Detritus

Music theory

Notes on music theory. Before going any further, I would like to recommend Bad Diode’s notes on music theory, which are more comprehensive and useful than anything I could put together.

On this page, I’m planning to focus on peculiar patterns and techniques that caught my attention, which I’ve learned from analysing the music I enjoy and from falling down rabbit holes of theory.

Three centimetres of wavy lines, then you play the music.

Scales and modes

Planned topics include:

  • Common musical scales and their modes
    • Major scale
    • Minor scale
    • Harmonic minor
    • Melodic minor (particularly the 5th mode, the Major-Minor scale)
  • Other scales and modes
    • Whole tone scale
    • Octatonic or half–whole step scale
    • Double harmonic scale
    • Neapolitan scales
  • Messiaen’s Modes of Limited Transposition
  • Circle of Melodic Dissonance
  • Examples in classical music and in metal