"Music Theory" Video Transcription

Video Transcript: Music Theory

One more thing, basic music theory. Probably we should have started with this. Hopefully, you've already had some music theory, if you haven't had any music theory at all, this is probably going to come off like some foreign language that you've never heard of. And maybe you'll have to go through it several times. Or maybe you'll have to Google it and watch several people explain it, I'm going to try to do it in like 12 minutes. There's a lot of stuff, I'm only they cover the basics, it's almost like doing some kind of a math thing. So I'm going to give you the music theory, I think it's something that you should know, it'll help you in terms of really helping other people. So even if you know music theory, this might be a way that you can help others sort of understand what this whole music thing is, and how it works. 

So first of all, there are notes, and notes are the pitches that we sing. And you can sing high, high, that's a note low. That's a note, all in fact, when we speak, whenever we talk to people, we're actually speaking in certain notes, now we don't hold them out, we start holding a note, then it starts sounding more like music, but we're always talking in notes high or low. Number two, they're eighty eight notes in western music. And the eighthy eight notes are usually on a keyboard. So if you look at a typical keyboard, this isn't a typical one, it's a little electronic one. So there aren't all the keys that a regular piano would have. But if you look at a regular piano, you'll have 88 keys, counting the white ones and the black ones. Now, that's Western music. If you go to India and places like that, they have all kinds of little semitones. And they have way more than 88 notes, but Western music for you know, hundreds of years 88 notes. Number three, really, there are only eight, or 12, or eight notes. 

Because of octaves. If you again, if you look at the keyboard, you see all these white keys, and you see all the black ones. But you'll notice that there's a pattern, there's two black ones in a row, then there's three black ones in a row, then there's two black ones in a row. And really the keyboard is divided into two octaves. This is a C. And this is a C. And even though they're different notes, they sound very similar. And if you look at the frequencies, you'll see that they divide into each other. And so they sound sort of the same. So what we've done is we call them as the same, this is a C, this is C, this is a C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And so we just keep repeating that pattern over and over and over again. So really, when you look at a keyboard, you see all the way to all the blacks really only have to count 3 4 5 6 7 eight white ones, and five black ones, and that's an octave. And once you understand one octave, you just apply it to all the octaves. Alright, there's 88 notes, and they are arranged in scales, and each scale is labeled as a key. So this would be a major scale. C, you know, if you saw the sound of music, you know, do, a female deer. Ray da da da ...

And what that song was trying to teach is what a key is in the notes in the key. So if this is the key of C, you started on the key of C, and C D E F G A B C. And it's a little confusing, because, you know, it seems like I'm doing, you know, one at a time 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. But the reality is, if we get a count these black ones, we sort of call them a half step. So if you go from one white one to the other white one, and if there's a black one in between, that's really a whole step. So if I went from the White C, to the black one, it's we call that a half step. So if you want to play a major scale, you start let's say we want to play the scales C and we call it C because that's the note we're starting on. Then a major scale goes C, whole step, whole step and then the next is a half step, there's no black one in between. So this is only a half step. So it's whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. So you can play in any key. So this is the key of C, because we start on C, but let's say we wanted to play in the key of E, we start with a note that's called E. 

And then we go a whole step, okay, this is a half. So this is whole, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. So, you can play in any key, you can start with any note on here, and it can be as complicated as can be. But if you just start with any notes, this is a F sharp, so it's a difficult key, but I just have to go whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, and it will be right. That's a major scale, then there's a minor scale, a minor scale, you know, major scale sounds kind of happy. If we play the chords, sounds kind of bad, to happy sound. Minor, changes a little bit, it's whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half, step, what is it (he got mixed up, the next scenario he got it right). 

Whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, half. So that third is is where it gets changed, instead of going to the one, we go just a half step letter later, and it sounds a little sad. So if we played the chords, it would be, the major sound sounds very happy. This sounds kind of sad.

Alright, number three, you can start with any of the 12 notes, and it becomes the name of the key. If you want to start with a note C, that's the name of the key. So whatever note you start on, and then you do this whole whole half step you end up with, with whatever key it is all right, excellent. A staff. A staff are the lines upon which the notes are written on. So we can play notes, we can have them in our head. But sometimes people will write them down so that we can be consistent with it, and you write them down on horizontal lines, the higher the note is a little black thing, the higher is on the lines and the spaces, the higher the note. So a lot of people say that they can't read music, they don't know how to read music. But the truth is, it's it's relatively easy to learn how to read music, because those little notes just give you an indication of whether you go up, or whether you go down. If the note goes up the scale, then you got to go up a little bit. If it goes down, and you get to go down. And the more you do it, the more you get a sense of how far you go up or how far you go down. And you can see on your notes there. 

On the slide there, you can see how the notes on the staff correspond to the notes on the keyboard. So as the keyboard goes to the right, the notes go up as the keyboard goes to the left, notes go down. And there's a thing called a clef. If you see the the top bunch of lines, you'll see this squiggly thing that looks like kind of a G. That's called the treble clef. And that just lets people know that we're in this higher range on the piano or whatever instrument you might be playing. It corresponds, if you look on the keyboard below, you see where it says middle C, that treble clef goes from middle C, to the right, then we have the notes that go a lot lower. And so they make what's called a bass clef and that's that sort of a backwards C. And that just tells people that we're going down to these lower notes and the only reason why they do that is otherwise you'd have a staff that had, you know, 10 or 12 or 15 lines. And when you're looking at these line 15 lines, you would you know, you'd have to hold on i don't i don't know which note I have to count them. 

But people that know how to read music, I can look at these notes that have five lines, and I right away right away know that the one is on the middle line, I can tell that the one is the second to the top. In other words, your mind can handle five lines and spaces. But it can't handle six and seven and eight, nine and 10. So we're just dividing, divide them up into these different clef. time signature time signatures, signatures a little complicated, but it tells you how to how to count a song. So there's two numbers, there's the four on the top, and there's the four on the bottom. The four on the top says, How many notes there are in a measure, and I'll show you what a measure is that the top says there's four notes in a measure. And the bottom number says, What note actually gets one beat. So in four, four time, there's going to be four notes. And the four means that the the quarter note is going to get the beat, and I'll show you what those are in a minute. So three, four times says there's three notes in every measure, not four. And the four means that the quarter note is going to get one beat. six, eight means that there's going to be six notes. And the eighth note, the eight signifies the eighth note. So the eighth note is going to get the beat. So let's just look at a song see what that is. If you look at Amazing Grace, you see those vertical lines ever so often is the first note that's. (singing partially Amazing Grace)

So that that first note is sort of a pickup note. But then when you look at the second note, that note, the second note. And you can see it's it's a circle, but it's not filled in, that's a half note, half notes are worth two beats. So it's one, two, and then the notes that have these little flags on that's what an eighth note is to that that's that gets a half of a beat. So three, four time means that there's three notes in every measure between the lines, and that the quarter note is going to get the beat. So there's going to be three quarter notes in every measure. So if you look at that second, that second line, this one, me right there, you'll see that there's three notes, but one of them is a half note and a half note gets two two, it's like two quarter notes. And then the eighth notes are like half of a quarter note. So the two become one. So there's three beats, but you have to hold the one. And so the quarter the eighth notes, sort of take up one of the beats and then you go to amazing grace.

That one is one 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3. Okay, so if you don't know anything about this can complicate it because notes are worth something and then the bar tells you how many that you're going to have. But once you get used to it, it's like okay, three, four time, you know, I just instinctively know that's a waltz. Three, four time is always 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3. And that's what a waltz is like it has that certain kind of beat four four time would be 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4, 6 8 time would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6. And I know growing up, I was playing the trumpet and I had these time signatures and I didn't know what the difference was. And then I met my wife was a music major and she taught piano and she said you have to come up with little devices that help you like Humpty Dumpty hear these little words that would sort of help you through some of these patterns. We don't have time to get into all that. But just to give you a basic thing time signatures will give you sort of the feel and the count of the song. length of the note I mentioned some of that already. The length of the note is how long you hold the note without a breath. So there's a whole note. It's just a circle with no lines on it. And it's worth four beats. So you get a count four time. 

half note is a circle with a line on it and it gets two beats on two quarter note 1 2 3 4 every note gets one beat and the eighth note gets it takes two eighth notes to get one beat so it's one two And two, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four. And if you're, if you like to tap your foot with music, and generally people, if you hear a song, your foot will automatically tap the basic note of that song. So 1 2 3 4, so when your foot goes down, that's like the quarter note. But when your foot goes up, that's like the eighth note. So it's 1 2 3 4 and 1, and 2, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four. And so the eighth note is a little bit difficult. But if you just follow what your foot is doing, the eighth note is always when your foot is up. Okay, there's so we have notes, you know, all the different notes on a keyboard, there's 88 different notes. What we're trying to do is music has all these possibilities, all these notes as 88 notes. How do you make sense of that? If I just went to the keyboard and I just started playing things, it would just sound like a mess. 

And so how do we organize these 88 things, the first way we organize it is in keys. That's a major key, it sounds good together. The second way we organize it, these notes is within a key. Which already sounds good. Now we start playing some of those notes that are within that key, we play them together. And it creates a little bit of a harmony, and we call those chords. So major chord number one, a major chord note pattern would be 1 3 5. So if we're in the key of C, it's 1 2 3 4  5 6 7 8. If we want to make a chord out of it, we take the one, here's the two, the three that sounds good together, then there's the four then there's the five. Go a note higher, that sounds nice together, that's a chord. And, and you name chords by the lowest note so it's a C. So it's a C chord.

So it's one, three, five. Okay, so then number two, the major chord chord pattern in a particular key is three chords. So this is one chord. But there's three chords in this key C, what's the key, it's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, that's a key, we make a C chord by going 1 3 5. And now we make the three chords that that are sort of the basic building blocks of you know of a song. That is the pattern is 1 4 5. So now, this is the one chord. Now I need the four chord so 1 2 3 4 and then I need the five chord 1 2 3 4 5 so those are the three chords in the key of C. You could play 100 songs, you can play 1000 songs, just with that. Now the key of C is too high for Amazing Grace. So generally, you want to put it down here. We're gonna play it in the key of G. And we're going to talk about how you do that. The easiest key is the key of C because you don't have to play any of the black notes. But a lot of times that's going to be too high or too low and then you transpose it. Okay, so So just to be clear, again, we have keys 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. we can start with any note and that would have a different name, but they all be the key that fits together. Then we take the eight notes, the keys, and we put them into a chord, C chord, and the pattern of chord is the one, the four and the five that's the basic chords. Now you can also have a minor chord pattern, I gave you that major chord pattern, but the minor chord pattern would be.

okay, so here's C, C would be I said the C is the pattern is 1 3 5 But if you want to make it minor, you take the three, the three is the most powerful note within a chord. So it's 1 3 5. This note here does all the work, if it's if it's a direct three, it's a major chord. If you take the three, and you just drop it down one half step, if you take that three and go up, one half step sustained chord wants to go somewhere, it's like an egg and he wants to be get finished. You go down a half step, minor, right on major, half step up, sustaine. And so that that third note in a chord gives a song, its its color and its flavor. A lot of contemporary people are starting to not play that third at all. I'm not even playing it. And when you don't play the third at all, like what is that, is that minor, is it sad, is it happy.

I don't know, it's in between, a lot of contemporary artists are starting to play with because they like that ambiguity. Okay, so we've talked about the cords, keys cards, here's the basic keys and chords that go with them. So, you know, if you're just starting out with a piano or a guitar, here's the basic ones, the key of C, then you got the key of D. And then you get the key of G. And then you get the key of E, So, if you in the key of C, C, G, F are the three big chords. And then if you want to play a minor chord, it's the key of A minor. So here, if we're in the key of C, my A minor goes with it. 

So, if you're in the key of D, you do the exact same thing. But now it's going to be D, A, G, and B minor is the minor chord that fits with those three, if you're in the key of G is G, C, D, and E minor is the relative minor, we call it, and then E, you get E, A, B and C minor, if you would learn on the keyboard, or the guitar, or any instrument, if you just learn these four, keys and the chords that go with them. And you can see some of them sort of double up with the different keys. So it's like, if you just learn 10 chords, you can play you know, 90% of all the songs. Alright, so I mentioned earlier that, you know, we're in the key of C, which is easy to play. And most people aren't going to be able to sing that high. It's just out of their, their, their range. Or if you have a favorite artists that you just love, and he's got this great worship song. But you know, he's got such a high voice. And so you know, what churches are doing is they just copy what the guy does. They see it on Sunday morning, but it's like three notes way too high. And most of the guys are like, I can't sing that high. And so they just stop singing. So maybe you want to take that song and make it a little bit lower. 

So there are a couple ways to do this. So on your outline there now let's say you want to change from the key of D. And you want to make it the key of G, so maybe you want to raise it. Well, how would you do that the key of D uses D, A, G and B minor. Those are the chords that go with it. So you know the first chord of your new key, you know, that's G instead of D. But what are the other chords? So one way to do that you can easily figure this out is you just have a piece of paper, right a b c d e f g. So you see that on your outline. Okay, so we know we want to take the D and change it to a G. So if you look at the first line a b c d e f g and then you look straight down from the D, I put a G, I put a G and then I just wrote out the pattern G A, B, C, and then we start all over with D E, F, okay, so I just, I just started the pattern of the top line with the bottom line, but I started with what I wanted. I know I'm in the key of D, and I want to change it to the key of G so I put the G under the D and then I write it out. When you write it out like this. Remember What goes with the key of D, it's D, A and G. So if you look on the top line and you go to A, ok, when when you would have played an A chord, you now play a D chord, you look just under it. 

So again, go to the top line, if you see the D, let's say you wanted to change, you know, you're in the key of D, but you want to make it lower. So you go to the C, so what if you wanted to go to the C key, you know, on the top line, you have that D, and then under the D, you would write C, and then you go C, D, E, F, go back to the beginning, G A B C. And, and then, you know, in the key of D, here, again, you had to know what's in the key of D, of D, A, G, so then you look at the top line A what's under A, and that will be your chord. So if it you know, if you're just trying to figure stuff out, and you're somewhere and you just can't figure it out, you just write those letters out. And you can do it that way. 

Another way that you can do it, which is probably a little simpler, but you have to have it for this tool around and I just made one. It's this is called the circle of fifths. And all it is, is the same thing cut out twice. One is a little bigger version of the others. And we'll have this so that you can download it and you know, now would make a little small one, you don't need this big, it's very simple. That the outside ring is the key that you're in. So if you have a song, and it's in the key of D, and what goes with D, D, A, and G go with the key of D, so you're in the key of D and you want to change it to

let's say you want to change it to E, you're in D, you want to change it to E. So all you do is turn this little wheel so that the E is under the D. And now what chords are in D again, are the D and the A and the G. So if you want to know what your new chords are, instead of playing an A, you'd be playing a B, instead of playing a G, you'd be playing an A, if you want to change transpose it into some crazy thing like B flat, you know, that's hardcore, or just change it to be flat, then you would go here's, here's the new chord, anytime you saw a C, a D, you change it to a B flat, when you saw a G, you'd have to change it to an E flat whenever you saw an A and have to change it into F. So you can easily change any song into any key by just taking this thing and moving into what you want. Now, there's all kinds of apps online, and you can just, in fact, some some websites, you can just dump the whole song and if it has little keys and so on and little things at the top, you know that say you know C chord, and you just tell it like I want to play in a whole different team, you tell it what key, and it changes the whole thing for you. 

So there are a lot of different ways that you can do it. And that's helpful. Because some songs are too high or too low. Now, this has been a quick run through pitches, notes, keys, but you have to have a little sense of how the music is organized, in some ways, people just sing and they just let it go. And they're following all these things, and then benefit from somebody knowing all these things. But you as a leader probably should know something about it. And when people are struggling with the key signatures, you know, it's in six, eight time and six, eight time as a different field and four, four time, maybe they're trying to do the four four time feel with a six eight time song and the six eight doesn't doesn't really fit. So knowing some of these things can help you as a leader just make the music a lot better. And in some ways, at least for you engineer types. It's just kind of fun to see how God is taking something like music and he's made it so intricate, and it's almost like, you know, like a beautiful piece of work of art that has all this math and and these things all interrelate to one another and the more you understand it, the more you get amazed at what what the whole thing is and how blessed we are by God to have it.