[HN Gopher] Interactive Music Theory Cheat Sheet
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Interactive Music Theory Cheat Sheet
Author : s4i
Score : 276 points
Date : 2023-01-15 09:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (muted.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (muted.io)
| kavalg wrote:
| That is great! It would have been even cooler if it had some
| common chord progressions or resolutions for each scale. I'd also
| add the harmonic and double harmonic, melodic, phrygian dominant
| (flamenco/hijaz) and Neapolitan scales. Why not also break down
| the scales in to tetrachords and make it possible to navigate
| between scale-tetrachord?
| keymasta wrote:
| See the link in my post.
| outlawBand wrote:
| This is very cool man, love having things like this when I go to
| write.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| What would nice is a circle of fifths that could be used as
| keyboard to play sounds. Everything else seems to respond to
| clicks.
| virtual_void wrote:
| Neat! I like it.
|
| I get no audio on my iphone though for the interactive keyboard.
| Might just be my setup.
| IndySun wrote:
| Your phone is on mute.
|
| This website has been posted here at least once a month since
| launch.
| virtual_void wrote:
| It's not. I can listen to audio from anywhere else except
| this site.
|
| Just hooked my phone up to look at the console and noted that
| the resources are not being loaded.
|
| I have a pihole running and checked that log and can see that
| fish.muted.io is being blocked due to it being listed in in
| one of the pihole default blocklists that it downloads.
|
| That's enough for me to give it a miss anyway.
| IndySun wrote:
| Well that is extremely odd, would you agree?
| IndySun wrote:
| Thanks for this Fish note. Well spotted.
| user5678 wrote:
| [dead]
| ciroduran wrote:
| One app I use frequently when composing is Tonaly on iOS. It has
| an interactive circle of fifths that also indicates the chord
| grades on the selected scale. The cheat sheet is also a good
| approximation.
| mattacular wrote:
| This is great, nice work, bookmarked!
| wizofaus wrote:
| Looks neat (and like you've put a lot of time and effort into
| it!), but why use the letter 'b' instead of a flat symbol in the
| section Diminished Chord Formulas (https://muted.io/chord-
| formulas-intervals/#diminished-chords)? I played around with the
| https://muted.io/mini-music-machine/ a bit, again, very cool -
| there's some curious use of terminology (esp. interval to mean
| essentially mean duration/frequency, and the various options
| under that same dropdown aren't immediately obvious in meaning).
| Would be awesome if you could save/export whatever you'd created!
| Is the record button supposed to work? It doesn't for me in
| latest Chrome on Windows, get this in console:
| tone.14.8.42.min.js:1 Uncaught DOMException: Failed to execute
| 'connect' on 'AudioNode': cannot connect to an AudioNode
| belonging to a different audio context. at De
| (https://muted.io/js/tone.14.8.42.min.js:1:14949) at
| uu.connect (https://muted.io/js/tone.14.8.42.min.js:1:29482)
| at Sd (https://muted.io/js/tone.14.8.42.min.js:17:36141)
| at I.connect (https://muted.io/js/tone.14.8.42.min.js:17:35056)
| at https://muted.io/mini-music-machine/:2403:12 at
| Array.forEach (<anonymous>) at recordStart
| (https://muted.io/mini-music-machine/:2402:11)
| NickC25 wrote:
| Great job! This was really, really well done.
| pacomerh wrote:
| Great apps, love the amount of effort put into these.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Any good introductory guide for learning the very basics of music
| theory? I have no real practical need for it but have always been
| really curious about it. This cheatsheet is very cool but a lot
| of the terminology is beyond me.
| DicIfTEx wrote:
| Language Transfer have a course on music theory that I've been
| quite enjoying, for the low, low price of free (although if you
| like it, consider giving a donation):
| https://www.languagetransfer.org/music
| methehack wrote:
| Not free, but these books from "hook theory" are great and
| their tools are also amazing. Complementary to the tools at
| muted.io that the OP references...
|
| https://www.hooktheory.com/books
| daviddaviddavid wrote:
| One bit of complexity that lots of tools like this seem to always
| punt on is the fact that most chords (at least in jazz) are
| typically played rootless and inverted and with lots of 'upper
| extensions'. It would be nice if a tool really did a deep dive in
| actual chord voicings that one would play in the real world (i.e.
| in a context where the bass player is covering the root and
| therefore it is best left out of the chord).
|
| As an example of something that is very systematic (easy to put
| in an app), a rootless C maj 7 is equivalent to an E min 7. A
| rootless C min 7 is equivalent to an Eb maj 7. etc.
|
| It is a pretty tough leap to learn rootless jazz piano comping
| when almost everything out there (except for the old-school dead
| tree books) only ever shows rooted voicings.
| s4i wrote:
| > a rootless C maj 7 is equivalent to an E min 7.
|
| You mean just the regular E minor (triad)?
|
| Anyway, there'a quite a lot of stuff on this site apart from
| this cheat sheet page: the chord page does indeed include
| inversions, e.g.: https://muted.io/c-major-chord/
| karmakaze wrote:
| This is fantastic. I didn't grow up learning music and found so
| much of it seeming arbitrary and incomprehensible. This really
| pairs well with a 30min video[0] I watched taking away so much
| mystery and showing 'patterns in the madness'.
|
| It would be good if there were some keybindings to play notes
| (e.g. digits for I, II, or letters for notes ignoring #/b, or "r
| t y u i o p ["). A toggle to label the notes that are part of the
| selected key could help a beginner like myself.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgaTLrZGlk0
| notahacker wrote:
| If you want a longer, entertaining introduction to music theory
| with an emphasis on using things like modes to actually write
| songs, I highly recommend YouTuber Jake Lizzio
| (Signalsmusicstudio)
| darkwater wrote:
| Very interesting, would be nice to have a switch to change the
| notation (at least the solfeggio/solfege one). I'm European and
| really I can't work with C D E F G A B.
| s4i wrote:
| Germans also name the notes differently (C, D, E, F, G, A, H)
| which has unfortunately spread to some other countries too
| (like in Finland, which confuses me a lot because I've learnt
| so much music stuff online that uses the more logical naming).
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I was taught H instead of B 30 years ago, and it makes me mad
| - my brain _still_ refuses to think of notes as simply a
| rotating portion of ordered alphabet letters. I spent last
| two years trying to get back into piano and guitar and I feel
| I 'm constantly hampered by not having that intuitive "oh, c
| to g is 5 notes" or even "what comes after B is C" and "what
| comes after G is C". I literally have to count on fingers as
| if they're randomized symbols (and fwiw I am pretty good at
| intuitively grokking mod 7 in other contexts) It's awful.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Europe has a fair split between solfege and letters, don't put
| us all in the same basket my fellow European :)
| darkwater wrote:
| Southern European I should specify, then :)
| agilizer wrote:
| Amazing. I only wonder why the post didn't link to the homepage
| instead. I would not forgive OP if I have missed all the other
| tools:
|
| https://muted.io
| jzellis wrote:
| This and the other one you posted with the chords (I assume that
| was also you?) are really useful and handy! Thanks for this!
| s4i wrote:
| I don't think it was me but maybe it was another page someone
| else shared from this cool site? Please share what it was if
| it's relevant.
| notahacker wrote:
| I've seen similar references before but this is very well done,
| so I've bookmarked it. Particularly like the overlapping keyboard
| keymasta wrote:
| This is like my own little tonality calculator, except with good
| UI/UX, and with two changes (Ionian/Aeolian) instead of arbitrary
| changes. What would be super cool would be to combine the best of
| both somehow. My change calculator is at
| https://edrihan.neocities.org/changedex if anyone wants to derive
| harmony of changes which are not Ionian/Aeolian. Though it looks
| like a turd from 1997, and the audio doesn't work, it does expand
| this idea to include all 12-tone possibilities, which I call
| changes. Also hit me up if you like OP!
| adius wrote:
| Check out https://github.com/ad-si/awesome-music-production for
| an extensive list of software, services, and resources to create
| and distribute music.
| bambax wrote:
| This is nice. I think it has appeared before on HN. A nitpick is
| that the piano keys are drawn incorrectly; on a real piano the
| black keys are not centered between the white keys (most
| important), and they are also wider and longer.
| keymasta wrote:
| Here are two ways to get the keys' measurements, which I
| made/use. The tricky part from a naive approach is that white
| keys are on a grid of seven whereas black keys are on a grid of
| twelve. I copypasta'ed from my code so I hope it's still
| correct. This is Python but it should be trivial to use any
| language. evenlySpacedWhites = True
| octaveWidthProportion = 2 #Piano keys longer/shorter
| blackKeyProportion = 0.61832 #Black keys longer/shorter
| height = 256 #This can be any number and controls total size
| if evenlySpacedWhites: CtoEWhites = 35
| FtoBWhites = 35 CtoEBlacks = 21 FtoBBlacks = 20
| else: CtoEWhites = 20 FtoBWhites = 21
| CtoEBlacks = 12 FtoBBlacks = 12 #before
| normalisation octaveNumberWidth = 3 * CtoEWhites + 4 *
| FtoBWhites #using the proportion makes the output image
| have the same height, regardless if whether evenlySpacedWhites
| is True/False octaveWidth = round(height *
| octaveWidthProportion) proportion = octaveWidth /
| octaveNumberWidth CtoEWhites = round(CtoEWhites *
| proportion) FtoBWhites = round(FtoBWhites * proportion)
| CtoEBlacks = round(CtoEBlacks * proportion) FtoBBlacks =
| round(FtoBBlacks * proportion) blackKeyLength =
| round(height * blackKeyProportion)
| college_physics wrote:
| Neat. A version for guitar might be quite popular. Also extending
| the range of scales. Pick your favorite ones from the 4096
| possibilities or maybe all of them :-) [0]
|
| [0] https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/
| ergonaught wrote:
| There are several guitar-specific tools on the site.
|
| Ex:
|
| https://muted.io/guitar-scales/
|
| https://muted.io/guitar-chords/
|
| https://muted.io/guitar-fretboard/
| college_physics wrote:
| ahh, missed those. very cool. even caged / tnps patterns.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| I just started learning the piano again, and using modern apps
| (such as Simply Piano) makes it actually fun. Ten years ago, I
| couldn't bear through reading sheet music, making mistakes and
| got discouraged. But now, learning to play is like playing Guitar
| Hero. You get instant feedback, guidance on what and how to play.
| It's great. We'll see how long it stays "fun", but atm I'm making
| progress every day.
| zubspace wrote:
| I'm on the fence about apps like Simply Piano. I have a
| subscription since more than half a year and yes it's fun and
| I'm making progress albeit slowly. But I have the impression
| that it focuses too much on simple songs or techniques.
|
| When I look at the introductory piano books of my wife I'm
| completely overwhelmed. Like my mind is unable to process the
| notes without an app that tells me what keys to press. Can't
| really explain it. I won't cancel my subscription yet. but I
| think that at some point 1-to-1 interactions with a teacher is
| invaluable.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| I get that, too. I struggle to even play "Over the Rainbow".
| Moving the hands, coordinating the hands is still a big brain
| fuck in week 1. But, I'm not sure how much a teacher would
| help me at this stage. I think I just have to practice more,
| recall which key plays which note, and nail down the
| individual parts. A teacher might be more valuable later down
| the line when I somewhat know what I'm doing and correct my
| path.
| fsw wrote:
| He would help you in preventing you from learning the wrong
| things that can take a long time to "unlearn" again later.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| Same to be honest, I am pretty grateful just for the fact
| that the app got me back into piano but I was pretty alarmed
| when I tried to play some beginner's songs from a songbook
| and really struggled. I just finished Pre-Advanced so I was
| kind of thinking it would be a cake walk. I think the
| downside of the immediate feedback is you can kind of guess a
| few times until you get the note right and then just do it
| from memory and don't really have to learn to read at sight,
| I noticed my reading of the bass clef is really not there at
| all when you take that away. Thinking of finishing the
| program and getting a real teacher. I am sure they will also
| tell me my technique is crap but all part of learning I
| guess.
| fsw wrote:
| "Learning the piano" is nothing like Guitar Hero, though. These
| apps just tell you (and check) which key to press in what
| order. They don't teach you anything about musicality like
| dynamics or articulation. They often can't even tell if you
| played multiple notes simultaneously or if your timing was
| correct.
|
| If you cannot already play the piano, what you get is just a
| fancy way to learn reading (parts of) sheet music with the
| ability to connect a MIDI keyboard.
| cousin_it wrote:
| As your music ambition grows, at some point you'll get to the
| hard part: building the 5-way translation between what you
| hear, what you play, what you sing, what notes you see on the
| page, and what sounds you imagine in your mind. The more time
| you spend on only one line in this pentagram (for example
| translating from notes on the page to playing an instrument),
| the bigger the "imbalance" will be when you eventually realize
| you need the entire pentagram. You'll turn to sight-singing,
| dictation, audiation and all these other exercises everybody
| hates, your progress will be slow and difficult, but by then
| you'll know why it's necessary.
| patchorang wrote:
| I made a site the other day to help me practice my chords -
| https://learnyourchords.com
|
| If you have a MIDI keyboard you can play along as it prompts you
| with chords, or if not you can use it like chord flashcards.
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