Template:Portal:Theory/Featured Lesson

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Reading Scale Diagrams

"A first look at a scale diagram can be daunting, but don't worry, they are very easy to read and understand and also particularly useful for practicing!...(more)"



Seventh Chords

Learnt about power chords and triads, but don't know where to go next? Check out Andrew's lesson on Seventh Chords.

"Power chords and triads are both relatively simple types of chords, yet they account for the majority of chords in use in popular music with one exception; that of the 7th chord. In this lesson we are going to look into the various types of 7th chord, and then in the next lesson move on a step to look at extended chords which are used a lot in Jazz..." (more)



Chords for Scales

Ever wondered what chords fit with what scales? Check out Andrew's lesson on Chords for Scales.

"In this lesson we're going to take a look at how we match chords to scales, to give you an instant boost when writing songs or solos, and help you pick out musical sounding progressions..." (more)



Extended Chords

Want to learn some cool jazzy chords? Check out Andrew's lesson on Extended Chords.

"So far we have looked at triads made by stacking 3rd notes on top of each other, then we took it a step further and added a 4th note to get some flavour of 7th chord. So, what do we get if we take this notion of adding 3rds to the next level? Well we can carry on doing this to create a family of what are called "extended chords" - and some of them are beautiful sounding and quite jazzy chords. We'll have a look at these Extended chords in this lesson..." (more)



Power Chords

Want to learn about the most common Rock chord? Check out Andrew's lesson on Power Chords.

"In this lesson we are going to take a look at something near and dear to all of us - Power Chords. Power chords fit into this series nicely at this point, because they are more than intervals, and less than chords! If you haven't done so already, I suggest you check out the earlier parts of this lesson to understand the concepts of degrees of the scale and intervals as we'll be using those some more in this lesson..." (more)



The Natural Minor Scale

"Second only to the Major scale, minor scales are an important part of the music we listen to. Notice that I said "minor scales" - plural. The reason for this is that although there is really only one major scale there are a number of different scales that have the term minor attached to them. Of these the most common is the natural minor scale, which we will be learning about here. For interest, the others are the Harmonic Minor and the Melodic minor..."(more)



Time Signatures

Heard people mention time signatures but don't know what they are? Check out Andrew's lesson on them.

The basic unit of time from the point of view of a song is the bar or measure (two terms for the same thing). A bar is a regular collection of notes, each of the same duration in terms of the number of notes it contains. The duration of a bar in note terms is defined at the beginning of the song in the time signature (more of which later) and each bar is assumed to contain the same number of notes unless the time signature is explicitly changed..." (more)



Chords for Scales

Want to see how Chord relate to Scales? Check out Andrew's lesson "Chords for Scales".

In this lesson we're going to take a look at how we match chords to scales, to give you an instant boost when writing songs or solos, and help you pick out musical sounding progressions..." (more)



How Can I Tell Which Key a Song is in?

Ok, so you have a killer MP3 of some band you have downloaded that you want to Jam to, or you have an amazing tab that you want to develop ideas from, or maybe even a piece of music that you want to work with. Before you can do anything, you need to figure out the key that the song is in so that you can apply all of your knowledge about scales etc to figure out which notes to play. In this lesson we’ll try and figure out some ways to do this..." (more)



Modes - The Theory

Know the basics of modes but want to find out more? Check out Andrew's lesson "Modes - The Theory".

In the previous modes lesson we described what modes are, and a practical way of diving into them. However, modes are a complex subject, and the theoretical underpinnings are fascinating. Once you thoroughly understand the previous lesson, spending some time here can really help you with concepts all across music..." (more)