Path

What to study before Harmonic progression

How one chord follows another, and which successions carry a piece forward. 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.
Level 0
Note
The seven pitch names, and the sign that puts one of them on the page.
Level 1
Tone and semitone
The smallest distance Western music uses, and the whole tone built from two of them.
Level 1lesson Notes have names, and the names have a rule (First steps in theory)
Interval
The distance between two sounds, counted by note names, melodic or harmonic, simple or compound.
Level 1lesson The distance between two notes (First steps in theory)
Interval quality
Perfect, major, minor, augmented and diminished: what separates two intervals that share a number.
Level 1has practicelesson The distance between two notes (First steps in theory)
Major scale
Seven degrees built on a fixed sequence of tones and semitones, and the reference everything else is measured against.
Level 1has practicelesson The major scale, from any note (First steps in theory)
Triads
Three-note chords stacked in thirds, and the four qualities that result.
Level 2has practicelesson Three notes, four chords (First steps in theory)
Diatonic harmony
The chords that arise from stacking thirds on each degree of a scale, and why each quality lands where it does.
Level 3has practicelesson The seven chords of a key (First steps in theory)
Harmonic function
The role each degree plays — tonic, subdominant, or dominant — and the tension that moves one to the next.
Level 4lesson Seven chords, three roles (Functional harmony for people who play)
Harmonic progression
How one chord follows another, and which successions carry a piece forward.
Level 5