net/lessons</a> (exercises included)<p>2. <a href="http://www.earbeater.com/online-ear-training" rel="nofollow">http://www.earbeater.com/online-ear-training</a> (ear training exercises)<p>3. <a href="https://www.iwasdoingallright.com/tools/ear_training/online/" rel="nofollow">https://www.iwasdoingallright.com/tools/ear_training/online/</a> (ear training)<p>4. <a href="https://trainer.thetamusic.com/" rel="nofollow">https://trainer.thetamusic.com/</a><p>5. <a href="http://music.stackexchange.com/" rel="nofollow">http://music.stackexchange.com/</a><p>N. Wikipedia is a good reference. E.g., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_musical_terminology" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_musical_terminolog...</a><p>If someone wants to try music, start with playing an instrument and then pick the theory. If in physics theory says how the world works, music theory is mostly about labeling things that sound good vs noise. And it's hard to get the words without playing first.
I like this! I've always wanted to build a music theory textbook (like Laitz) where the examples could be played.<p>> When a song says that it is in the key of C Major, or D Minor, or A Harmonic, etc. this is simply telling you which of the 12 notes are used in this song.<p>Small nitpick, this is not accurate, C Major and A (natural) Minor have the same notes but different starting notes so they are different scales, and pieces written in them sound different from each other. It's one of those things that's slightly hard to explain if you don't sing/compose/play an instrument/read music but very obvious if you do.
This is excellent. The graphics and sounds are nicely done.<p>One thing that I don't see in it, but that I find fascinating, is that in western music each half step represents a ratio of the twelfth-root of two, in terms of frequency. That way 12 half steps (an octave) will double the frequency.<p>Certain notes within this are close, but not exactly, on a "simple ratio". It's just coincidental that it works out pretty good. (although you could make it work out just as good with something other than a 12 step scale....a 19-step scale has been used: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_equal_temperament" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_equal_temperament</a> )<p>Anyway, I think that would fit in well with what you've done so far, but obviously, explained in the nice simple graphics that you seem very good at.<p>I also must say I love the way you use color, I have a music project of my own (that I'm hoping to debut very soon) that also uses color in a very similar way. Did you know that Isaac Newton fixated on 7 colors (ROYGBIV) because he thought there was a connection between the diatonic scale and colors? That's why indigo seems to have been promoted from some obscure color to one of the "basic" colors of the rainbow. (I prefer BOYGBPP, red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-pink)
Shameless plug: I wrote a book a couple years ago that people in this thread may find interesting: "Music for Geeks and Nerds". It's a short book that uses Python to teach music concepts:<p><a href="http://pedrokroger.net/mfgan/" rel="nofollow">http://pedrokroger.net/mfgan/</a>
Nice. I've been thinking a lot about writing a interactive blog series of something similar (music fundamentals for CS people). It'll probably be a while before I start writing that though.<p>I think the biggest thing that's missing at the moment is a section on rhythm/time. I'm sure you have plans for that. Looking forward to seeing finished course.
I wish this was even more "from first principles." I wish the "harmony" section would point out that the "simple ratios" they initially show both have powers of two in their denominators, and thus are just octave adjustments of the harmonic series. I wish the "chords" section would derive the major triad as the fundamental frequency combined with the first two (non-octave) frequencies in the harmonic series octave-adjusted down to be close to the fundamental.
There's not a smidgen of principle in the jump from harmonic ratios to tempered tuning and standard scales and chords.<p>True first-principles music theory must (A) focus primarily on psychology over physics (B) not tell people that complex ratios sound bad but simply help people notice that they are <i>different</i> from simple ratios (C) actually go through the full logic of how the tempered system is derived from chains of harmonic ratios adjusted to temper out commas. The easiest approach to the latter is to simply teach diatonic scales as harmonic ratios and not introduce temperament at all until much later.<p>Far far far from perfect but having the direction that this attempt is missing: <a href="http://www.tallkite.com/AlternativeTunings.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tallkite.com/AlternativeTunings.html</a><p>Anyway, I'd write the ultimate thing if I ever found the time. There's at least some good elements to this attempt so far. It really needs to be licensed CC-BY-SA though so that people can adapt and contribute and improve to get it to where it's really good.
I'm kind of late to the game in this thread, but my thought about theory is that it should start with physiology and technology. At each level we're reminded that we study the aspects of music that people have already invented, and that we may overlook a lot of important things, such as rhythm.<p>Physiology: Some of this may be speculative, but it seems likely that "harmonious" intervals, that have a superposition of harmonics, have a physiological effect.<p>Technology: The 12 tone scale could be described as a technology for tuning an instrument with harmonious intervals. Temperament is a technology for solving the problems of tuning primarily keyboard instruments.<p>Naturally, math is involved in understanding these things, as with many areas of science and technology.<p>I would talk about a handful of widely used instruments, such as keyboards, strings, winds, guitars, and drums.<p>Then you can begin to talk about scales, chords, melody, form, and so forth.
This is absolutely fantastic. I have seen many musicists trying to explaing this with not much success, mainly because they dont understand the physics behind.<p>You explanation makes perfect sense and it is so clear and so well that once you read it you can remember it forever.<p>Thanks!
Well done! It summarizes a lot of theory it took me months to puzzle out on my own.<p>One nit: At the top of each section there is a section title, at the bottom of each section, there is a "Next section" title, a description, and a next section button, and on the side there is a list of sections. Some of the titles are inconsistent from list to top of current and from bottom of current to top of next. It's a little confusing right now, and there are only a few sections; when there are more, it will be far more confusing. I don't have a suggestion as to how fix it, just pointing out the confusing inconsistency.
Great idea! Just FYI I'm noticing a fair bit of static when playing the various tones. It's mostly at the beginning, which makes me think it's just due to the discontinuity at the beginning (maybe start the volume at zero and quickly increase?) But I'm getting blips of static in the middle of most tones as well, so there must be something else going on. Tried both Chrome and Firefox. I suppose this could be an artifact from my onboard sound card or something like that, but I haven't noticed anything similar elsewhere.
This is nice, very nice. But it is quite disappointing that at least for everybody reading HN the whole "Music Theory" topic seems to be just a few concepts that can be learned in 1 or 2 hours.
I'm good on music theory right up to time signatures. It seems like black magic to me, and often it is taught by just asking you to hear the beats and I just don't hear them.
this is great but I there was recently an article that made the rounds on HN pointing out that what sounds 'Nice' to people not exposed to western music is very different from what sounds 'Nice' to westerners. This is a great site and people can learn a ton but its very western centric and it might be worth pointing that out early on.
Interesting, but too bad it's not much more than the basics. I struggle to find a good explanation of how harmony works, i.e. what they mean by the terms "resolution" or how chords are made, in short: how a musical piece is built.<p>My piano teacher's refusal to explain these to me is one of the reasons I lost interest in the instrument
This is the perfect minimalist introduction to music theory. A similarly good explanation is in Daniel Levitin's "This is Your Brain on Music". It's first few chapters explain music theory to beginners in a really elegant way.<p>I previously thought music was composed without any rules.
Inspired by this, I decided to write a JavaScript keyboard that only plays notes in the key you're in. <a href="https://nickretallack.github.io/theme/" rel="nofollow">https://nickretallack.github.io/theme/</a>
> The Major Chord is the most common chord. Whenever you're asked to play a chord without specifying what type, then it's a Major chord.<p>Certainly not in modern pop music. By far the most common chord is power chord.
This is great! I found the more robust examples really useful, like the ones that show notes and triads in a key. I'd love to have something like this in the form of a VST or something usable in Ableton.
If you are more into mechanical practice of notes reading I had created <a href="http://notationtraining.com" rel="nofollow">http://notationtraining.com</a>
So why do notes sound good together when the frequency ratios are simple? Needs a section on the inner ear, stereocilia, and how overtones affect them.
Software engineer here. Finding my creativity is drying up.. Whats the fastest/easiest way to learn a musical instrument at the highest possible level?