Guide Sheet

How To Make Musical Sense

(Music Theory Basics)
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Creatives!

Josef Sykora here and welcome to probably the most important music theory
lesson you can have when starting out.

Well, one of the most important anyway and I’m going to try and make this as none-
stuffy as possible. Lets de-stuff those traditional ways of learning theory and infuse
as much practical info as we can!

If you haven’t seen it yet… You can watch the accompanying video to this guide
sheet right here - https://youtu.be/7m8BX2u8r2Y

Ok, so what is our lesson goal?

We are going to learn how you can work out all the notes you can use in ANY major
key you choose.

We are talking principles here. So you will get to know the mechanics of how and
why the notes work rather than just learn a bunch of notes for every key.

Understanding this is great because it will allow you to craft melodies which make
musical sense and more importantly, sound good.

And following on from the notes, is the chords. You will also know exactly which
chords you can use in your key and why.

Understand this and more importantly, putting it to use and hearing those chords…
you will start having those “ah ha” moments when listening to your favourite songs.

Guess what… 95% of the music out there follows these rules.

So what we are learning here is the nuts and bolts of the language of music. A few
words here and a bit of grammar there so you are more equipped to put some
musical sentences together.

I do like a good analogy. Anyway, off we go.

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How To Know What Notes You Can Use In Any Key

In western music, notes are divided by what we call whole steps (WS) and half
steps (HS).

These are known as Tones and Semitones in Europe and a few other places but
are essentially the same thing.

Look down on a piano and you will see a bunch of black and white notes.

Every time you move up or down by ONE of those notes (black or white) this is a
Half Step.

If you move up or down by TWO of those notes, this is a Whole Step. So you could
think of a whole step as simply two half steps.

Check out the colourful image below (hand drawn by yours truly) to see what I
mean.

WS = Whole Step HS = Half Step

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Notice how we have a half step between B and C? This is because there is no
black note between these notes. The same is true for E and F.

So now you see the keys in front of you in terms of whole and half steps, there is a
particular formula we can use, using these steps, to work out any major scale.

Before I show you the exact formula for the major scale, understand that there are
multiple formulas for different scales. For instance the natural minor scale, the
modal scales etc.

We are interested in the major scale right now as its the fastest route to playing
comfortably in a key and sounding great. So I recommend getting to grips with this
first.

So pick your key, and start on the root note of that key. For D major, this would be
D. G major, this would be G… You get the idea.

So we start on the root then move up in the following sequence…

WS —> WS—> HS —> WS —> WS —> WS —> HS

Follow this formula on the piano and you will be playing the major scale of that key.

So if we look at the key of D major we get…

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Or A major and we get

As an interesting side note, it just so happens that all the white keys are laid out in
the C major scale. The half steps lie between the E and F and the B and C.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say the keys on the piano are laid out this way because it
was based on the C major scale…. But it should go some way as to show you the
importance of this relationship.

You can also use this to your advantage by forgetting about any black keys. Simply
play all the white keys and you automatically in a key. Fun times!

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How To Know What Chords You Can Use In Any Major Key

When we talk about chord progressions you might have heard people talk in
numbers like this

“Hey try going to the 2 instead of the 6” or…

“We should stick to that 1 5 6 4 sequence in the chorus”

Thats because numbers can apply to any key we choose. Its like a global code
musicians can speak in without having to constantly think of the physical chords.

So what we can do now is turn the notes we have worked out into numbers.

To do this, write out all your notes in your chosen major scale and place a number
from 1 to 7 underneath each note.

To keep our theme of D major going, here’s an example in the key of D.

Note that the last D is in fact ‘1’. Same chord.

So now we have our numbers, we can turn all those notes into actual physical
chords.

For instance, chord ‘2’ would be ‘E’. Chord ‘5’ would be ‘A’. etc.

And here’s another rule you need to stamp into your brain!

Chords 1 , 4 and 5 are Major

Chords 2 , 3 and 6 are Minor

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Chord 7 is a strange one. Its very useful but its not the easiest to use effectively. I
recommend people use chords 1 to 6 first and then explore chord 7 when they are
comfortable.

But thats the way I do it. If you want to research it… its called a diminished chord.
Go forth and have at it!

So here we are. Everything we need to play a chord sequence in the key of D.

1 - D major
2 - E minor
3 - F# minor
4 - G major
5 - A major
6 - B minor

Follow all the rules so far and you can write out all the chords in any key you want.
In fact, this is a good little exercise for you to make sure you have understood the
principles.

Now here’s a layer deeper which I didn’t talk about in the youtube video.

If you are a complete beginner, you might be wondering… fair enough Josef, I now
know what chords to play, but how do I play those chords?

This is in some respects opening up a can of worms and is probably beyond my

short and sweet theory guidesheet. But let me have a crack at it.

Think of a simple chord as 3 notes played together. We call this a triad.

A chord is built on notes 1, 3 and 5.

This is where it gets a little confusing. Now we need to think of these numbers as
starting on the first note of the chord, not the key like we have done so far.

However as we count the notes, we MUST use the notes in the major scale of the
key (what we worked out).

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For instance, if I wanted to work out chord 2 in the key of D…

As far as the chord is concerned, E is note 1, G is note 3 (we count E as 1) and B is

note 5. But we use the notes of the D major scale as a base.

So the E minor chord consists of an E, G and a B played together. 1, 3 and 5!

Another example would be A major. Chord 5.

A is note 1, C# is note 3 and E is note 5.

Notice note 3 is the C# because we know we are in the key of D major here so we
must move up the notes of the D major scale.

Check out the diagram below to see these notes laid out on the keys in the key of
D.

I hope that makes some kind of sense. Armed with the above, you could sit down
and literally work out all your notes in all your keys and all the chords in those keys
aswell.

You could simply go online and look them up. And there’s no harm in this, but at
least now you know you have the knowledge to work them out if you need to and
you understand the principles of how they fit together.

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Now lets finish off by getting a bit practical

You can test yourself by writing a random sequence of numbers from 1 to 6.

Common chord progressions usually come in repeated sequences of 4 or 8 chords.

So a couple of examples…
1365
15634145
(guess what this sequence is?!)

You get the idea, I’m just writing my chord progressions in number form. Give it a
go.

Then choose your key and challenge yourself by playing your numbered chord
progression in that key. Hear and feel how similar those progressions sound even if
they are in different keys.

If you can get a sense of this, you will be well on the way to de-coding your
favourite songs and training that musical ear. Like you can finally speak the
language.

———

A quick message before we finish up, I have a premium course available

called ‘creative practice routines’.

This is a course designed for those struggling with what and how to practice
piano. I go into lots of detail on how to craft your own practice routines based
on your own goals, stay interested and really take control of that precious
time spent in front of the piano.

So once you have your progressions, dump them into your bespoke practice
routines and away you go!

For more details, zip on over to https://members.creativepianoacademy.com/

cpr
Have Fun! - Josef Sykora

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