Why Music Works

Before we can understand music harmony, we need to understand a little about how sound works first. This lecture looks at the fundamentals of sound.

Now that we know all sound is produced by something vibrating, we need to take a look at how things vibrate because that is where the secret to all music harmony lies.

The Harmonic Series holds the key to understanding all music harmony. It is baked into the very fabric of the Universe.

Now that we know the Harmonic Series, and in particular, the major chord, is baked into the very fabric of the Universe, it's worth just taking a moment to look at a little bit of history and ask "How old is music?"

Time for the interval methinks. Our old friend Pythagoras was into more than just squares of the hypotenuse and so in this lesson, we’re going to take a closer look at the harmonies he was interested in and how they relate back to the Harmonic Series. Stay tuned folks!

The Harmonic Series reveals more of its secrets. This time we look at the relationships between notes and discover that every note has a special relationship with two other notes, one on either side.

The Harmonic Series has shown us that every note has a special relationship with two other notes a fifth either side. Let’s see what happens when we overlay the major chord, also kindly provided to us by the Harmonic Series, on top of these notes.

From tiny acorns, mighty oaks will grow. Whichever way you look at it, it’s all a matter of scale.

A musical key is built from related notes around a home note. It can be thought of as a family, where the home note is Mum and the other notes are the kids. The kids will run off and play but eventually they will always return home to Mum, and so it is with Western harmonic music.

Time for a night cap I think. Also time to talk about the diatonic scale, and in particular, the tetrachord.

Now that we know about the tetrachord, we can use this to easily identify all of the twelve major keys.

Phew! Time for a well earned break I think so let's just have a few relaxing moments with the monkeys from Ipanema (well, Thailand actually).

Ingonyama nengw' enamabala. *1

It's the circle of fifths. And it moves us all. Through despair and hope. Through faith and love.

*1 - Lion and leopard spots.

A 1951 post-apocalyptic lecture on triads and their inversions. Warning: some scenes may be unsuitable for young viewers.

Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Well, they gave us Roman Numerals for starters.

Much as the notes of a diatonic scale can be thought of as a family, so too can the chords of a key, with the chord on the tonic being Mum, and the others being the kids, who will all run off and play but eventually return back to Mum. Some of the kids have favourites, Mum has her favourites too.

Everybody needs a job when they grow up, and chords are no different.

The Harmonic Series gives us the Perfect Intervals, the major chord and so the major scale. But as a consequence of this, we find the tritone, or the diminished fifth, nestling in the confines of the triad built on the seventh degree of the major scale. Surely, this is the work of the Devil!

There are no jungles in Asia Minor. There are no monkeys for that matter. This was a mistake, it should have read “The Jungles of Major Minor”. The origin of the minor keys has been shrouded in mystery for too long. It’s time to lift the lid.

The last time three notes went into a bar, they came from the major key. This time, we're going to see what happens when three notes from the minor key go into a bar.

Space . . . and Time . . . the final frontiers. These are the voyages of the Music Monkey Guru. His five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new harmonic progressions, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

In this lesson we look at the Arrow of Time, and how music uses rhythm as a template over which harmonies can unfold. We look at Time Signatures, Simple Time, Compound Time and spend no time at all considering whether Johann Strauss was actually a fly.

Modulation Modulation Modulation

That’s what you need.

If you wanna be the best

And you wanna beat the rest.

Oo-ooh!  Modulation’s what you need.

(Trumpet Solo)

Modulation’s what you need.

If you wanna be a record breaker.

Record Breaker ooooooh!

Feeling tense? Let it go. Just relax. That good? Now tense up again. Done it? Hold it. Now let it go. Feel good? That's music that is.

In the 16th century, they would occasionally place live birds in a pie that would then fly out "when the pie was opened" as a form of entertainment (this was before T.V. remember). Happily, this practice has since died out, but is alluded to in a popular nursery rhyme with its familiar melody. This lecture is not about pies, it is about melody.

Chord progressions are great and form the phrases from which we can build sentences. Sentences need to be put together to form a story with a beginning, a middle and an end and so we need to provide a structure to a piece of music.

I thought it would be useful to take a look at putting it all together.

Sometimes you have to tell a few little porkies to get to the Big Truths.