Understand Music Theory offers a practical approach which uses active learning to impart knowledge. Suitable for complete beginners, and assuming no previous knowledge, each chapter includes examples, illustrations, clear explanations, tips and self-tests before moving on. It covers all the essential topics in music theory, from rhythm and pitch to intervals, major and minor scales and compound time signatures. It also goes beyond these basic concepts to more advanced theory such as harmony, tone colour and musical form, to provide a genuinely comprehensive introduction to music theory.

Table of Contents

• Meet the author
• How to use this book
• Introduction
• 1 Introducing rhythm
• Note values
• Time signatures
• Notation
• Time signature of
• Rests
• Tempo
• Answers
• 2 Pitch
• The keyboard and the musical alphabet
• The staff
• Beginning to read notes in treble and bass clef
• Answers
• 3 Melody
• Combining rhythm and pitch
• Analysing melodies
• Creating rhythms
• Phrases
• What makes a good melody?
• Answers
• 4 More about pitch
• The octave
• Completing the notes on the staff
• Notation of stems
• Leger (ledger) lines
• Other clefs
• Answers
• 5 More about rhythm
• time
• Dotted notes
• Tied notes
• Quavers (eighth notes)
• Semiquavers (sixteenth notes)
• Demi-semiquavers (thirty-second notes)
• Triplets
• Other less commonly used time signatures
• Incomplete bars
• Syncopation
• Answers
• 6 Sharps and flats
• Sharps and flats on the keyboard
• Notation for sharps and flats
• Accidentals
• Double sharps and double flats
• Answers
• 7 Intervals
• Semitones and whole tones
• Other intervals
• Minor, diminished and augmented intervals
• Inverted intervals
• Compound intervals
• Answers
• 8 More about intervals
• Sight-reading
• Transposing
• Answers
• 9 Major scales and key signatures
• Different types of scale
• Major scale construction
• Key signatures
• The circle of fifths
• Writing key signatures
• Answers
• 10 Minor scales and key signatures
• Minor scale construction
• Natural, harmonic and melodic forms
• Key signatures
• Parallel and relative minor key signatures
• The blues scale
• Answers
• 11 Compound time signatures
• Counting
• Other compound time signatures
• Comparing simple and compound time
• Answers
• 12 Introducing chords
• Major and minor triads
• Inversions
• Augmented and diminished triads
• Chord symbols
• Added note chords
• Notation of chords
• Answers
• 13 Harmony
• Chord names and functions
• Cadences
• Chorale style
• Figured bass
• Counterpoint
• Modulation
• Answers
• 14 Adding accompaniment to a melody
• Finding the most suitable chords
• Transposing melody and accompaniment
• Writing an accompaniment
• 15 Musical form
• Repetition
• Introduction and coda
• Form represented by letters
• Sonata or first movement form
• Composite form
• Words and music
• 16 Tone colour and interpretation
• Different tone colours
• Arrangement and orchestration
• The conductor
• Signs used to interpret music
• 17 Ornaments and non-harmonic notes
• Ornaments
• Non-harmonic notes
• 18 Modern music theory
• Chords
• Atonality
• Other scales
• Neoclassical ideas
• Other innovations
• The future
• Answers
• Answers to self-assessment questions
• Resources
• Glossary