Path

What to study before Transposing instruments

Why a written C sounds like the instrument's name, and how to get from one to the other. 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)
Key signatures
The fixed accidentals at the start of the staff, their invariable order, and the circle of fifths that organizes them.
Level 1lesson Reading the key in one second (First steps in theory)
Transposition
Moving the whole piece by a fixed interval, preserving every internal relationship and every spelling.
Level 3lesson The same music at another pitch (Chords beyond the triad)
Instrument families
Strings, winds and percussion, classified by how the sound is produced rather than by material.
Level 1
Transposing instruments
Why a written C sounds like the instrument's name, and how to get from one to the other.
Level 4