If you want to be a musician, or otherwise involved in the creation of music or the business of music, then you have to understand music theory. Luckily, you can take music theory classes by MI to get to grips with the confusing language of music. Below are some of the key things you will learn about.

Nomenclature

Nomenclature is about interval and chord names. Some of the key concepts within this include:

• The major chord, which is usually represented by the letter of the cord itself.
• The minor chord, which is usually represented by the letter “m” after the name of the cord.

Sharps and Flats

Again, these are denoted using certain symbols. When you see a “b”, it refers to a flat, whereas a “#” refers to a sharp.

Octaves

An octave covers 11 different notes, ranging from A to F, including the flats and sharps. They may also be donated from “do” to “ti”, again with sharps and flats. Once the end of an octave is reached, it starts from A or from do again (do, by the way, is not A, it is C).

Scales

Just as there are major and minor chords, there are major and minor scales as well. The scale is A to F (or do to ti) without the sharps and flats. The minor key, meanwhile, means that the key has started on a different note. In other words, the do to ti scale is a minor scale of the A to F scale.

Key Signatures

A key signature is a half-step, or semi-tone within a scale. When taking the do to ti scale into consideration, for instance, going from one octave to the next will require a semi-tone to go from ti back to do. What a key signature can also do, and particularly on the guitar, is make two notes sound exactly the same. In fact, you need this to tune your guitar. The different accepted keys are the:

• C Major
• G Major
• D Major
• A Major
• E Major
• B Major
• F# Major

And then, there are flat keys, which are:

• F Major
• Bb Major
• Eb Major
• Ab Major
• Db Major

Chords and Intervals

During music theory, you will also learn about chord structures and intervals. The interval is the silence between two notes, while also highlighting their relation within their key. Simply put, you take a root note and move up five semitones to find out what the next one is.

Chord Structure

Next, you will learn about chord structure. It is said that you only ever need three chords to play any song in the world. Each chord is made up of three notes, and those notes refer to the other chords you need. In order, they are your key note (or chorad), then the third one, then the fifth one. So if your key chord is an A, the third one would be C and the fifth one would be E. And that is all you need to create a beautiful song.

You will learn many other things in music theory classes, including:

• Musical timing
• Semi-breve
• Minim
• Crotchet
• Quaver
• Semi-quaver
• Dotted notes

You may feel like you do not need these things, but they describe both the  vocabulary and the grammar of the language that is music.