Path
What to study before Chord origin and affinity
Where chords come from in the harmonic series, and how many notes two of them share. Below, the concepts that come before, in the order in which one explains the next. Signed in, you see the same path minus what you already hold: your path.
Properties of sound
The four properties every musical sound has at once: duration, intensity, pitch and timbre.
Note
The seven pitch names, and the sign that puts one of them on the page.
Tone and semitone
The smallest distance Western music uses, and the whole tone built from two of them.
Interval
The distance between two sounds, counted by note names, melodic or harmonic, simple or compound.
Interval quality
Perfect, major, minor, augmented and diminished: what separates two intervals that share a number.
Triads
Three-note chords stacked in thirds, and the four qualities that result.
Seventh chords
The fourth note stacked on the triad, and the five qualities the repertoire actually uses.
Acoustics
Vibration, sound wave, frequency and amplitude, and which property of sound each one governs.
Harmonic series
The sounds that accompany every fundamental, and why timbre and chord origin both rest on them.
Chord origin and affinity
Where chords come from in the harmonic series, and how many notes two of them share.