---
title: 'Music Theory Basics in 30 Minutes'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=nGssf9Q2CRw'
video_id: 'nGssf9Q2CRw'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 1952
---

# Music Theory Basics in 30 Minutes

> Source: [Music Theory Basics in 30 Minutes](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nGssf9Q2CRw)

## Summary

This live stream presents a simplified approach to learning music theory, focusing on major and minor triads, inversions, seventh chords, and suspended chords. The instructor emphasizes memorization through grouping chords by number of sharps or flats, and demonstrates how to convert major chords to minor by lowering the third. The session also promotes the instructor's educational bundle.

### Key Points

- **Welcome and Bundle Promotion** [0:04] — The host welcomes viewers, mentions a long break from whiteboard streams, and introduces the Biato Book Bundle sale at biatobundle.com, which includes a 500-page theory book, ear training course, guitar course, and PDFs for $99.
- **Simpler Way to Teach Theory** [2:51] — Instead of starting with the circle of fifths, the host groups major triads by number of sharps/flats: C, F, G (0 sharps); D, A, E (1 sharp); B (2 sharps); F# (3 sharps); Bb (1 flat); Eb, Ab, Db (2 flats); Gb (3 flats).
- **Converting Major to Minor Chords** [8:41] — To make any major triad minor, lower the middle note (the third) by a half step. Examples: C major (C E G) becomes C minor (C Eb G); D major (D F# A) becomes D minor (D F A).
- **Inversions Explained** [11:07] — Inversions change the bass note. Root position has the root in the bass, first inversion has the third in the bass, second inversion has the fifth in the bass. Example: C major root (C E G), first inversion (E G C), second inversion (G C E).
- **Suspended Chords (Sus2 and Sus4)** [16:19] — Sus4 replaces the third with the fourth (e.g., C sus4 = C F G). Sus2 replaces the third with the second (e.g., C sus2 = C D G). These are common in pop music.
- **Seventh Chords** [17:52] — Major seventh (add major 7th, e.g., Cmaj7 = C E G B), dominant seventh (flat 7th, e.g., C7 = C E G Bb), minor seventh (flat 3rd and flat 7th, e.g., Cm7 = C Eb G Bb), minor major seventh (flat 3rd, major 7th, e.g., Cm(maj7) = C Eb G B).
- **Suspended Seventh Chords** [21:18] — Combining suspensions with sevenths, e.g., C sus2 major 7 (C D G B) or C sus4 dominant 7 (C F G Bb). These create richer harmonies used in jazz and modern pop.
- **Building a Vocabulary of Recognized Sounds** [24:54] — Ear training helps recognize intervals and chord types. The host shares his experience figuring out Steely Dan's 'Josie' after 45 years by using his trained ear to identify voicings and intervals.

### Conclusion

Mastering basic music theory—triads, inversions, seventh chords, and suspensions—enables musicians to learn songs by ear and create more interesting music. The host encourages using his bundle for structured ear training and theory study.

## Transcript

start streaming
what's up everyone
man i haven't done a live stream here in
front of the whiteboard in
about six months or so
i kind of uh
thought okay i've done a lot of
whiteboards i'm going to take a break
and there's probably
a couple i don't know 100 and something
200 000 new people since i last did a
uh one of these presentations maybe 300
000 new new people
so welcome to all you new subscribers
and people following the channel
um
i'm going to bring out because i'm going
to talk about a simpler way i've thought
a lot about this lately about a simpler
way to teach theory because i always
talk about things that you don't
necessarily
use
in the
basic
music theory analysis that you need to
know this is stuff that you really need
to know i'm not going to talk about
augmented or diminished chords maybe
just for a second but
uh but i have a sale for today
which really
this is all connected with and it's my
biato book bundle that the last time we
sold it was about five months ago uh for
black friday uh back in november
if you go to beautobundle.com
all of my educational products my piano
book
uh bundle my ear training program my
i'll just tell you what each has the
biato ear training has 80 video lessons
hundreds of interactive training modules
that you can use to practice in your
browser and a 27-page booklet i never
tell people this stuff here this is
what's in them the biato book 4.0 is a
500 page music theory book which i wrote
20 years ago but i've revised four times
uh the pdf this uh the bundle is
actually 700 pages right then there's a
quick lessons
pro guitar course which is a five hour
video course where i break down my quick
lessons
that i do on instagram and now i'm
putting on shorts so if you go to to my
shorts that i've done
some of these are uh actually on there i
haven't put out that many shorts but
some of the quick lessons are in there
if i say quick lessons you hear that
five hours of video content midi
notation or music going to indicate
musical notation guitar and tab
pdfs and guitar profiles for those and
then 90
transcription pdfs
that go with that too so these are part
of that of the biato book bundle too
these 90 pdfs there's four separate
things that are part of this bundles for
99 bucks
which is
the best discount that you'll get so if
you want to if you're on the fence about
getting something this is the time to
get it that's my ad
for the uh for the live stream here
now
the um
so i was thinking about this what is
really the easiest way to teach people
about music theory without starting with
a circle of fifths because you guys know
i always start with the circle of fifths
so i thought
how do you teach just basic major and
minor chords to start we're going to
talk about those about inversions and
things like that and i thought okay
what are the three
chords
try major triads that have no sharps or
flats well they happen to be the ones
from the key of c that's c major
f major
and g major right they have zero sharps
or flats
c major is the notes c e g
f major are the notes f a c c no sharps
or flats
and then g major
is g b
d okay
these are all
white notes here so you get c major
right you've got f major
and you have g major you notice they are
three note chords
all white notes
then it's like okay well what are the
chords that have one
sharp
well
anybody know okay it's actually it takes
way too long to do this if i said does
anyone know
d major
a major
e major
these each have one sharp d major has
the notes d f sharp a
a major
a c sharp e
and e major has e
g sharp
b what do you notice about these
the sharp note is in the middle of the
chord it's the third of each of these
chords right so here's d major billy
everybody can hear everything
d major d f sharp a
a major a c e
and e major is e
g sharp
b
okay
um so those all have one sharp well are
there chords with two sharps yes b major
that triad
has
so this is
zero sharps or flats this is one sharp
and b major has the notes b
d sharp
f sharp
okay
this one has two sharps
all right b major would be this
here's the two sharps right d sharp and
f sharp
okay
i think this is actually pretty easy to
memorize to be honest with you if you
think about this right c f g d a e b
and then we have f sharp major
that has three sharps f sharp
a sharp
c sharp
so it's gonna be all black keys right so
that's three sharps
f sharp a sharp c
right there you guys can see that right
so you have your three
chords
with no sharps or flats they're all
white notes then you have your three
chords
that have only a
one sharp which is in the middle of the
chord so it'd be d
a
e
then you have your chord that has two
sharps b major
and chord with three sharps
f sharp major okay let's talk about
chords with flats
so
um
there's
a b flat major
this has two flats so b flat
i'm this i'm sorry this is one flat b
flat d f okay so this is one flat
we only have one chord that has one flat
in it okay so then we go to e flat
a flat
d flat each of these have
two flats okay it's kind of like this
right
if you look at it
it's actually the same letters right you
get d
a e
flat
you have d a e just in reverse so it's
easy to remember okay so this one is
e flat g
b flat what do you notice here on this
one the natural is in the middle right
instead of the sharp
and the a flat is
a flat c e flat once again
the white note's in the middle
natural note
and then d flat major is
d flat f
a flat same thing
natural note is in the middle okay
then it's like okay well what else do we
have here do we have uh is there any
other ones well you could say
let me put this in here
that's one flat this is two flats
and then there is one with three flats g
flat which is the same as f sharp
okay s has uh
just enharmonically different
g flat
b flat d flat that has three flats
okay so that would be this same as f
major they just have different names
instead of f sharp b a sharp c sharp you
have g flat b flat
d flat these are and harmonically the
same
now somebody that's playing a different
instrument other than piano say no they
sound different
g flat's lower than f sharp well that
may be the case but on the piano right
now that's not the case
okay so these
are how you memorize your major triads
you memorize them in groups you just
write them down
cfg boom d-a-e boom
b
f-sharp okay and you just memorize what
these sharps and flats are once you know
the notes that are in these chords
to get to the minor chords it's very
simple okay
all you do
to make these chords minor any of these
chords every one of these chords
right is you lower
the middle note by a half step okay
so c minor
would be this
e flat c minor
f minor make that an a flat g minor put
the b to b flat that's g minor the minus
means minor okay
i'll show you so here's c major
if i lower the middle note a half step
to e flat that's c minor here's f major
i'm going to lower the middle note
to
a flat
that's f minor and then g major g minor
lower the middle note
same thing here
except when you have a sharp you just
remove the sharp make it a natural so
these
are now going to be all minor
okay so it's going to be d minor a minor
e minor
this one
b minor is going to be with just a d
and f sharp minor the a a sharp goes to
a
same thing as with the flats
so to make these uh minor d flat goes to
b uh d goes to
d flat here's b flat major
b flat minor
major minor okay
same thing here with these
g flat c flat f flat and those give you
the minor chords of those right
same thing with this
but we're not going to talk about g flat
we don't need to know about g flat it
makes it too confusing okay
these are how you memorize all the major
and minor chords
seems pretty simple right it's just a
little memorization it's actually easier
than learning the circle of fifths
but
um
if you get my biato bundle here with my
ear training course with my biato book
with my quick lessons pro guitar course
and with my pdf bundle
for the price of less than my ear
training course if you're going to do it
now this is the time to do it
this will teach you all of this stuff
plus
way more okay
but i'll teach you
how to memorize this stuff
okay
now i want to talk about inversions
because if you're going to figure out
songs by ear first of all you have to be
able to hear whether a chord is major or
minor
uh and that takes some ear training okay
that's c major
this is g minor
f major
then c major
oh
what is this
it's called an inversion i have e c
i'm sorry e g c
that is a first inversion c major chord
so inversions work like this
11 versions and versions make your voice
leading and
make music way more interesting
inversions are are
one of the most important things to be
able to hear and understand okay if you
have a c major chord
in root position c e g
in first inversion which would be c over
e meaning c with an e in the bass
then it's
e
g c
or it could be either it could be e c g
as well
right these actually don't have root
position just means that that it's um
that the things are consecutive like
that and this is the best way to
practice hearing inversions right is to
do them this way
next way is c with a g in the bass so
that would be g c e okay easier to
actually see it on the keyboard
root position c e g now if i take the c
note move it up the octave
start with the middle note the third c g
c uh i'm sorry e g c
that is a first inversion major chord
and then g
c
e is the second version
[Music]
and those keep repeating right doesn't
matter what order you blame it
they all are c major
any order that i play those notes in
right if if c is in the bass
it's a root position
chord
doesn't matter if i'm playing inversions
in the right hand as long as i have c in
the bass
it's in root position but if i moved e
in the bass
first inversion if i put g in the bass
then it's a second inversion major chord
okay
same thing goes with minor chords you do
the same same thing if i make if i make
this a minor what i do i make this
e flat move it down becomes c minor
same thing here though i got to make
this e flat
so it's going to be c over e flat
and then c minor over e flat and this c
minor over g so i take this e flat and
do this right so
here it is
root position c e flat g then e flat g c
first inversion and then g c
e
flat um
why are inversions good inversions are
good
if you have songs like um
like um
i was going to play a song that would
demonetize me and i kind of stopped
myself from
so this is c major
g
in first inversion g with a b in the
bass
root position b flat major
then
f major in first inversion
then i could go down to a flat
and i could get down g minor and c
okay i actually played g minor seven
there
um so those inversions are really cool
because instead of i could go
g
i'm sorry c
then down to g
like that my base motion going like that
but it's
if i go
knows the bass line is going
it just gives it a more interesting
sound inversions make your music more
interesting okay and you want to be able
to hear those things this is why in my
ear training course i have a whole thing
on inversions
you got to be able to recognize all
types of triads including diminishing
augmented
you have to be able to recognize all of
their inversions but you also have to
recognize other chords diminished and
augmented chords
and suspended chords suspended chords
are really common in pop music they're
in every song from the beatles to uh any
contemporary thing like
uh
charlie puth
it doesn't matter
everybody uses suspended chords right
sus chords as we call them
so um
if i take a c
c sus4
or c sus2
c sus4 is you take the middle note so
here would be a regular c major
so one three five
and you make that middle note the fourth
note of the scale
c f g so it's one four five right of the
chord so here's c e g
a c major this is
c sus4
it's called the suspended four because
it
in classical music wants to resolve down
the sus two is you take the middle note
so c e g here's a c major triad take
that middle note move it down to the
next scale degree which is d
and you have one two five
that's a sus two so here's c major
and i move the middle note down a step
to the next scale degree down which is
the note d so that's c sus two
now obviously these
have inversions
right those seven versus well one of the
inversions of c sub two
is actually g sus4 they're related
that's g sus4
g major
g minor
okay these sus chords are are very
important to know because they're really
common in music that you would
be learning okay
the next thing to do to understand
are
seventh chords okay so seventh chords uh
if you take a c triad c major
if i add so i've got one
three five these notes refer to the
notes of the of the major scale one
three
five
right so the first note of the scale
second the third note of the scale fifth
note of the major scale this is c major
scale i'm playing
um that's a c major scale all white
notes
take the root the first note of the
scale third note fifth note
okay
now if i go
if i put a seventh on there that's
called the major seventh that's c major
seven that would be the note b
okay
this equals c major seven
you hear that in
you'll hear that in pop music
not as much as you as you would in the
70s but you hear in pop music
and then you have um
if i
flat the seventh
this note make it flat this is a c7
chord like you're in blues and things
you're in rockier and beetles under it
and
motown here and everything
c7 right so this is one three five flat
seven
so
one three five major seven one three
five flat seven
that's a c7 chord
right
right that would be using let's say in
the key of f a five one cadence that
would be your dominant chord okay
um
now if i flat the keep the flat seven
and i flat i mean there's other
variations here if i make these minor
then you get if i take this and i flat
the third and go like this
this would be c
minor major seven
and if i flat this
this would be c minor seven
okay so here's c major seven
this is c
minor major seven
you'll actually hear that in songs like
stairway to heaven that has minor major
seventh chords in it or
tons of songs something by the beatles
very common in the 60s and 70s uh here's
c7
i'm gonna flat the third
c minor seven really common your minor
seven chords in all these songs the dua
lipa song that i talked about this week
that is uh very similar to this other
song
has three minor seventh chords in it b
minor seven right
what uh b minor seven
what was it billy f short minor seven
and e minor seven
so the song progression is three minor
seventh chords right so b minor seven
f sharp minor seven
and e minor seven
okay so really common you're all the
time in pop music songs are on the radio
or on spotify at the top of the charts
or on apple music top of the charts
whatever
minor seven chords are really really
common there's another type of seventh
chord that we can have you can actually
have suspended
uh seventh chords right
give you an example i taught the uh the
song
um
josie by steely dan in a video recently
and they use a lot of
sus two major sevenths so let's see if c
sus2
uh so that would be c d g
so one two five
and then
with a major 7. i know this is this
sounds really crazy
and um and this would be with a b
so that would be this here's c major 7.
this is c
major seven
uh i'm sorry c yeah c major seven sus
two or c sub two major seven i'd call it
c major seven sus two but most people
would call this
as i called it
these three notes
are g major chord
[Music]
right
so i would call that g
because this is uh g major in
second inversion here i would call it g
over c
easier to write it that way than to say
c major seven sus two but that's what it
is to the ear okay if you're going to
learn these songs
beautiful
sounds
love that love that sound if i had a
that's a g major seven subs two but i
put an e in the bass
gives you a beautiful
e uh e minor nine with the eleventh
i just it's great i mean it's great
if i were to play it over g but it's
really
cool i can actually play it over
c and pick up c major uh 13 with a sharp
11
great sound right
you build a song off that just with that
one chord voicing right
okay you can also have sus 4 major 7 c
major seven i'm going to call it c major
seven sus four
c
i'm gonna do c major seven
but i'm gonna make the sus four there f
g b so one four five
set major seven
here's your c sus4
so that would be here's c major seven
c major seven sub four
would that be that
that's really more in modern
you hear that more
from people like me that would play that
or more jet jazz harmonies or something
like that you might hear that charlie
puth though
or jacob collier people like that
but that
concept structure c major seven sus4 you
give c dominant seven sus four
so it'll be one four five flat seven
you could have um
uh
you really do do this with any of these
suspended chords right you have major
seven or
uh flat seven with a suspension because
you have the
you
you have c um
sus2 with a flat 7 right c dominant 7
sus2
same kind of thing now
why do you need to know these things
because
ultimately
if you can pick these things out you can
learn anything by ear any song by ear if
you can recognize the chords you can
recognize the melodies and how the
melodies are constructed
and this is through repetition this is
what my ear training course does okay
it teaches you the interval
relationships if i go
now i don't need perfect pitch to know
that i was going to play that note e you
can see it on the screen and if i go ba
and i go duh
i know what those notes are going to
sound like before i play them because i
know what the intervals are
c e g b flat
god i'm a bad singer
that would be a c7 chord i recognize
that
what i've developed and what you
developed through using the ear training
course and my biato book learning theory
is you develop a
vocabulary you've heard me say this
before and here of recognized sounds
right
and eventually this vocabulary is is
becomes huge
if i hear a sound like this uh so i hear
this something like
when i hear that i'm like oh that's a
dominant 13 flat 9 chord
i just know the sound of it
i may not know it's a g
13 flat 9
but i know it's a dominant 7 with a 13
and a flat 9.
right i might say oh that's like e major
over g
[Music]
so that's part of my vocabulary of
recognized sounds but in my vocabulary
of recognized sounds there are thousands
of chords maybe not thousands there's
hundreds of chords because there's not
that many different chords
but like when i was figuring out josie
here it's weird so i make this video on
the steely dance song i've been
listening to for 46 years or whatever
i never figured the song out because the
thing about music theory is that you
just use it when you need it right
otherwise i just enjoy music i don't
analyze music
i never figured that song out before i
made the video and when i made the video
i was like
i just needed to turn on my brain
and then i could hear
those intervals of how the beginning
worked of where the voicings were what
order the notes were in
on the guitar some of the voicings
like uh if it was um
uh like
if it was
the um
i'm trying to think what
what was one of the chords here
oh it'd be like d
d over a so
it would be like
they have a lot of voicings like that
that's kind of what what larry carlton
would play on the guitar this is more of
a guitar voicing this would be the fifth
fret
the
second fret on the uh
on the a string or on the d string then
that would be this the third fret uh
second fret on the g string
and second fret on the b string
i'm trying to picture the chord in my
brain but that right so that's how the
chord sounds when i listen to it i was
like oh that's a major seven sustain
quarter that's a
uh with the
i could hear the root
and the fifth of the chord
a major second apart i could hear this
or
in this register right
[Music]
but i never that never occurred to me
when i was
listening to the song for 46 years it
came out in 77 how many years is that
7 45 years 45 years
45 years i listened to the song and i
never figured it out
right so this stuff you should be able
to turn on and off i don't always
analyze songs i just analyze them when i
have to teach them to you on here
uh but it's incredibly
great practice and being able to
recognize interval relationships right
being able to recognize triads being
able to record recognize seventh chords
all of these things are so important to
becoming a great musician
to becoming an adequate musician even
right this is why i'm selling my bundle
this is why i created these educational
products i created my beyotto book
back when i was teaching at ithaca
college because i needed a theory book
that talked about things like suspended
chords and suspended with major sevenths
and suspended with dominant sevens and
lydian triads lydian triad
that'd be one sharp four five i didn't
even get into that yet but these are
things you would you will encounter in
the book one sharp four five
that's like a suspended
chord but with a suspended sharp four
right one sharp four five
um these are things that were never in
books so i wrote my own book that
included all these things
and my ear training course includes
these things you don't find ear training
courses to tell you how to teach you how
to hear lydian triads or phrygian triads
that would be a c phrygian triad
uh and why are those things important
because they're actually parts of other
chords right this lydian triad
if i put
a in the bass
then you get like an a with the uh you
got minor
then you have the six
and the flat seven
great sound
cool sound see lydian over g
oh
see lydian over e
it's like an aeolian sound you have the
flat six there
you got the nine and the third with the
root
love those sounds beautiful sounds very
moody sounds
and i can recognize them
like that
right
it just
i hear it's like yeah
[Music]
one sure four or five as soon as i hear
that i recognize what the interval
combinations are i don't even have to
think one sharp four five i'm just like
oh that's a lydian triad
why because it's part of my vocabulary
of recognized sounds that's why
so if you want to learn all this stuff
about music theory check out my biato
bundle go to beyottobundle.com
the sales only going to midnight on
monday or tuesday it's only for four
days there's a countdown timer on it you
can get all of my products for 99 bucks
everything that i've ever made
um and i only make music educational
things i don't do ad reads i don't do
anything anyways this is how i support
my channel
um
and
you guys are amazing enjoy the rest of
your sunday thank you so much for
watching and uh check out my latest
videos tears for fears my do a leap a
lawsuit video my aldemiola interview
which is amazing if you don't know al
check it out it's fascinating ellen's
one of the greatest guitarists of all
time
uh i got some other videos too and watch
me on shorts check out my shorts all
right
everybody have a great rest of your
weekend take care bye