[00:00] It all starts with C. Yes, it all starts with the letter C. Do you see the C? Yes, I do. It's right here. In fact, I also see D, B, F, G, A, B. Congratulations. You now know all the
[00:19] white keys on a piano. And you might be thinking, what about this key right here? Well, that's also a C. And maybe this key right beside the C right here. Well, that's also a B. So yes, at some point it does
[00:31] just loop back around. So how do you tell the difference between the C down here and the C up here? Obviously, they sound different, but I mean how do you distinguish them? Well, one is an octave higher than the other. Okay, an octave is when a key is the same note, but they're different sounding.
[00:47] More specifically, this C right here has half the frequency of this C, but it has double the frequency of this C. And you might be wondering, what about these black keys up here? I see them, but they haven't been touched yet, and they won't be touched yet. Okay, I lied. I'll touch them just
[01:02] a little bit. This is C sharp, D sharp, F sharp, G sharp, and A sharp. They're also referred to as flats depending on the context, but just for now for simplicity's sake, I'm just going to refer to them as sharp notes. So now you know all the notes on a piano. Yes, this series of notes is the same as this
[01:17] series of notes, but it's at a higher frequency. And these series of notes are the same as this series of notes, but at a lower frequency. More specifically, half the frequency. You might be wondering to yourself why there are seven white keys and five black keys. I'm not really sure of the answer to that myself,
[01:30] but I think it is for the sake of organization. For example, if we go back to our white keys, C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, that is the most important skill you're going to learn is the C major scale. And just
[01:44] because you play all the white keys on the piano, it doesn't necessarily mean they're of an equal distance. You might notice E and F don't have a little black key in between there and B and C also miss a little thing right there. What I mean is that even though physically D and E and F are an even
[01:59] distance away from each other on a piano, sonically, they have a different distance away from each other. And to elaborate, the distance between D and E is a whole step and the distance between E and F is a half step. And it's just because of this little black key right here. And most skills you're
[02:13] going to learn just because they follow an alphabetical order does not necessarily mean they have an even distance. A half step is basically the distance it takes to travel to a note that you're beside. The distance it takes to get to the D sharp to the D note is a half step. But sometimes we
[02:27] want to get to the E note without having to travel to the D note. This is when we introduce the whole steps. And now we can travel from D to E. And the major skill consists of multiple whole steps and the half steps that collaborate with each other to create this pattern. We start with C then go
[02:42] whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step. And now that you know the C major scale from C to B, I want you to assign a number to each individual note. So C is one,
[02:55] D is two, E is three, so one, and so forth. And you'll see why you want to assign numbers to these letters. But for now I want to introduce a secret little code. It's called one three five. So you remember those numbers we assigned. One, two, three, four, five. If we play all of these notes together,
[03:16] we have a C major chord. C might be thinking of chord is when you play multiple notes on a scale. For now I'm going to say yes but it can get out of control really fast. But for now I want to look at the A note. I mean it's the first letter of the alphabet. I mean why is it like the sixth
[03:30] number here? That's actually a very important number in terms of music theory because if we play this front to back within the range of the C major scale. That's an A minor scale. Yeah C major and A
[03:47] minor are the same exact scale but they take a different journey to get the point A to point B. And because they have a different journey they end a different way. You might notice A minor sounds a lot more moody. Ooh that's a bit strange. Anyways you might remember the journey of the major scale
[04:01] starting at C you got whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step. Pretty easy to follow right but then you get to A and it's a bit strange. You started A but then whole step immediately jumped to a half step, whole step, whole step, another half step, whole step,
[04:18] whole step. You might notice the difference between the first and last note on a major scale is a half step but when you get over here the distance is a whole step. I mean that's why I think it sounds different at least at the end there but I want you to take that one three five pattern and
[04:32] just hold it there and bring your hand over to the A note so that way you have six one and three. That is a minor chord. It is a minor chord. You might be wondering even though my hand is the exact
[04:48] same shape when I drag it over here in place something it sounds kind of different and that is because of the third not necessarily the third note played in a major chord but just the third note in the scale so I'm talking about this middle thing right here. Taking a journey you start at C
[05:03] and to get to the third you go one two three four notes but to get to the minor chord the minor third you start at A and it only takes one two three notes and that's kind of just what makes it different.
[05:17] It's a shorter distance between your first and your third and you might notice if you play every note front to back they'll have a different pattern just because of the series of whole notes and half notes it takes to get the point A to point B because of that each number assigned has its own name
[05:32] or a mode. And the best way I can describe it is that there are scales within a scale. For example on the major scale the number one we established on C is referred to as the Ionian mode. The second mode is referred to as the Dorian mode the third is Fregion the fourth is Lydian the fifth is Mixo
[05:48] Lydian the sixth is Aolian but it also functions as the minor scale and the seventh mode is also referred to as the Lachrian mode but it's also the scariest just because of how it functions. Now in the context of the major scale the Lachrian mode chord doesn't sound that bad on paper
[06:03] but if we tried to play this pattern over here it would sound like this not very nice not very nice at all. Now if we use the 135 pattern on all of our modes remember we're still in the C major scale
[06:15] let's say I want to play them in a different order I want to spice things up a bit maybe instead of starting at 1 I want to start at 2 and maybe I want to jump to 5 and maybe I want to go
[06:29] to 3 and 4 that is a chord progression. Now it gives chord progressions their voice is how they speak for example the number 2 if we notice the distance between 1 and 3 that's only 3 notes so it speaks
[06:44] in minor but our 5 the distance between notes is 4 notes. So some of these chords are major and some of these chords are minor to help further distinguish this let's take our numbers make them into
[06:56] Roman numerals capitalize the major chords and de-capitalize the minor chords. Well I understand the difference between the 1 and 6 needing their own mode but the 5 is the exact same chord as the 1 why does it need its own mode and it's when you get further down the line more specifically when we add
[07:12] more notes to a chord let's add another number to the pattern 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 that is a C major 7
[07:25] oh doesn't that sound so sweet okay now let me just try using the same pattern on the mix of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 now that is a G7 chord not a G major 7 specifically but just G7 because it's not
[07:44] major but it's not exactly minor either speaking of this is what a minor 7 sounds like basically if a C major sounds like this a C7 sounds like that if you want to distinguish a major chord and a minor chord
[07:58] you'll notice it's within the three but these two notes actually stay the same what I'm saying is that the 1 and 5 even though they're far apart physically they're actually kind of best friends with each other people realize this and they decided to make a graph out of it called the circle of fifths
[08:13] and basically the notes beside each other on the circle of fifths are kind of good friends with each other while the notes further away they're kind of distant not as well known the best way to put it is that if your head is a C note it's a lot easier to touch your head with your G note hand
[08:26] than it is with your D flat foot but you can also see the similarities between these notes if you look at their scales so we're actually gonna learn a new scale so if you remember the whole step half step pattern of the C major scale we're gonna use that same pattern but starting from the G note
[08:39] okay so starting from G you have whole step whole step half step whole step whole step whole step half step that's a new note that's the F sharp which is jumped over F and have an F sharp now oh my
[08:54] gosh that's what makes them don't different that's what makes them so different and now that you know the G major scale I mean the same rules pretty much apply remember one three five that's your
[09:06] your G major scale and if you go to the six it's still a minor voicing but our fifth wait a minute the D that used to be a D minor on the C major scale but now it's a D major on this scale what the
[09:19] and yes because D is the fifth note on the G major scale it's G's neighbor in the circle of fifths you know might as well just go to the D major scale since we have it okay whole step whole step half step whole step whole step whole step half step oh my gosh there's another sharp note it's C sharp
[09:36] everyone it's C sharp they join the party and if you're paying good good good attention the fifth note on the D major scale is an A so we've been so focused on this whole A minor scale why not learn the A major scale I mean we started A then you do another whole step whole step half step
[09:54] whole step whole step whole step half step another sharp note and it's G sharp this time oh my gosh and yes you remember how the A chord on the C major scale was minor well now it is major and C
[10:06] doesn't even exist on the A major scale so we can just scram hey you want to learn something crazy what if I played the A major but I played it in a different order what if I didn't want to start at A I wanted to start at C sharp and work my way towards A so instead of sounding like it'll sound like
[10:25] so it gives it a little bit different of a voicing that is called an inversion and what I played specifically is a first inversion so again I want to play A major but I want to start at E so it'll sound something like this and that's the second inversion basically it has the same functionality
[10:42] as your A major scale but if you want to give it a little bit more spice a little black pepper that's a good way to add some spice and there are different rules for different chords you know there's only been major and minor so far what if I want to play something different what if instead of one
[10:54] three five I can change it up and do one two five well that's a suspended second and this is a suspended fourth and also there's not just a major scale there are different scales out there for
[11:06] example the pentatonic scale makes the major scale look a lot less threatening by using five notes instead of seven get it pentatonic pentatonic and it was it sounds like this a good frame of reference for the pentatonic scale is actually the F major scale
[11:23] all right now just take away all the white notes so if the major scale is used to represent all the white notes I think the black keys represent the pentatonic scale quite well and the great thing about the pentatonic scale you just you can't play
[11:38] bad ever you can match however much you want and it just it just it made it sounds good inherently it just inherently sounds good and in my opinion this sounds better than this and I actually forgot if
[11:54] you want to know the difference between a sharp note and a flat note for example F sharp major it's technically called a G flat major just because it already has an F in the scale so just so it doesn't take up the same space on a piece of sheet music this would have been called a G flat
[12:10] anyways the only thing left to do is practice make chords and versions I don't care what you do as long as you're just doing it and having fun and this isn't exactly a scholarly video on how to learn music theory this is just how I learned it and applied it to how I make music so chances are
[12:25] there might be a professional musician or a jazz professor who want to strangle me right now but this is how I learn music theory and I think I think I did pretty good for myself and that's all the music theory I think you need at least it's all a music theory I need to make stuff so if this helps
[12:39] you I have good good bye all right you learn music theory