Music Theory

Why are there 12 different notes? - YouTube ❗!important
Just Intonation (using overtone's ratios, only work for the starting note) => Pythagorean Tuning (Perfect fifths, rounding error) => Equal temperament
Understanding Musical Scales: Pentatonic, Diatonic, Chromatic - YouTube ❗!important

David Bennett Piano
Why is there no B# or E# note on the piano? - YouTube
Why pianos and guitars aren’t really in tune (just intonation vs 12TET) - YouTube

Pentatonic Scale: 12356 on C major, only full steps, one of the oldest scale

Musical Scales and Modes - Online Piano & Music Notes

音名/唱名

音名 - Wikiwand
Key signature names and translations - Wikiwand
Solfège - Wikiwand
唱名 - Wikiwand
音名 corresponds to a note at specific frequency
唱名 is am alias given to the n-th note in the scale


音名	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
唱名	do	re	mi	fa	sol	la	ti
	宮	商	角		徵	羽

For chromatic scale:
Do, Di, Re, Ri, Mi, Fa, Fi, Sol, Si, La, Li, Ti

为什么 do re mi fa so la si 是 CDEFGAB 而不是 ABCDEFG？
Why C?: The Convoluted History of Note Names - YouTube

Harmonic series

The most mind-blowing concept in music (Harmonic Series) - YouTube also on tuning and temperament
Harmonic series (music) - Wikiwand
All notes we hear are mixture of harmonic series of the fundamental tone (first harmonic)
Different strength of the harmonics is the cause of timbre in different instruments
This is how digital synthesizers mimics different instruments

Math and Music

$$
f = \frac{V}{\lambda} = \frac{1}{2L}\sqrt{\frac{T}{\rho}}
$$

where:

$L$ is the length of string
$T$ is tension of string
$\rho$ is density of string

Guitar Mathematics | Passy's World of Mathematics
From Math to Music - A Mathematical Approach to Learning The Fretboard

kennethreitz/pytheory: Music Theory for Humans.

A = 432Hz - YouTube
Scientific pitch - Wikiwand
【漫士】音乐动听的背后，藏着怎样的数学密码？ - YouTube

Piano key frequencies - Wikiwand

Just intonation

Just intonation - Wikiwand based on rational ratio of base frequency (harmonic series)
纯律 - Wikiwand

Intervals

Interval (music) - Wikiwand
The Ultimate Guide to Interval Ear Training
Stichting Huygens-Fokker: List of intervals

The distance between notes is called interval, counted in steps (whole, W) and half-steps (H) (in British: tone (T) and semitone (S)).
A cent is 1/100 of a semitone.

Remember to include the start note when counting:

C and D has an interval of a 2nd (1 tone)
C and G has an interval of a 5th (3.5 tone)

Songs that will help you identify ascending intervals - YouTube
Ear Training and Sight Singing: The Superpower you get from Music School - YouTube

Intervals

Interval is highly related to solfège
Minor 2nd (half step), Jaws
Major 2nd, do-re
Major 3rd, doorbell, do-mi
Perfect 4th, Wagner's Bridal Chorus, Star Wars, do-fa
Tritone, The Simpsons (The Sim)
Perfect 5th, Superman

Perfect fifth - Wikiwand 纯五度, 7 semitones, 3:2 ratio
Perfect forth, 4:3 ratio

Tuning

Musical tuning - Wikiwand
Musical temperament - Wikiwand compromises on the pure intervals of just intonation for instrument tuning

重制版：音乐也有科学道理吗？Do、Re、Mi...都是如何确定的？李永乐老师讲音律 - YouTube
frequency (pitch) rations 2:1, 3:2, 4:3 sound good to human
doubling the frequency is called an octave, there are several ways to create notes (scale) within an octave
ISO picked 440Hz as the frequency of middle A

Noyce Guitars: Technotes: Equal Temperament & Guitar Tuning
Testing 432 Hz Frequencies (and temperaments) - YouTube

Other attempts to fix Pythagorean Tuning
Meantone temperament - Wikiwand
Well temperament - Wikiwand

五度相生法/Pythagorean tuning

五度相生律 - Wikiwand
Pythagorean tun ing - Wikiwand
based on ratio of 3:2 ("pure" perfect fifths)

How Pythagoras Broke Music (and how we kind of fixed it) - YouTube
Pythagorean Tuning - YouTube

start with base note (220Hz)
multiply by fifths (* 3/2)
lower by an octave is if it is higher than one (* 1/2)
requires the Pythagoras comma for correction every 12 notes (7 octaves)

中國五聲音階 - Wikiwand
宮商角徵羽 Do Re Mi Sol La

三分損益法

十二律 - Wikiwand 管仲
Shí-èr-lǜ - Wikiwand

三分损益法_百度百科
 三分損益_古音律的形成與宮商角徵羽 - YouTube

十二平均律/Equal temperament/Chromatic Scale

Geometric mean, keeping ratios of neighbor notes constant (one semitone)
This is more instrument friendly

Chromatic Scale: All 12 piano keys from C to C (an octave)
C C♯/D♭ D D♯/E♭ E F F♯/G♭ G G♯/A♭ A A♯/B♭ B/C♭ C
Chromatic scale - Wikiwand

Equal temperament - Wikiwand
十二平均律 - Wikiwand 朱載堉
Why Does Music Only Use 12 Different Notes? - YouTube
Why It's Impossible to Tune a Piano - YouTube

Major and Minor Scale

A Scale begins and ends with the same note, with a regular pattern of steps.

Major Scale: TTSTTTS 全全半全全全半
C Major: C D E F G A B C (all white keys)
C is the keynote/tonic of the scale
C is 1st degree, D is 2nd degree...

Minor Scale: TSTTSTT 全半全全半全全
A Major: A B C D E F G A (all white keys)

Relative Major and Minor: the scales uses exactly the same notes (thus having the same number of sharp and flats), but different tonic.

Mnemonic

Refer to the number of sharps and flats to add in the Circle of fifths
Circle of fifths - Wikiwand
The Circle of Fifths Explained | LedgerNote
The Ultimate Guide to the Circle of Fifths - Musical U
樂理教學：調號怎麼看？如何快速記住調號？ - Susanna Leung Piano Studio

Circle of Fifths: Everything You Need to Know - YouTube
The Circle of Fifths vs Fourths - YouTube

一部影片之內，真的完全搞懂「五度圈」！（Circle of Fifths） - YouTube

Circle of Fifths (circular)

1234567
CDEFGAB

Number of flats in Major scale:
Fat Boy Eat All Day (flat major except F)
Flats to add: 7362514 (ref numpad, reverse of the below)
B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭/B, F♭

Number of sharps in Major scale:
Go Down And Eat Breakfast
Sharps to add: 4152637 (ref numpad, reverse of the above)
F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯, E♯/F, B♯

Chord

Chord (music) - Wikiwand
What Are Major Scale Diatonic Chords? | StudyBass
Music Theory Fundamentals—Major, Minor, and Diminished Chords - YouTube

The 1st, 3rd, 5th notes on a scale is called a triad.
The 1st and 5th notes of major chord and minor chord are always the same (perfect fifth = 3.5 tones).
D major chord: D F♯ A (not G♭)
D minor chord: D F A
D augmented: D F A♭ (not G♯)
D diminished: D F♯ A♯ (not G♭)

Major chord: root + 4 + 3 (Semitone)
Minor chord: root + 3 + 4 (Semitone)
Augmented chord: root + 4 + 4 (Semitone)
Diminished chord: root + 3 + 3 (Semitone)

The lowest note us called the root of the chord
On piano the left hand can play the first and third note of the chord triad one octave lower

Harmonic Analysis uses Roman numerals to denote whether a chord is major/minor
I ii iii IV V vi vii I

On C major:
1 2m 3m 4 5 6m 7dim
m: minor
dim: diminish minor

We can add variance to the chord, e.g: adding the 7th note, adding flats/sharps to the notes of the chord

How To Make Your #chords Sound Beautiful - YouTube
Why is this weird chord so great? - YouTube 1,3,5,9,#11,13 = C major triad + D major triad

Inversion: play the notes from different octaves
First inversion: move the root note one octave higher
Second inversion: move the root note of First inversion to one octave higher

萬能 chord/Pop Progression

Major progression:
I V vi IV
1 5 6m 4
C G Am F
5 Levels Of The 1-5-6-4 (Piano Lesson) - YouTube

Minor progression:
vi IV I V
6m 4 1 5
Am F C G

1 6m 4 5

Minor Canon
6 5 4 3 2 1 7 3
Major Canon
1 7 6 5 4 3 2 5

薛之谦许嵩流行歌串烧，好听！ - YouTube 4536251

你的歌单绝对有一首 15634125！！！爷青回~ - YouTube
学会这个和弦，轻松弹奏一百首流行歌！ - YouTube 15634125

教你用这四个数字随便弹，一出手就是古风味！ - YouTube 4566 chord + 12356
6415 万能和弦歌曲大串烧！瞬间让多少人变成了音痴？ - YouTube

原來 66% 的流行歌，都是用這 3 種和弦進行？ [2019 流行歌和弦大調查] - YouTube
「卡農」和聲進行，以及為什麼很多流行歌的旋律都很像 - YouTube

Rhythm

Gives the general "feel" of the music
Often expressed by drum kit

Time signature 4/4: 4 (top) quarter note (bottom) in a measure (bar)
Understanding Time Signatures in Music ⏰ (Essential Tips for Musicians) - YouTube
97% of pop is in 4/4... let’s look at the 3% that's not - YouTube

semibreve (whole note): fly fly
minim (half note): ant ant
crotchet (quarter note): spi-der spi-der
quavers (eighth note): cat-er-pil-lar cat-er-pil-lar
semiquavers (sixteenth note)

1+2+ (one and two and three and four and)
1e+a2e+a (one e and uh two e and uh)

Fundamentals of Rhythm for Electronic Music - YouTube
Chrome Music Lab - Rhythm

Reminder of rhythms🎶 - YouTube
How to Play Ties and Slurs on the Piano? What is the difference? - YouTube
How to play Triplets & Duplets on the Piano | Tutorial & Music Theory - YouTube

slur?
valid: ((3:2:2 D2D)
invalid: ((3 D2D)

Staccato - Wikiwand
斷奏 - Wikiwand 斷音

EVERY Time Signature EXPLAINED (using Nintendo Music) - YouTube
What's the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 time? - YouTube

18 Rhythms you should know - YouTube
7 Rhythms you should know - YouTube
#drums | Master Odd Time Signature Drum Beats | Essential Grooves for Every Drummer 🥁🔥| Lesson 23 - YouTube
Analyzing 20 Genres And Their Unique Drum Patterns - YouTube

Polyrhythm https://youtu.be/fyVFC9JI_Pw?t=481
3:2 Nice cup of tea
4:3 Pass the god damn butter
5:4 I'm looking for a home to buy

Tempo (speed)

Tempo - Wikiwand
duration of beat (crotchet, quarter note), in M.M. (Maclzel's Metronome)

presto
vivace
allegretto
moderato
andante
lento

Dynamics (loudness)

pianissimo (pp): very quite
piano (p): quite
mezzo piano (mp): fairly quite
mezzo forte (mf): fairly loud
forte (f): strong and loud
fortissimo (ff): very loud
crescendo (cres./cresc.): gradually getting louder
diminuendo (dim.): gradually getting quieter

Music Notation/Score/譜

Musical notation - Wikiwand
List of musical symbols - Wikiwand
How to read music - Tim Hansen - YouTube
How to Read Notes The EASY Way You Weren’t Taught - YouTube

2nd interval: consecutive
3rd interval: line-line, space-space (skip/jump)
4th interval: line-space, space-line (leap)
5th interval: further line-line, space-space
6th interval: line-space, space-line
7th interval: further line-line, space-space

Treble Clef Spaces (bottom up): F A C E
Treble Clef Lines (bottom up): E G B D F
Every Good Burger Deserves Fries
Every Good Band Deserves Fans

Bass Clef Spaces (bottom up): A C E G
All Cows Eat Grass
Bass Clef Lines (bottom up): G B D F A
Good Burger Deserves Fries Always

Accidental marks (Sharp, Flat and Natural) affect all notes following it in that bar

Ear Training and Sight Singing: The Superpower you get from Music School - YouTube

50 Music Symbols Explained in 15 Minutes! - YouTube
Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music - YouTube

Scientific pitch notation - Wikiwand

Intonation (music) - Wikiwand
Repeat Signs and Symbols in Sheet Music - navigating the musical 'map'

music21: a Toolkit for Computer-Aided Musicology

Clefs

Clefs are symbols to denote how high or low the music is going to sound

Treble
Soprano
Mezzo soprano
Alto
Tenor
Baritone
Bass

abc notation

abc | home a text-based music notation system and the de facto standard for folk and traditional music. It can be used to generate MIDI and score.
ABC notation - Wikiwand
abc:standard:v2.1 [abc wiki]
abc:standard:v2.2 [abc wiki]

An ABC primer
ABC (musical notation) - Just Solve the File Format Problem
abc | learning
abc | examples
Making Music with Abc 2.pdf

6 of the best – a guide to abc software « abc notation blog

Editor

online
abcjs: Quick Editor
ABC edit with abc2svg

jwdj/EasyABC: EasyABC

ABC Music Notation - Visual Studio Marketplace can produce warning
ABC Tools - Visual Studio Marketplace with play

Library

abcweb

abcjs GitHub org

paulrosen/abcjs: javascript for rendering abc music notation
abcjs: Table of Contents

abcjs
abcjs demo
Draw The Dots: Tune Editor

abcm2ps/abc2svg documentation
abc2svg: Documentation
methf/abc2ps: LGPL fork of the original utility to generate Postscript from abc music notation. Written by Michael Methfessel.

Tips and Tricks

abc:standard:v2.2 Use of fields within the tune body use [] or \{field}

E2E EFE|E2E EFG|[M:9/8] A2G F2E D2|]
\L:1/4\\K:Bb\"Eb"e4|

LilyPond

LilyPond – Music notation for everyone
LilyPond / LilyPond · GitLab

MusicXML

MusicXML for Exchanging Digital Sheet Music
MusicXML - Wikiwand
MusicXML 3.0 Specification

Midi

The problem with midi « abc notation blog
What Happened to MIDI? | Nostalgia Nerd - YouTube

Apps

10 Applications Every Linux Using Musician Should Know About
Hydrogen MIDI consumer
MIDI to mp3/ogg

How I Designed a Free Music Font for 5 Million Musicians (MuseScore 3.6) - YouTube
MuseScoreFonts/Leland: A SMuFL-compliant OpenType music font

timidity file.mid -Ow -o - | lame - file.mp3
timidity file.mid -Ow -o - | lame - file.ogg

web-audio
creative-coding#Sonic Pi

pippi
luvsound/pippi: computer music with python

Woyten/tune: Make xenharmonic music and create synthesizer tuning files for microtonal scales.
tune/tune-cli at master · Woyten/tune

surge-synthesizer/tuning-workbench-synth: A simple JUCE synth which uses our tuning-library

ambv/fm-demo: FM synthesis in Python from scratch, accompanying my PyCon US 2021 talk
TALK / Łukasz Langa / Generate buzz with realtime FM audio synthesis - YouTube

miniaudio - A single file audio playback and capture library.
mackron/miniaudio: Single file audio playback and capture library written in C.
miniaudio · PyPI

MuseScore

Free music composition and notation software | MuseScore
Plugins | MuseScore

musescore/MuseScore: MuseScore is an open source and free music notation software. For support, contribution, bug reports, visit MuseScore.org. Fork and make pull requests!
How We Made MuseScore 4 - Music App Design is Challenging! - YouTube

Add Jianpu numbers as text (lyrics): 五线谱->简谱 | MuseScore

Online

Chrome Piano
Chrome Music Lab

Music Scores/Sheets

Noteflight - Online Music Notation Software

Open Music Score
Classical Sheet Music - Music-Scores.com
DuskPiano Sheet Music - Google Drive
IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download
樂譜交流 - 香港討論區 Discuss.com.hk - 香討．香港 No.1
91 譜 - 即時轉調的吉他譜
 Tunes - ABC Music Notation
Musescore.com | The world's largest free sheet music catalog and community subscription

Easy Music

The Green Notes - YouTube
RAT DANCING MEME SONG - EASY Piano Tutorial - YouTube

Astronomia (Coffin Dance) - Easy Piano Tutorial - YouTube
Vicetone & Tony Igy - Astronomia - YouTube

Dolmetsch Online - Manuscript/Staff/Music paper/Papier à musique
Digimon - Butter-Fly (Piano Cover) [SHEET MUSIC] - YouTube
Frozen - Let It Go (Piano Cover) [SHEET MUSIC] - YouTube
Pirates of the Caribbean - He's A Pirate (Piano Cover) - YouTube

Bongo Cat
Bongo Cat - YouTube
Externalizable/bongo.cat Song Submissions · Discussions · GitHub

How Music Works / David Byrne

pentatonic notes
black notes on piano

Videos

Music Theory Series - YouTube
Music And Measure Theory - YouTube

How Music Works with Howard Goodall 01 Melody Full Show - YouTube ><
Howard Goodall How Music Works 2 Rhythm - YouTube
Howard Goodall How Music Works 3 Harmony - YouTube
Howard Goodall How Music Works 4 Bass - YouTube

BBC Howard Goodall's Story of Music 1of6 The Age of Discovery - YouTube
BBC Howard Goodall's Story of Music 2of6 The Age of Invention - YouTube
BBC Howard Goodall's Story of Music 3of6 The Age of Elegance and Sensibility - YouTube ><
BBC Howard Goodall's Story of Music 4of6 The Age of Tragedy - YouTube
BBC Howard Goodall's Story of Music 5of6 The Age of Rebellion - YouTube
BBC Howard Goodall's Story of Music 6of6 The Popular Age - YouTube

Howard Goodall's Story of Music Learning Zone Episode 1 - YouTube
Howard Goodall's Story of Music Learning Zone Episode 2 - YouTube

Why does Mario music sound "Fun"? - YouTube
Why the DUCKTALES Theme Song is Stuck in Your Head Right Now... || NerdSync - YouTube

Game Music

8-bit Music Theory - YouTube

Pianote
Piano Teachers REACT to The Legend Of Zelda's Soundtrack #legendofzelda - YouTube
Top 20 Video Game Songs 🎮 (ft. Jemma Heigis) - YouTube

Classical Music

Classic FM - The World's Greatest Music
The transformative power of classical music | Benjamin Zander - YouTube
Gramophone – classical music magazine, podcast and reviews | Gramophone

AVROTROS Klassiek - YouTube
Akademia Filmu i Telewizji - YouTube
Voices of Music - YouTube
Alejandro Sanz - YouTube

EP.38 ｜古典系列 - 為何現代人還要聽歌劇？聊聊欣賞歌劇的發展歷史 - YouTube

1812 Overture

The 1812 Overture: the hit that Tchaikovsky hated - Classic FM
How to tell a story with music: a brief narrative analysis of the 1812 overture
Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture: the complete guide | Gramophone

Instruments

Can't Help Falling In Love on a Kalimba - YouTube

Music Theory

Notes/Scale

音名/唱名

Harmonic series

Math and Music

Just intonation

Intervals

Tuning

五度相生法/Pythagorean tuning

三分損益法

十二平均律/Equal temperament/Chromatic Scale

Major and Minor Scale

Mnemonic

Chord

萬能 chord/Pop Progression

Rhythm

Tempo (speed)

Dynamics (loudness)

Music Notation/Score/譜

Clefs

abc notation

Editor

Library

Tips and Tricks

LilyPond

MusicXML

Midi

Apps

MuseScore

Online

Music Scores/Sheets

How Music Works / David Byrne

Videos

Game Music

Classical Music

1812 Overture

Instruments

Piano

Kazoo 卡祖笛

Recorder

Guitar

Ukulele

Percussion

Acapella

Motor speaker