Has anybody checked this out yet - fantastic stuff guys, although my head is hurting a bit now.
Will have to come back to it in the morning
checked what out? link?
Yah I watched the first two so far but a bit brain dead from the day job - will watch durring the weekend inbetween the footie, F1 and drinking - hope the girlfriend doesn’t leave me 
ahh new vids. na not watched em.
mmmm - Donuts!
Hi Graham,
Just a few of things I picked up on in your set of tutorials that could cause some confusion to newcomers to music theory.
I think you should have stressed you were talking exclusively about the natural minor scale in your tutorials when you were dealing with the minor examples.
You mention that the chord built from the 2nd degree of the minor scale is always going to be a diminished chord but there’s also the harmonic and melodic minor and they generate slightly different chords. I am aware dance music leans towards natural minor but its worth pointing out.
I am not sure that the inversion exercise is handled correctly ?
I have no problem with your examples of the 1st and 2nd inversions but there’s some ambiguity in the tutorial and the exercise files names, the implication is that there are more than two inversions available in triad.
Triads can only have a 1st and 2nd inversion
A third inversion takes the chord back to the root
The basic formula is:
Number of notes in chord -1= number of inversions available.
It could be argued that the exercise file names are just examples but for the sake of clarity perhaps you could group the root position, 1st and 2nd inversions and then name the others as variations.?
The project files can still easily be updated to reflect this before too many people download them.
In your inversion and borrowed chord tutorial there’s a mistake.
The A major scale contains the notes:
A,B,C#,D,E,F#,G#
and the chords are
A Maj Bm C#m D Maj E Maj F# min G#dim
So I think it’s fair to say that the chord formed on the seventh degree isn’t a G diminished chord and therefore the G Maj in the progression isn’t a borrowed chord from the minor as you suggest.
More like a I-bVII-IV which is a classic circle progression ending back on the I
A slight gripe I have throughout the tutorials is how you express the chord names themselves in relation to their scale positions.
It would be clearer to call them by numbers, keep it simple.
One chord,Two chord,Three chord, Four chord, Five chord Six chord and Seven chord
or the chord built on the 1st degree, the chord built on the 2nd degree and so on
and not
1st chord, 2nd chord, 3rd chord ,4th chord ,5th chord ,6th chord and 7th chord
its when you hit the 6th and 7th things get confusing.
For example at 3:53: it sounds like you are describing a 7th chord and not a diminished.
I think perhaps thats another reason roman numerals are popular since there’s no confusion.
The rest of the tutorials were pretty good and I particularly like the way you handled the diatonic set theory of the generic intervals because I know just how tricky that can get.
I appreciate just how hard it is to make a tutorial on music theory …there are just so many pitfalls so please don’t take this post the wrong way.
Its supposed to be constructive and help the other SA members.
my had just exploded!
thanks for the feedback… ill let Graham know although hes just about to be a daddy so might not be about for a bit.
[quote]phil johnston (12/06/2010)[hr]my had just exploded!
[/quote]
lol
its funny you should say that because that was exactly the last thing i typed at the end of my post but i removed it before i submitted. how very weird.
As for Graham, yeah pass on my congratulations. I am sure fatherhood is a wee bit more important than any discussion about a borrowed or a flat7 chord
DAM! I have to say that this is what i was looking for a long time. i read many Music Theory Books but Dam ! this is the best investment i ever made. Thanks so Much SA i sincerely appreciate the fact that formulas were simple.
@ Krome
yeahh my head just exploded after i read your reply too ! but thanks for letting us know
[quote]krome (12/06/2010)[hr]Hi Graham,
Just a few of things I picked up on in your set of tutorials that could cause some confusion to newcomers to music theory.
I think you should have stressed you were talking exclusively about the natural minor scale in your tutorials when you were dealing with the minor examples.
You mention that the chord built from the 2nd degree of the minor scale is always going to be a diminished chord but there’s also the harmonic and melodic minor and they generate slightly different chords. I am aware dance music leans towards natural minor but its worth pointing out.
I am not sure that the inversion exercise is handled correctly ?
I have no problem with your examples of the 1st and 2nd inversions but there’s some ambiguity in the tutorial and the exercise files names, the implication is that there are more than two inversions available in triad.
Triads can only have a 1st and 2nd inversion
A third inversion takes the chord back to the root
The basic formula is:
Number of notes in chord -1= number of inversions available.
It could be argued that the exercise file names are just examples but for the sake of clarity perhaps you could group the root position, 1st and 2nd inversions and then name the others as variations.?
The project files can still easily be updated to reflect this before too many people download them.
In your inversion and borrowed chord tutorial there’s a mistake.
The A major scale contains the notes:
A,B,C#,D,E,F#,G#
and the chords are
A Maj Bm C#m D Maj E Maj F# min G#dim
So I think it’s fair to say that the chord formed on the seventh degree isn’t a G diminished chord and therefore the G Maj in the progression isn’t a borrowed chord from the minor as you suggest.
More like a I-bVII-IV which is a classic circle progression ending back on the I
A slight gripe I have throughout the tutorials is how you express the chord names themselves in relation to their scale positions.
It would be clearer to call them by numbers, keep it simple.
One chord,Two chord,Three chord, Four chord, Five chord Six chord and Seven chord
or the chord built on the 1st degree, the chord built on the 2nd degree and so on
and not
1st chord, 2nd chord, 3rd chord ,4th chord ,5th chord ,6th chord and 7th chord
its when you hit the 6th and 7th things get confusing.
For example at 3:53: it sounds like you are describing a 7th chord and not a diminished.
I think perhaps thats another reason roman numerals are popular since there’s no confusion.
The rest of the tutorials were pretty good and I particularly like the way you handled the diatonic set theory of the generic intervals because I know just how tricky that can get.
I appreciate just how hard it is to make a tutorial on music theory …there are just so many pitfalls so please don’t take this post the wrong way.
Its supposed to be constructive and help the other SA members.
[/quote]
Hi Krome, thanks for the feedback. Let me try and explain the choices I made.
I didn’t refer to natural minor as I haven’t referred to it in the previous scales tutorial and I thought this would be information for a more advanced tutorial and would be more confusing to mention it at this point than not to.
The Midi files in the inversions are for example purposes to show that you can simply move the notes up and move the notes down. I think at this point it’s better for us to be explaining the key ideas in very simplistic terms as most of the users here may not have come across many of these terms before. It’s easy for someone who understands inversions, knows what they are and how many there are technically in traditional music theory terms but from a compete newbie’s point of view they probably wouldn’t and the information that you can move the notes up and move them down in the those simple terms probably works best.
Also I think that talking about the seventh chord in the scale and how it may sound like a 7th chord would possibly only sound like that if you know what a 7th chord is, which I haven’t talked about but will be in the next series of tutorials. I do think you’re right though that calling them by their numbers could’ve made things more simple.
I think throughout I tired to make things as least brain melting as possible for users, trying to explain the concepts and why they work without using to much jargon and advanced stuff that we maybe hadn’t covered elsewhere yet. Cheers for the feedback though, always helpful in making things better the next time round and feel free to suggest things to me that you think would be useful in the next course in this series.
Graham
Graham,
I appreciate you have new found pressures with fatherhood but I think if you are going to teach people, you have to start as you mean to go on.
There’s only one way and that is the right way. Teach people wrong and they will soon become lost.
It’s a cop out to suggest that you are making it easier when you’re teaching practices are in-correct.
Your tutorial literally stated as fact that the A major scale has a G diminished chord.
And that is simply in correct.
If you can prove me wrong and show me that the A major scale contains a G diminished chord and not a G# diminished I will bow down to your superior knowledge but otherwise I think you should apologize to me because quite frankly you are calling me into question and making me out as some kind of twat.
All I was doing was holding out the hand of help not only to you but other subscribers here too.
To other SA users all I can offer is a a link in order to back my argument up.
[url]http://www.globalbass.com/archives/aug2001/major_scale.htm[/url]
That is the number 1 link on google but feel free to check hundreds of thousands of other such links. They all say the same by the way.
You can learn the right way or the wrong way. The choice is yours.
And Imo it takes a big person to apologize when they are wrong.
Maybe i’m speaking out of place here in something that dosent concern me and it dosent in slightest tbh cause i havint saw the video mentioned yet, but just feel the need to say i think the fact on a forum like this and on a weekend that one of the top guys came on to answer your feedback is a positive thing, i appreciate the fact that people do listen whether or not we agree on facts at hand in any situation.
Anyway just my thought 
P.S on a side note i actually found the basic music theory really good to learn basics of and cement what i knew already in a more basic way, so its helped me alot so far and been able to do it around uni, work and everything esle is great.
England 1-1 
tuts
maybe krome shud do tuts!!!
go guinty!!
Hi Krome,
In the original response I was talking about the other comments other than the Gdim/G#dim issue. I still stand by everything I said in that original reply and don’t think any of them are a cop out as I wasn’t defending anything incorrect. I didn’t mention the Gdim/G#dim issue as I didn’t have the time yesterday morning to check it out to see if there was an error. At no point was I trying to defend something that I knew was incorrect nor was I trying to rubbish your helping hand, just simply trying to talk about why I had chosen to do the things I had.
I have watched the video now and agree that there is a small error, which I apologise for, it should be the G# not the G chord and I will be sorting this out as soon as I get back!
Thanks for keeping me on my toes!
Graham
Great tutorial guys, another win for the S.A. team! I’ve been some reading about chords and the such like but having explain with a vid is such a bonus.
PS. any date for the prog house tut?
Thanks mate, glad it helped! Prog coming very soon I hear!
Thanks so much Graham. Quite “SIMPLY FUNKING AMAZING!”
go on double G!!!
put a word in for a new trance tut. that wud be mint!!
haha! I’ll try my best!
Thanks Graham I enjoyed and learned alot
…and congrats to you and your family