Music Theory Tips and Tricks

“Ain’t No Sunshine” and Drop-2 Voicings

The Bill Withers classic song “Ain’t No Sunshine” is a funky R&B standard that has also found a home in […]

Understanding meter in music might seem like a fairly simple concept. When discussing meter we usually discuss the time signature,

Jazz theory is not a separate subject area from music theory, although many people think that music theory and jazz

Harmonic analysis is an incredibly important key in unlocking the mysteries of music. By understanding and using harmonic analysis we

Voice leading. Maybe you’ve heard that term before in musical circles and not fully understood what it means. Voice leading

The major bebop scale is a very powerful scale that can be incredibly helpful to jazz pianists in a number

Transposition is an essential rock piano skill, and a skill that every musician should practice. Transposition refers to the ability

The tritone is a very common device used in the jazz and Great American Songbook repertoire. It’s responsible for some

In this article we’re going to challenge your understanding of jazz arranging techniques. We’ll start off with a really common

The term “upper extensions” has a very important meaning to musicians, particularly to jazz players. This is because “upper extensions”

In our article “Relative and Parallel Minor,” we explained the often confusing terms that are associated with the minor scale.

Pedal tones are usually thought of as a jazz topic that is reserved for advanced study. That’s sort of ironic

In Part 1 of our article on advanced reharmonization we discussed two tips for understanding how to get started with

What are diatonic intervals? “Interval” is simply the term we use in music when we want to measure the distance

Have you ever been in a musical environment, perhaps a class, lesson, rehearsal, or jam session, and heard someone use