Gurus Of Music

  The Book of Music Basics gives you just enough basics to succeed with whatever style of music you are learning. Use as a supplement to your lessons to ensure success in learning the instrument. The first part explains why music education has become something of a 'hit and miss' proposition in this country; the basics have generally fallen out or they are taught in a confusing order. There is a specific order to learn the basics otherwise they are apt to become confusing. This book gives full definitions with illustrations and examples. It tells you how to apply them for what you want to do. Available on Amazon as; Kindle  or Paperback

Consonance And Dissonance In Music This article is useful in the practice of improvisation. It will explain why certain scales can be used to good effect in improvising and also why a certain amount of chord theory is handy. If you don’t understand what the term interval means, you should first go and read over the following post; Intervals And Their Qualities .  Major and perfect intervals in a C major scale So, having established what an ‘interval’ is, we can move on to the concept of consonance and dissonance. It’s a rather simple concept that states that certain intervals harmonize or are pleasing to the ear and certain intervals clash or are unpleasant to the ear. Naturally this is a bit subjective and changes somewhat from era to era, but we can establish a basic overall accepted norm and work from there. The intervals, which harmonize and are known as consonant, are specifically the thirds and sixths, regardless of their quality (major or minor.) Fourths and ...

Key Signatures And The Circle Of Fifths A 'key signature' shows up at the very beginning of a piece of music, directly after the clef;

The key signature tells you two things; the name of the key and what flats or sharps, if any, are to be applied in the music.  Flats or sharps that appear in a key signature apply to the entire piece, which is different than when they are used as accidentals.
 You can learn more about sharps, flats and accidentals by watching this short video; Accidentals, Whole Steps and Half Steps . There is a scale that goes with each key that starts on the same note as the name of that key. For example; for they key of G Major, the scale would start on G. Any sharps or flats that are in the key signature would apply to that scale. For example; the key of G Major has one sharp which is F, so the scale of G would have an F sharp in it.
 There is a system to the key signatures and understanding it makes using key signatures much clearer and eas...

Intervals And Their Qualities This gives more information about intervals and their 'qualities.' Before tackling this information you should view the video on Note Reading Made Easy . 
It is important that you study music theory by following the right gradient; the proper gradient is outlined in the article about gradients .
 Intervals
 The definition of the term interval is the distance between any two notes. The distance is counted by simply counting up the letters inclusively from one note to the next.
For example; C to G would be called a fifth because there are five letters from C to G (counting C and G); CDEFG. Interval of a 5th 
In counting the interval on the staff, you would count the note you go from and then count every space and line until you got to the second note and count it as well. The above example would be called a harmonic interval since the two notes would played simultaneously.
An interval can also be melodic, meaning the two notes would b...