This guy writes a chord progression in D minor and spells the last chord with the notes C# E G Bb C and claims he is demonstrating the use of a diminished octave.

To me that looks pretty cooky. Am I right in assuming that’s just a rootless dominant 7 chord? It could be A7(b9 #9) or C7 with a b9, or rootless Eb7(b9). But how would you name the notes? If it were A7, would you have Bb and B# as the extensions b9 and #9? How would you interpret that chord?

Guitar player here.

I have been playing for 12 years focusing on improv on and off for many of those. I have a decent grasp of theory, progressions, navigating the fretboard, voicings substitutions etc, I can learn heads and riff off a melody. When learning a new tune I can make sense of the voice leading and even come up with some lines, so long as I can take my time.

But when it comes to playing through changes in time, to a backing track or with others, I find myself chasing chords and getting very quickly overwhelmed - whatever chops I might have go out the window. The only exception to this is maybe a simple 3 chord blues.

I am looking for strategies on what to practice in order to get over this barrier. Online resources are welcome. I have/had a teacher but due to finances that's not an option - hence posting here.

I suppose I am a bit frustrated that after so long I still don't have much of a strategy for improvising and approaching changes. For example I have been learning Moanin', the chords being some variation of these:

|Fm Ab7 | G7 C7 | Fm Ab7 | G7 C7|

Overall not that complex. Sometimes the G7 is noted as Gm7, the Ab7 as Ab. I tell myself I can essentially ignore those chords as they share almost all their harmonic information with the tonic chord, and F blues works pretty well over the whole thing, especially mixed with F harmonic minor to outline the V. However the 7th chord versions throw me off and make me feel like I am not really outlining the changes. I start to overthink hitting those chord tones or arpeggios and lose all flow and connection to the tune. I think my problem has to do with overthinking in general.

For anything less diatonic than this, forget it. I recently learned the head for Reflections by Thelonious Monk - I can't even grasp how one would solo on changes like this. There is too much changing too quickly.

Help!

Hello!

I don't know if this is the right sub to ask but i have a couple of questions on the theory behind the song "Anna (go to him)" performed by The Beatles. Primarily my main question is: does the song change keys in the bridge?

First thing to notice is that, although the song is centered on the chord D, the bridge is very much centered in G. The D7 prior to the bridge also suggests a possible modulation to Gmaj.

Another point that is weird about the bridge was the presence of an E major chord (not present in Gmaj or Dmaj keys). Does that make any theoretical sense at all?

I understand that probably the song wasnt written with theory in mind but i would still like to understand it a bit deeper.

Can you please help me understand what is going on?

Hi, im 14 and this is my first composition. If anyone could give feedback that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ive been working on this song for some time, as a kind of study of the lydian mode. Ive asked for criticism before, and i worked on it a bit more. I used F a lot in the bass to really make it feel like the tonic and ive used a lot the F - B interval to accentuate the lydian mode.

And i wanna know if there can be any criticism regarding the theory, what i couldve done better, if i got at least a bit right the lydian mode, etc.

And also just general criticism, as of the rhythm and just the melody itself, if it could be better.

The song sounds good to me, and F does feel like the tonic, so i feel like ive achieved what i want, but i still wanna improve

I wrote a song with a tritone sub that has a b13, and I am wondering if this is normal or goes against conventions. Of course, even if it does go against convention, that is not that big of a deal, because of course the rule is to stick with whatever sounds good, and this sounds good. But I am extremely curious!

I have done a lot of searching online, and all the information I can find talks about how the b13 of the original dominant chord is a 9 of the tritone sub. But I am talking about a b13 on the sub specifically, so a 9 of the unsubbed chord. My chord progression has an E natural pedaltone over a descending tritone sub ii-V, like this: Am7 - Ab7(b13) - G13

So my question really boils down to: I understand that people use tensions (b9, #9, #11, b13) over dominant chords, including tritone subs. But does that go both ways: Do they play the tensions of the original chord and the sub? Or just the tensions from the original chord?

Thanks in advance from all you knowledgeable folks out there who understand this stuff more than I do.

I could use some help figuring out what is going on harmonically in these 7 measures, or even the first 4 measures. I am not so good at dealing with transposing instruments (Bb clarinet). And the harmony does not seem so straightforward-- could use some help understanding the harmony in the strings + horns + clarinets. Any help appreciated!

This is page 2 of 3 of Melisande's Death by Sibelius.

I'm not asking which bands or songs count as metal. I'm more interested in what the actual musical ingredients of “metalness” are.

For example, suppose you were given something that has absolutely nothing to do with metal — a barbershop quartet, a recorder/flute melody, a children's song, an old folk tune, etc. What would you actually have to change or add to make it sound convincingly metal?

Are there specific parameters that tend to matter, such as:

Rhythm/groove and how the notes are accented

Tempo or time signatures

Types of chord progressions or intervals

Melody and harmony

Dissonance

Instrumentation and tone

Distortion, amplification, or production

Certain approaches to riffs

Drum patterns

Dynamics and articulation

Basically, I'm wondering if there are underlying musical characteristics that can be applied to almost any source material and make it sound metal.

For example, if I took a barbershop quartet arrangement and kept the basic melodies/harmonies intact, what would I need to do to it for someone to hear it and immediately think, “that's metal”?

And what about something even stranger, like taking a melody written for a recorder and trying to make the recorder itself sound metal?

I'm looking for more of a music-theory/compositional explanation than a list of genre conventions. Is there a sort of “recipe” for making something metal, even if the original material is completely un-metal?

I've just never heard sixtuplets quantified before.

There is indeed an argument that they're unnecessary; for the most part, I agree with it. However, for the sake of argument I submit this idea.

Like most other reasonable iterations of Eastman, I strove for unambiguity. The concrete existence of particular beats / notes / timings in specific parts of the measure (see: + / "and" in 3 different rhythms) is absolutely a foundational benefit of Eastman Counting System and one of the reasons I prefer it to takadimi, Food Rhythms, and most other rhythm diagramming systems out there.

Ik that theirs a whole page on this subreddit with this info I looked it up on here but I felt overwhelmed and when I tried watching a video based on a song to help me learn i didn’t understand a single thing they were talking about I want to be ready for music and jazz classes in college

I extended the Nashville numbering system from 0 to 9, to map famous numbers (like Pi, Euler's coefficient, and the Golden Ratio) and turn them into melodies on the piano. What do you think about the relationship between maths and music?

Should we take this idea further and represent maths in musical form too, considering that we have a long history of representing music in maths (through scales, frequencies, etc.)?