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Online Music Theory Lessons: Turn Sound Into Skill

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By Aron Bernstein 2 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 4/19/21

Show off your music theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question posted here every Monday, and you can comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

How do you spell the notes of a D Sharp Harmonic Minor Scale?

CHECK BACK on Friday, 4/23 for the answer!

ANSWER for 4/19/21

Like any diatonic scale, D sharp harmonic minor has seven consecutive letter names, none skipped and none repeated. The seventh note of D sharp natural minor, C sharp, is raised a half-step in harmonic minor. Keeping the same letter name, it must be called C double sharp.

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Sign up for a membership and get full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys! Brush up on your scales and get some excellent video instruction in the Scales Module!

By Aron Bernstein 2 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 4/12/21

Show off your music theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question posted here every Monday, and you can comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

What is the correct time signature for a measure with five beats and the dotted eighth note as the beat?

CHECK BACK on Friday, 4/16 for the answer!

ANSWER for 4/12/21

The correct time signature is 15/16. This is compound quintuple meter: five beats in the measure, and the dotted eighth note is the beat. The problem with compound meter, of course, is that the bottom number shows the division of the beat (the 16th notes, in this case), rather than the beat itself.

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Sign up for a membership and get full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys!

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Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 4/5/21

Show off your music theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question posted here every Monday, and you can comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

When writing in four voices, what’s the best note of an Italian augmented sixth chord to double?

  • A) The Root
  • B) The Third
  • C) The Sixth

Hint: choose the option that avoids parallel octaves.

CHECK BACK on Friday, 4/9 for the answer!

ANSWER for 4/5/21

B) The Third. The Italian sixth is the only augmented sixth chord with only three notes, so in a four-voice texture one of them has to be doubled. If you double either the root or the sixth, you get parallel octaves. The only note in the chord that can resolve either up or down is the third, so this is the best note to double. On the staff below, we have an Ab Italian sixth resolving to the V chord in the key of C minor. The third of the Italian sixth, C, can either resolve up to D or down to B. So the alto and tenor double this third, thereby avoiding parallel octaves.

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Sign up for a membership and get full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys!