Music theory

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The needlessly complicated stuff

Arpeggio

Playing the notes of a chord one after the other is an arpeggio.

Chord

A chord is made of three notes of the same scale played together. For example, the C Major chord is made of C, E and G. The letter in the chord's name refers to its root note.

Chord inversion

A chord inversion shifts the notes placement from its root note position. For example, in the the 1st inversion, the root note is one octave higher (meaning it's not the lowest note anymore.)

Intervals

A couple of notes.

Intervals are the measurement of space between two notes of a diatonic scale, counted in semitones. They have names that include their quality (perfect, major, minor, augmented, diminished) and their number (the number of letter names they encompass including the position of both notes forming the interval.)

Major 2nd (M2)

On a musical keyboard, the interval between two keys separated by one key, counting white and black keys alike.

Perfect fifth (P5)

The perfect fifth spans 7 semitones. It's the interval from the first to the last of five consecutive notes of a diatonic scale.

Note values

A note value is the number of beats the note is held for.

A whole note is 4 beats. Half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes are subdivision of the whole note (2, 1 and 1/2 beats.)

Root note

In a chord, the root note is the lowest (unless it's part of a chord inversion)

Time signatures

A time signature is described with two number separated by a slash. The first number indicates the amounts of beats in the bar. The second number shows the length of beats.