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00:01:14
350 | Extended chords explained
Extended chords are easy to understand -- once you know about the Circle of Thirds.
Essentially, fancy extended chords are built by adding notes incrementally from a key's Circle of Thirds. By including ever more intervals of a third, you can play increasingly more complex harmonies.
Had I only known this in the beginning!
Without the Circle of Thirds, exotic chord names seem mysterious and complicated. WITH the Circle of Thirds, however, everything clicks into place.
🎥 This short video gives you the gist.
For more details on the construction of these chords, check out Lesson 17 in the course: https://mikegeorge.locals.com/post/6051473/296-lesson-17-pdf-video
And the PDF referenced is ChordBook 2 here: https://shop.mycolormusic.com/products/colormusic%E2%84%A2%EF%B8%8F-guitar-chordbook-modebook-bundle
00:00:57
345a | Theory Course LIVE - heads up
Hey! Join Sunday's stream for the first in the Theory Course LIVE series.
We'll be going through the course lessons page-by-page, playing the exercises, etc. -- with questions, answers, and sidebars along the way. It's a new and insightful look into music theory.
(The live stream link referenced in this video is actually in the NEXT post.)
00:00:58
363 | Daily Dose
Here's a snapshot of the C Mixolydian mode -- in both pitch space (circular format) and on the guitar fretboard -- which you can play in any octave.
Mixolydian's b7 note gives the pattern a distinctively cool sound, as you can hear when you play it.
The QUESTION is, what is the source scale of this particular mode?
(Hint: Mixolydian starts on the fifth scale degree of its underlying source pattern.)
361 | Color notation (technical knowledge)
Hey, all -- question for you:
Do you have any thoughts on ways to colorize notation?
Folks regularly ask about software to use. And because we have engineers of various types in our community here, I'm hoping some of us may have ideas, or technical know-how.
I think creating an open source tool for community members is an excellent project! It will be very powerful for dissecting and composing songs. With a tool like this, our collective knowledge will rise exponentially.
See this post for context -- and please tag us if you're interested:
https://mikegeorge.locals.com/post/6059027/hey-all-mikegeorge-ive-been-really-loving-your-lessons-ive-worked-my-way-through-12-of-them?cid=8082688
371 | Music vocabulary: letters vs. numbers
In music theory, there are two basic symbol sets: letters and numbers.
While the letters specify each individual note, the numbers highlight the general intervals between the notes.
A helpful way to understand this distinction is to think of all the notes in a key as a family, where the letter name of each pitch is like the name of each person while the scale degrees are like the titles used to describe the different members of the group.
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369 | The Musical Insights of Escher
To understand music theory, it helps to know M.C. Escher — the Dutch graphic artist (1898-1972). He was an engineer, mathematician, illusionist, and philosopher as much as an “artist.”
His evolution was fascinating, exemplified by these two self-portraits made six years apart. On the left is “Self Portrait” from November 1929 (age 31), while on the right is “Hand With Reflecting Sphere” from from January 1935 (age 36). Clearly the man’s mind was expanding as time advanced.
And this expansion arose from his studies of symmetry, dimension, and patterns … patterns that are eerily reminiscent of those we see in music.
For example, notice how his self-referential “Drawing Hands” (January 1948) represents the fundamental structure of the circle of fifths. It’s radial symmetry echoes the strange framework of music, where time (or the concept of a beginning and end) becomes abstract.
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365 | Theory Course LIVE - Session 6
Join us for the sixth session of the theory course live. Today, where we're talking about the visible relationships between notes and intervals. These are fundamental concepts that every songwriter MUST know.
⏰ Time: THURSDAY, May 15 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC-6)
🔗 Link to join:
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