okay so just do me a favor and picture a giant pizza and this huge Pizza represents all of Music Theory now in order to write and produce music professionally at the industry standard you really only need to know a relatively small slice of this pizza most of it is pretty unnecessary and after 15 years of writing music and 10 years producing professionally I'm going to give you the exact amount of music theory that you need in order to make incredible music feel free to watch this video multiple times if you need you can take notes if you want to or if you have a piano in front of you or your software like Ableton or logic open it's going to help you learn it even faster also if you're watching this video and you're thinking huh I really like this teaching style and you feel like it's really helpful for you I do have a paid course and this video is actually part of that paid course so if you want to keep going you got some options and I'll tell you about it at the end of this video but let's get right into the music [Music] theory all right so hopefully by the end of this music theory section of the course this whole piano roll and keyboard won't be so intimidating anymore and you'll know your way around it just like a pro a piano roll may look like a lot of notes but it's really just 12 notes that repeat over and over you'll get the hang of it in note time okay so let's start with the notes all music is made up of 12 notes the white keys a b c d e f g and The Black Keys B flat d flat E flat F sharp and a flat the distance between two notes that are right next to each other is referred to as a half step so for example from a A to B flat this is a half step and the distance between two notes that are one note away from each other is called a whole step so from A to B is a whole step but from B to B flat is a half step whole step half step now all of these black notes they can be referred to as either sharps or flats to keep it simple for this course we're going to refer to all of them as Flats except for f right here so an easy way to remember the names of the black notes is start start with a white note like B for example and then if you fall down flat from B that's a B flat so for example e if we fall down flat a half step that's E flat so there's a and a half step below that is a flat B then there's B flat D has d flat below it e has E flat below it and then for f Shar it can be either g flat or it can be F sharp but it's more simple just to call them all Flats except for f that's the way a lot of music is written and notated anyway so it'll keep things simple for you so let's just review the names of all the notes really quickly we have a B flat b c d flat d e flat e f f sharp g a flat and then back to a from this a to this a that's called an octave octaves are 12 notes apart they're also the same note one is just higher and one is just lower these are all over the piano the reason why these notes sound the same is because this a is at 440 HZ and this a is at 880 HZ so it doubles as it goes up and it gets cut in half as it goes down so now that you know the 12 notes that all western music is made up of it's time to start learning scales I think of this as What notes sound good together chronologically just to make things easy for you it's helpful to remember that the black notes are in sets of three and sets of two now if you go to any set of two black notes on the piano and just go to the first White note to the left of those so this note that's the C note so this is C this is C this is C they're all an octave apart and they're all the first White note directly to the left of these two black notes starting with the C scale is really easy because the c major scale is all the white notes in a row starting with C so we have c d e f g a b and then back to [Music] see now in music theory each of these notes are numbered this is called the Nashville number system and it's going to be really really helpful to learn this especially when we get into chords so for the c major scale we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Notes c d e f g a b and then back to C an easy way to remember the major scale is that it starts on the root note it skips one note it skips one note it slides over then it skips one note skips one note skips one note so it's skip skip over one skip skip skip or in musical terms like we learned earlier the first thing you do is you go up a whole step then another whole step then a half step then whole step whole step whole step so starting on the root it's whole step whole step half step whole step whole step whole step it's a pretty simple pattern pattern to remember and remember a whole step is going from one note and then skipping a note and a half step is just going right up to the next note or right down to the next note half step whole step the other important scale you'll need to know is the minor scale it's super easy to get the hang of especially after you've already learned the major scale the only thing is you're just going to move a couple notes down a half step so if you remember the c major scale is all of these notes and the C minor scale is going to be just these notes instead so that's C D E flat F G A flat B flat the pattern for this one is even easier to remember the scale is you start on the root note then you go whole step half step whole step whole step half step and then whole step it's whole half hole whole half hole so we start on the root note whole half hole ho half hole remember whole step is when you skip a note so from C to D and half step is notes right next to each other like d and d flat now it is essential that you commit these to memory because they're going to be the foundation for all the chords and Melodies In Your songwriting and production that we're going to learn later on in the course this is also going to help you be able to write and play songs in any key because the distance between the notes are going to be the same no matter what key you're playing in for example if we want to play the major scale in the key of A it's still going to be whole step whole step half step whole step whole step whole step or the a minor scale is still going to be from the root note whole step half step whole step whole step half step whole step this is why it's so important for you to learn the formula and not just the scale in one single key if you learn the right distance between the notes then you can play these scales in any key and have complete Freedom as a songwriter and a producer once you've memorize the major and minor scales then you're ready to move on to chords next up we need to learn what a chord is the definition of a chord is a group of typically three or more notes sounded together as a basis of Harmony if this sounds complicated to you don't worry we are going to simplify I like to think of basic chords as three notes played at the same time remember that each of the notes in a scale are numbered right 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 in the c major scale remember we have c d e f g a b so to play a major chord we're just going to play the first third and fifth notes of that scale at the same time so in the c major scale that's these notes remember 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and we're just going to play the 1 3 and five notes this is a C major chord now what do we do if we want to make this chord Minor remember in the C minor scale we lowered the third Sixth and and seventh notes by half step but since we're only learning Triads right now meaning three note chords we're just going to change this third note down a half step so that's a C minor chord we have C major and then if you just move that three note right here the 1 two 3 that note down a half step that's a C minor major minor notice that it's only a one note difference but this one note difference is the difference between a chord sounding happy or a chord sounding sad hopefully you're kind of beginning to see just how powerful music theory is this is why it's so important for you to learn okay now that we know which notes are which what the minor and major scales are and how to play major and minor Chords it's time for us to learn chord progressions this is where things actually start to get really exciting chord progressions Melodies and lyrics are how we tell a story with music you can use chord progressions to pull on people's heartstrings and make them feel a certain way both positive and negative they're extremely powerful I like to think of them as the foundation of the story and they kind of start to tell you how you should feel they set the mood of the song lyrics communicate ideas more literally but the chord progression and Melody can tell a whole story on their own if you don't believe me just listen to Clare Deon by Claud deusi [Music] or Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven they're able to transfer you to another world without saying a single word now we won't really be making any classical music but it's a great example to demonstrate just how powerful chord progressions are and chord progressions are super simple once you get the hang of them so just stick with me remember the notes to a scale and how each of those notes have a number to it 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 C is 1 D is 2 e is three and so on well there's a chord that you can play for each one of these notes or for each one of these numbers so not just a single note but three notes starting with that root note so we're going to learn the chord for each of the first six notes I know that there are seven notes but you really only need to learn the chord that corresponds with each of the first six we already learned the shapes of major chords and minor chords so we just have to learn the order the chords going while we're climbing up the scale learning the chords that work in the key of C is going to unleash the ability in you to be able to play most songs that you hear on the radio or the Spotify top 100 for example after learning these chords you can play All of Me by John Legend All Me Lo all of you all your curves and all your edges all your perfect imperfections so each one of those chords I just played is in the key of C and if you look at the root note of those chords that I just [Music] played it's C A D G but there's a chord that branches off of each of these notes so C major a minor D minor and then G major so let's start with c and let's look at each chord that branches off of these notes going up so first we have C major and then we have D minor and then we have E minor and if you'll notice this is just a C major scale walking up but we're playing a chord for each one of these notes so that root note stays the same and we're just branching off of it each time so C Major D minor E minor F major G major a minor and then we can go back to C so the order going 1 2 3 4 5 6 is major minor minor major major minor and that's it if you learn just these six chords you have the foundation to be able to communicate musically so just to recap the one chord is always major the two chord is minor the three chord is minor the four chord is Major the five chord is major and the sixth chord is minor major minor minor major major minor now a chord progression is just a series of chords played in a certain order for example All of Me by John Legend it's the one chord and then it's the sixth chord and then it's the two chord and then it's the five chord so it's just 1 6 2 5 and we're just building a chord off of each of those notes or 251 that's a very common Jazz theme or Jazz progression it's also the chords to Sunday Morning by Maroon [Music] 5 now I really want you guys to get used to referring to the chords as numbers instead of calling out the name of each chord individually this is what the pros do especially professional musicians cuz it's a lot easier in a live scenario to just call out the numbers and you can follow along as long as you know what key the song is in so we can do that 2 51 progression in the key of A remember if we're in the a major scale it's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 so the two note is B and we know that the two chord is always going to be minor so B minor is the two and then if we count up 1 2 3 4 5 that's the five chord and then we know that the one chord is a so 2 5 1 and now we can play 2 5 1 in any key that we want let's say that we're in G the two note is a we know that it's minor the five note is D we know that it's major and then back to the one the reason why this is really worth putting some time into is because this is what separates amateurs from the experts and the professionals every professional musician that I know can use the Nashville num system let's go back to the key of C really quick here's another common progression 1 5 6 and four that's Let It Be by the Beatles when I find myself in times of trouble comes to me or don't stop beling and so many other songs hopefully now you're really starting to understand the power of music theory learning this number system will give you the power and the freedom to be able to write incredible music for the rest of your life and it doesn't take that long to learn so it's worth a little bit of effort right now real quick if you're learning something or you're just enjoying the video I would love for you to consider subscribing and giving me the chance to help you make the best music that you're capable of it's totally free and it could really help you out a lot okay back to the video now that we know the basics it's time to spice things up how do we take a classic C major chord and make it a little fancier one of the easiest ways to do this is by adding the seventh note of the chord so for C major 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 we just add this note into the c major chord this is called a C major 7 now there are major seven chords there's dominant seven and there's also minor 7th a dominant sth chord is the exact same thing as a major 7even chord except that seven note goes down a half step now musicians don't call this a dominant 7even they just call it a seven chord so this is C7 this chord is often used as a transition chord for instance in the song desperado right there so it goes C then C7 and then F and then F minor okay so we know what a major 7th is and then a C7 but what about a minor 7th well what's the seventh note in the C minor scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 so on a C minor chord we're just adding that seven and an easy way to remember sevens on minor chords is it's just a full step down from the root note of that chord so C minor and the full step down from this root note is right here so C Minor 7 now what happens when we try to implement these fancy additions to our jazz chord progression from earlier remember the two five 1 well now we can do D Minor 7 G dominant [Music] 7 and C major 7 like [Music] this another quick way to spice up chords a bit is by adding the two note of the chord so the second note in the c major scale is D so regular C major chord with the two in it sounds like that this can kind of create a grounding feel and add a little bit more depth to the chord the the easy part is that a two can be added to any chord that you're playing so that progression from earlier with a D minor G C or the 2 5 1 we can add the two note and that chord shape to any of those chords now obviously use this Tastefully and see what sounds good to you but once we start adding that two note and that seventh note so like that D Minor we add that two note and that seventh note you start to get these really rich sounding chords and then the G dominant 7 and add that to and then back to the C2 this is when things start to sound a lot more Jazzy another cool thing you can do is add the root note and the five note on top of any chord these notes work in almost every chord so let's say we want to play an F down here and keep these notes going up top and then an A Minor and then we'll keep these notes going and we'll play a g below it so practically how i' play that out is more like [Music] this you can even play a C major chord pretty much on top of any other chord as well so down here we can play an F and then a c and then an A Minor and a g and pretty much just keep this C shape up here the whole [Music] time feel free to play around with this stuff and try to mix and match but a lot of my piano style at this point is keeping this one and five note in a lot of the chords I'll play a little progression to show you an example this note is basically just staying there for all the chords so that five note can just keep going through all the chords that's just a little food for thought but now let's get into the last section of Music Theory which is breaking the rules we just spent all this time learning the ins and outs of Music Theory notes scales chords chord progressions dressing up chords and now that we know the rules it's time to learn how to break the rules Tastefully of course we're not going to take too much time on this because there's a lot of information to cover throughout the course and we've already gone over more than enough music theory to get you by so how do you break the rules and when do you break the rules let's start with the how to keep it simple breaking the rules is playing a note or chord that's not in the scale of the song so for example if we're playing in the key of C A flat is not in the key of C you'll notice there's dissonance and it kind of sounds off now this is called called an augmented chord so when the fifth note of a major chord 1 2 3 4 5 C major goes up a half step that's called an augmented chord so let's say we're in the key of C and we play a g augmented that's a really great way to transition back into C so for example the first chord of O Darling by The Beatles in the key of C the that first chord is an augmented chord so for in the key of C it's the five chord g and then the five note in that chord is sharp by half step oh darling right me then the sixth chord I'll never make it alone so here in the song they also break another rule what's happening is we have the one chord in the key of C and then the two chord is always minor right D Minor well they break this rule by making it major now this can have a really wholesome kind of turnaround feel to it for example the song Everything by Michael bé uses this major two chord as well so it's like you're a fallen star you're the getaway car you're the Line in the Sand when I go to far right so so far that's two ways to break the rules we have augmented chords which are good transition chords and then we have major two chords these rule breaking chords are often used as transition chords to get from one chord like a C major to an F major we can use things like C augmented and then that'll take us to F and then another thing we can do is make chords that are supposed to be major minor so this is the four chord in the key of C we have 1 2 3 4 right major minor minor major and if we make that chord minor we get this really pretty emotional feeling I love a good minor 4 so if we play a normal run-of-the-mill progression without breaking any rules we can play a C then an F but if we switch it up a little bit we can do a c then C augmented then F then F minor that just is so much more interesting off the bat so we just changed the four chord to minor and that was a really cool sound to bring us back to C another thing you can do is change the five chord to minor as well so normally we have G major in the key of C and we can make that minor so let's say that we have this progression the one chord then the five chord and then the four chord but it gives it a totally different feel if we make that five chord minor so it sounds like this so that chord is used in a very famous song by prore called The Only Exception you might remember it when I was younger I saw my daddy cry and curse at the wind you are the only exception cuz you are the only exception so that's what a minor 5 sounds like that's what a minor four sounds like that's what a major 2 sounds like and here's one last example of making what's normally minor into a major chord so let's say we're going to go f g a minor that's just four five six but what if we make that sixth chord major sounds kind of weird but let's play through it this is normal and then this is breaking the rule now this whole idea of playing three major chords that are a whole step apart f g and a major is used in the song Kiss From A Rose by Seal there used to be a great tower alone on that major six is a really interesting way to spice things up it tells a totally different story last but not least let's just go over a real quick switch up in the key of C we have the three chord which is E minor which gets us to F major then back to C but what if we make that three chord major totally different feel right there's that Sam Smith song not the only only one and it totally uses that chord so we have the one chord then the three then the six so the one's major and normally the three is minor but in not the only one and plenty of other songs they use a major 3 it's a really cool way to make something sound a little bit more [Music] soulful now if you notice here I'm kind of dressing some of these chords up first of all I'm playing the root notes down [Music] here all I'm doing is adding a seven on this e major chord and then this is just a minor 7 but I'm moving this note down here if it seems like a lot to you right now and maybe a little bit overwhelming I encourage you to just start really small in the key of C with Triads so just three note chords C major a minor f g simple progressions like thato okay take a deep breath that wraps up the most tedious and complex section of the entire course by far if you feel overwhelmed just remember that you don't need to know all this stuff right away it's like learning anything new the more you do it the easier it will become and eventually it'll be second nature to you remember that you're learning a new language the language of music and as with learning any new language it takes time to practice and speak it well so have some patience with yourself feel free to come back to this section of the course at any point in time to brush up on your theory all right so as I said earlier this is just one small section of a paid course that I have where I'm able to go through software songwriting music production and then after you can make fully finished songs we dive into mixing and mastering and that way you can release those songs to the World on top of that I'm also able to Mentor you through the whole process and you can come to me with all your questions along the way and based on what my students tell me it's been super helpful and an absolute game Cher for them so if that sounds interesting to you I'll put a link in the description of the video and you can check out some more of the course for free and then decide if it's right for you but whether you decide to join or you just want to watch my free videos on YouTube I do genuinely value your time so much and thanks for giving me the chance to help you improve remember to stop making excuses and start making music cheers