Welcome to BasicMusicTheory.com
Thanks for visiting!
Below you'll find lots of music theory links to Notes, Scales and Key Signatures.
Have fun.. please click here for more about this site.
Common Scale Keys
Major Scale
Natural Minor Scale
Harmonic Minor Scale
Melodic Minor Scale
Chromatic Scale
Relative Minor Key
Major Scale Key Signature
Natural Minor Key Signature
Harmonic Minor Key Signature
Melodic Minor Key Signature
Pentatonic Major Scale
Pentatonic Minor Scale
Blues Scale
Note
Complex and Theoretical Scale Keys
Major Scale
Natural Minor Scale
Harmonic Minor Scale
Melodic Minor Scale
Chromatic Scale
Major Scale Key Signature
Natural Minor Key Signature
Harmonic Minor Key Signature
Melodic Minor Key Signature
Pentatonic Major Scale
Pentatonic Minor Scale
Blues Scale
Note
More About this Site
Site Purpose
The purpose of this site is to describe basic music theory concepts using specific examples.
So instead of showing the major, minor(natural, harmonic, melodic), or pentatonic / blues scales and key signatures just in the key of C (always the easiest), and then ask you to work out the rest, this site shows you the specific constructions in all common keys, including sharps and flats.
The lesser used, and more complex scale constructions and key signatures are also included for completeness' sake - with lots of double sharps and flats to show the difficult details in plain view.
So the point is to provide useful scale and key signature information of all combinations that you can use immediately, as well as describing the general theoretical concepts.
Site Structure
All the pages of this site have the same structure, whether the subject is scales, key signatures or note names.
The idea is to arrive at an answer to the question you asked to get here, for example 'What is the E Flat Blues Scale', by showing the steps needed to get there.
Seems obvious, but another goal of this site is to describe all of the details, including the tricky stuff like how to decide whether a scale or key signature should have sharps or flats in the key signature.
So each topic usually starts with a piano keyboard just showing the white and black notes, and then slowly builds up by, for example, identify the Tonic name, identifying the note intervals, then naming the actual notes.
The specific music theory answer(s) is always provided right at the top of the page just in case you don't want to read the theory below it.
This site tries to give the answer as well as describing how we arrived there.
The Use of *Lots* of Graphics and Audio (Midi) Files
This site demonstrates almost every step of arriving at the answer with at least one colourful, clear piano keyboard diagram emphasising the focus of that step.
It is always must easier to visualise a concept with a diagram than just describe a load of note names.
There are already more than 1000 images here, and there will be many thousand more by the time it is complete. All note, scale and key signature information is also presented in text tables for non-graphical browser configurations.
Whenever new notes are presented, a .mid (audio file) can be downloaded.. just click on the link to download it to your usual browser download location, then double click the ''mid' file to listen to it.
How to Use the Site
In a way, this site isn't really a basic music theory tutorial site starting from nothing, and then taking you through each topic in turn, as most other sites do.
It is more of a reference and resource site to answer specific musical questions that you asked via (usually) google. But it is a tutorial site in the sense that it describes the specific answer in a step-by-step manner.
The site License says that you can use any of the content for non-commercial use, and if you do use any content, please attribute this site as the content source ie. leave the logo on the diagram, and link back to either this page or the specific scale/key signature page.
Or feel free to just hot-link to the image you want to see on your page - you don't need to host the image on your site, but you can; subject to the above conditions.
Future Developments
At the moment, only Notes, Scales, and Key signatures are covered. Over the coming months, I will be adding in Note Intervals and Chords - again, of (nearly) all possible combinations. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful - please email me below with any comments, corrections or suggestions.Jon Judge, April 2012
