Piano Roll Theorymusic theory for producers

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Glossary

Every word in the course, from theory and from your DAW, explained in two or three sentences, with the lesson where you can learn it in full.

K

“Key” fieldIn your DAW: It's the field where a DAW or a sample site shows the key: “Am”, “A min” and “A minor” all mean A minor. DJ software sometimes uses the Camelot wheel, where 8A stands for A minor and 8B for its relative, C major.What Is a Key? The Note That Feels Like Home

#

808Melody, bass and arrangement: The name comes from a drum machine from the early 1980s, whose deep, sustained kick became a bass sound in its own right. Today, “the 808” is a deep bass, often close to a sine wave, that plays notes: you have to tune it to the key, have it follow the roots of the chords, and keep its fundamental roughly between E1 and E2.Tuning Your 808 and Sub Bass

A

A440Notes and pitch: It's the A that instruments and software use as their reference: A4 vibrates at 440 hertz, and every other note is tuned from it. You'll sometimes hear about 432 hertz, but that isn't the standard setting.Sound, Pitch and the Octave

add9Intervals and chords: This symbol adds only the ninth to a chord, with no seventh: Cadd9 contains C, E, G and D. C9, on the other hand, also implies the dominant seventh.Seventh Chords and Extended Chords

Andalusian cadenceChord progressions: It's the progression i VII VI V, whose bass walks down step by step, A, G, F and then E in A minor, and which ends on a major dominant. You'll find it in flamenco, rock, film music and many trap and drill loops.The Most Used Chord Progressions

AnticipationChord progressions: It's bringing in a chord or a bass note a little before the expected beat, for example an eighth note early. That small offset gives the loop momentum, and it's very common in basslines.How to Write a Bass Line

ArpeggiatorMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a MIDI effect that takes the chord you're holding and plays it as an arpeggio, in time with the track. Its main settings are the mode, which picks the note order, the speed, often called rate, the range in octaves, and the gate, which sets the length of each note.Arpeggios, Arpeggiators and Sequences

ArpeggioMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a chord played note by note instead of all at once. It's defined by the order the notes are played in, up, down or up and down, and by its rhythm.Arpeggios, Arpeggiators and Sequences

Augmented chordIntervals and chords: It's a triad made of two major thirds, four and then four half steps, like C, E and G♯ for C+. Unstable and a little strange, it's written with a plus sign or with “aug”.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

B

BackbeatRhythm: It's the snare, or the clap, placed on the second and fourth beats of the bar. It's the skeleton of a lot of pop, rock and hip-hop, and of boom bap.Essential Drum Patterns by Genre

Bar (measure)Rhythm: It's a group of beats that comes around in a cycle. In 4/4, the most common time signature in electronic music, a bar holds four beats, which is sixteen steps on a 1/16 grid.Bars, Beats and Steps

BasslineMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the lowest part, the one that decides which chord you hear. The root is always safe, the octave and the fifth get it moving without risk, and passing tones, syncopation and anticipation give it momentum.How to Write a Bass Line

BeatRhythm: It's each of the steady pulses you tap along to. In 4/4, a bar has four beats, and the first, which producers often call “the one”, is the anchor for everything else.Bars, Beats and Steps

BeatingSound: When two close frequencies sound together, the volume wobbles as many times per second as the difference between them in hertz: those are beats. Slow beating thickens and widens a sound; down low, it turns into distracting swings in volume.Detune, Beating and Stereo Width

Blues scaleScales and keys: It's the minor pentatonic with one extra note, the blue note, placed between the fourth and fifth degrees: on A, that's A, C, D, E♭, E and G. The blue note clashes on purpose, and you slide through it rather than resting on it.Pentatonic and Blues Scales

Borrowed chordChord progressions: It's a chord taken from the key with the same tonic but the opposite mode: in major, the most common are iv, ♭VI, ♭VII and ♭III. In minor, ending on the major tonic chord is also a borrowing, and it's called a Picardy third.Borrowed Chords and Modal Interchange

BPMRhythm: These three letters stand for “beats per minute”, the unit of tempo. At 120 BPM, you hear two beats per second; every genre has its usual ranges, but your ear has the final say.Tempo and BPM

BreakdownMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a section where the drums are taken out to let the chords or the melody breathe on their own. By bringing the energy down between two drops, it makes the second one hit harder.Song Arrangement: Energy and Structure

Build-upMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the section that raises the tension toward the drop, often over 4, 8 or 16 bars. You increase the rhythmic density, like a snare roll that goes from quarter notes to sixteenth notes, and gradually open a filter.Song Arrangement: Energy and Structure

C

CadenceChord progressions: It's the way a musical phrase ends, that is, its last two chords. There are four kinds: the perfect cadence, also called the authentic cadence, V to I, very final; the plagal cadence, IV to I, softer; the half cadence, which stops on V like a question; and the deceptive cadence.Tension and Resolution in Chord Progressions

CentSound: It's the unit of fine tuning: a half step divides into 100 cents, whatever the register. Tuners show how far off you are in cents, and a sampler's fine-tuning control, often called fine, is also set in cents.Note Frequencies: Tuning Kicks and Samples

ChordIntervals and chords: A chord is several notes played together. The basic chord, the triad, stacks two thirds on top of a root, which comes down to taking every other note of the scale.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

Chord progressionChord progressions: It's a sequence of chords, often looped, written in Roman numerals so it can be played in any key. A few progressions keep coming back, like I V vi IV in pop, i VI III VII in minor, or ii V I in jazz and lo-fi; starting the same loop on a different chord is called a rotation.The Most Used Chord Progressions

Chromatic mediantChord progressions: It's a chord whose root is a third away from the tonic, with the same quality as the tonic chord, and which falls outside the scale, like E major or A flat major in C major. It keeps just one note in common with the tonic chord, and its change of light is typical of film music.Borrowed Chords and Modal Interchange

ClipIn your DAW: It's a block placed on a track, holding MIDI notes or an audio recording, that you can copy, move or transpose. To vary a motif, duplicate the clip rather than rewriting it, and check whether the copy stays linked to the original.Motifs, Repetition and Variation

Consonance and dissonanceIntervals and chords: A consonant interval sounds stable: above all the octave, the fifth and the fourth, then the thirds and sixths, which are more colorful. Seconds, sevenths and the tritone are dissonant: they create a tension that calls for resolution. Down low, even a third turns muddy, so keep wide intervals there.Consonance and Dissonance

ContourMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the shape a melody traces as it goes up and down. A contour made mostly of small steps, with a single high point, is easy to sing and easy to remember.How to Write a Melody Over Chords

D

Deceptive cadenceChord progressions: It's the move from V to vi: the ear expects the tonic and gets the chord on the sixth degree instead, for example Am instead of C in C major. The phrase doesn't close, it starts up again, which is very useful for extending a loop. In British English, it's called an interrupted cadence.Tension and Resolution in Chord Progressions

DelaySound: It's an effect that repeats the sound after a fixed time, fainter each time; the feedback setting decides how many repeats you get. One beat lasts 60,000 divided by the BPM, in milliseconds, which is 500 milliseconds at 120 BPM, and a delay set to a dotted eighth note creates echoes that gallop against the melody.BPM to Milliseconds: Delay, Reverb and LFO

DembowRhythm: It's the rhythmic pattern of reggaeton, usually between 90 and 100 BPM. The kick hits every beat, and the snare traces a three, three, two division, repeated twice per bar.Essential Drum Patterns by Genre

DetuneSound: It's the setting that puts one oscillator slightly out of tune with another, usually by a few cents. The beating it creates widens the sound, but past about twenty cents, width turns into out-of-tuneness.Detune, Beating and Stereo Width

Diminished chordIntervals and chords: It's a triad made of two minor thirds, three and then three half steps, like B, D and F for B°. Its diminished fifth forms a tritone, which makes it unstable; it's written with a small circle or with “dim”.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

DominantChord progressions: It's the fifth degree of the scale and the chord built on it, written V. It contains the leading tone, which pulls toward the tonic, and that's what makes V to I sound like an ending; in minor, this chord is often made major to bring back the leading tone.Tension and Resolution in Chord Progressions

Dominant seventhIntervals and chords: It's the chord written with a plain 7, like G7: a major chord with a minor seventh, G, B, D and F. Don't confuse it with maj7, which adds a major seventh; in a major key, it occurs naturally on the fifth degree.Seventh Chords and Extended Chords

DorianScales and keys: It's a minor scale with its sixth degree raised a half step; D Dorian is played on the white keys from D to D. Less melancholy than the natural minor, it's often linked with funk, soul and a good share of house.The Modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian

Dotted noteRhythm: The dot makes a note longer by half its value. A dotted quarter note lasts a beat and a half, which is six steps, and a dotted eighth note lasts three steps, a value that's used a lot for setting a delay.Dotted Notes and Triplets

DroneChord progressions: It's a continuous sound, often a single note or a fifth, that sounds through a whole section, sometimes a whole track. It creates a backdrop that everything else stands out against, and you'll find it in ambient, a good share of techno and a lot of traditional music.Pedal Points, Drones and One-Chord Loops

DropMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the most energetic moment of an electronic track, where the kick and the bass play in full. It feels huge mostly by contrast with what comes before it, a build-up or a more restrained breakdown.Song Arrangement: Energy and Structure

E

Eighth note (quaver)Rhythm: It's half a quarter note, written 1/8 in your DAW, which is two steps on a 1/16 grid. A hi-hat line in eighth notes hits twice per beat.Note Lengths: Whole, Half, Quarter, Eighth

Enharmonic notesNotes and pitch: Two names are enharmonic when they point to the same key, and so to exactly the same sound, like C♯ and D♭. Your DAW usually shows the sharp, while sheet music picks the name that gives each note of the scale a different letter.Sharps, Flats and Notes with Two Names

Equal temperamentSound: It's the tuning system that divides the octave into twelve perfectly equal half steps, 100 cents each, which lets you transpose freely into every key. In exchange, the intervals drift a little from the pure ratios: the fifths by about 2 cents, the thirds by 14 to 16 cents.Equal Temperament: Why Thirds Are Out of Tune

F

FifthIntervals and chords: It's the interval that spans five letter names, like C to G. The perfect fifth has seven half steps; very stable, it's the skeleton of chords and basslines.Intervals: The Distance Between Two Notes

FlatNotes and pitch: The flat, written ♭, lowers a note by a half step: B♭ is the row just below B. In sheet music, it goes in front of a note or in the key signature.Sharps, Flats and Notes with Two Names

FormantSound: Formants are frequency zones boosted by the shape of the throat, mouth and nose, whatever note is being sung. Repitching moves them along with the note, which makes a voice sound tiny or huge; settings that preserve them keep the same character.Pitching and Time-Stretching Samples

Four-on-the-floorRhythm: It's the pattern where the kick hits each of the four beats, the foundation of house and techno. In house, you usually add a clap or a snare on two and four, and an open hi-hat on the offbeats.Essential Drum Patterns by Genre

FrequencySound: It's the number of vibrations per second of a sound, measured in hertz. The higher it is, the higher the sound, and doubling the frequency takes you up an octave.Sound, Pitch and the Octave

FundamentalSound: It's the lowest frequency in a sound, the one that gives the note you hear. The sound's other frequencies, its harmonics, sit above it.Harmonics and Timbre

G

GateIn your DAW: It's a note's length compared with the length of a step, often expressed as a percentage in arpeggiators and sequencers. At 100%, each note holds until the next one; at 50%, it lasts only half the step, and the sound becomes more detached.Note Lengths: Whole, Half, Quarter, Eighth

Ghost noteRhythm: It's a very soft hit tucked between the main hits, one you feel more than you hear. Together with accents, which are hits louder than their neighbors, it gives a rhythm its groove without changing its skeleton.Syncopation, Offbeats and Groove

GlideMelody, bass and arrangement: Also called slide or portamento, it's a smooth slide in pitch from one note to the next, instead of a jump. Used a lot on trap and drill 808s, it sounds best when it heads toward chord tones.Tuning Your 808 and Sub Bass

H

Half step (semitone)Notes and pitch: It's the smallest distance between two notes in our music: in the piano roll, the move from one row to the next. Two notes a half step apart, played together, clash noticeably.Half Steps and Whole Steps

Half-timeRhythm: The project tempo doesn't change, but the snare only hits on the third beat, and the track feels twice as slow: a trap beat at 140 BPM feels like 70. Double-time does the opposite, with a snare twice as frequent that makes the track feel twice as fast.Tempo and BPM

Harmonic functionChord progressions: It's the role a chord plays in the key. The tonic is stable, the subdominant moves away from home, and the dominant leans toward the return; a loop moves forward when its last chord pushes toward its first.Tension and Resolution in Chord Progressions

Harmonic minorScales and keys: It's the minor scale with its seventh degree raised a half step to create a leading tone. The gap between the sixth and seventh degrees becomes an augmented second, three half steps wide, which gives an “Eastern” color often heard in drill and dark trap. Played from its fifth note, it gives you Phrygian dominant.Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales

Harmonic rhythmChord progressions: It's the speed at which the chords change: one per bar, two per bar, or one every two bars. Speeding up this rhythm at the end of a loop gives it a lift, and chopping the chords into stabs adds movement without complicating the harmony.Harmonic Rhythm: When to Change Chords

HarmonicsSound: Harmonics are the frequencies that vibrate at two, three, four times the frequency of the fundamental, and so on; this ladder, which never changes, is called the harmonic series. Their balance gives a sound its timbre.Harmonics and Timbre

HertzSound: It's the unit of frequency: one hertz is one vibration per second. The reference A vibrates at 440 hertz, and the human ear hears roughly from 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz.Sound, Pitch and the Octave

Hi-hat rollRhythm: It's a series of hi-hat hits packed very close together, in sixteenth notes, triplets or thirty-second notes. Typical of trap, it makes the hi-hats sound as if they're speeding up and braking, while the kick and the clap stay simple.Dotted Notes and Triplets

HookMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the short phrase that catches the ear and comes back at the key moment, in the chorus or in the drop. There's nothing magic about a hook: it's a short motif with a recognizable rhythm, repeated enough to sink in.Motifs, Repetition and Variation

I

IntervalIntervals and chords: It's the distance between two notes, played one after the other or together. It's named first by a number, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh or octave, which you get by counting the letter names including both ends, then by a quality, major, minor, perfect, augmented or diminished, which pins down the number of half steps.Intervals: The Distance Between Two Notes

InversionIntervals and chords: A chord is inverted when its lowest note isn't the root: with the third at the bottom, it's in first inversion, with the fifth at the bottom, second inversion. Otherwise, it's in root position; inverting lets you move from chord to chord with as little movement as possible.Chord Inversions and Voicings

K

KeyScales and keys: A key pairs a tonic with a scale, like A minor or C major. It's what the “Key” field in a DAW or on a sample site tells you.What Is a Key? The Note That Feels Like Home

Key detectorIn your DAW: It's a tool that guesses the key of a sample or a track from the notes it hears. It's a good first lead, but it often confuses two relative keys: always check the resting note by ear.How to Find the Key of a Song or Sample

Key signatureScales and keys: In sheet music, it's the set of sharps or flats in the scale, written once and for all at the start of each line. Two relative keys have the same key signature: it's the music itself that tells you which of the two is the right one.What Is a Key? The Note That Feels Like Home

L

Leading toneScales and keys: It's the seventh degree when it sits a half step below the tonic, like B in C major, and it pulls strongly toward it. The natural minor doesn't have one: you create it by raising the seventh degree a half step, G♯ in A minor.Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales

LFOSound: It's an oscillator too slow to be heard as a note, used to make a setting move: a filter's cutoff, the volume, the pitch or the stereo position. Synced to the tempo, it's set in note values and becomes a rhythmic instrument.BPM to Milliseconds: Delay, Reverb and LFO

LoopMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a passage of one, two, four or eight bars that repeats. A one-bar loop quickly becomes hypnotic; a longer one leaves room for variation, and it's from the loop that you later draw the sections of a track.Bars, Beats and Steps

Low-pass filterSound: It's a filter that lets the lows through and removes the harmonics above its cutoff frequency. It changes the color of the sound, never its note; its resonance boosts the frequencies around the cutoff, and opening it gradually is a classic build-up tool.Harmonics and Timbre

LydianScales and keys: It's a major scale with its fourth degree raised a half step; F Lydian is played on the white keys starting from F. Its augmented fourth makes the music float, and you hear it a lot in film and video game music.The Modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian

M

Major chordIntervals and chords: It's a triad that stacks four and then three half steps above the root: C, E and G for C. It sounds stable and bright.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

Major scaleScales and keys: It follows the pattern whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, starting from any note. C major falls exactly on the white keys, and its third degree, four half steps above the first note, gives it its bright color.The Major Scale

Melodic minorScales and keys: It's the minor scale with its sixth and seventh degrees raised a half step, to keep the leading tone without the jump of the augmented second. In the classical tradition, it's only used going up.Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales

Middle CNotes and pitch: It's the C in the middle of the keyboard, MIDI note 60, which this site shows as C4 to match the software chosen in your settings. Its name changes from one program to another: it's called C4 in scientific pitch notation, C5 in FL Studio and C3 in Ableton Live and Logic Pro, but it's always the same note.The Twelve Notes of the Piano Roll

MIDI noteNotes and pitch: A MIDI note isn't a sound but an instruction: a note number from 0 to 127, a velocity, a start, a length and a channel. The same MIDI played by a different instrument gives a different sound, and the note number, unlike the octave name, is the same in every DAW.What Is a MIDI Note?

MIDI packIn your DAW: It's a set of ready-to-use MIDI files: chord progressions, melodies or drum patterns. It contains only note instructions, and it's the instrument you choose that makes the sound.What Is a MIDI Note?

Minor chordIntervals and chords: It's a triad that stacks three and then four half steps above the root: A, C and E for Am. Compared with the major chord, only the third changes, and that's enough to darken the color.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

Minor scaleScales and keys: The natural minor scale follows the pattern whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole; A minor uses only white keys. Compared with the major scale on the same note, its third, sixth and seventh degrees are a half step lower, and it's mostly the third that makes it dark.The Minor Scale

MixolydianScales and keys: It's a major scale with its seventh degree lowered a half step; G Mixolydian is played on the white keys starting from G. Without a leading tone, the major color becomes more relaxed, as in a lot of rock and funk and some house or afro tracks.The Modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian

ModeScales and keys: A mode is a scale you get by starting from a different note of the same seven notes: on the white keys, each starting note gives a mode. There are seven; Ionian is the major scale, Aeolian is the natural minor, and Locrian, the most unstable, is rarely used. Each mode is recognized by its characteristic note, the one that sets it apart from major or minor.The Modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian

ModulationChord progressions: To modulate is to change key partway through a track. The simplest modulation brings back the last chorus a whole step or a half step higher; either way, you have to transpose every pitched part, including the 808, while keeping an eye on its register.How to Change Key in a Track

MotifMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a short idea, made of a rhythm and a contour, that you repeat to establish it and then vary one thing at a time. A two-bar question followed by a two-bar answer gives you a four-bar phrase, the basis of most loops.Motifs, Repetition and Variation

N

Ninths, elevenths and thirteenthsIntervals and chords: These are the notes that extend the stack of thirds beyond the seventh, and they give lo-fi and neo-soul chords their richness. To keep a chord like that clear, drop the fifth first, then the root if the bass is playing it, and keep the third and the seventh.Seventh Chords and Extended Chords

Note namesNotes and pitch: Software names the notes with letters: C, D, E, F, G, A and B. Some countries, such as France, Italy and Spain, use do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and si for the same seven notes, so C is do, D is re, and so on.The Twelve Notes of the Piano Roll

O

OctaveNotes and pitch: It's the distance between a note and the same note higher up, which vibrates exactly twice as fast. An octave contains twelve half steps, and the two notes share the same name because the ear hears them as members of one family.Sound, Pitch and the Octave

OffbeatRhythm: Playing on the offbeat means hitting between the beats and staying silent on them. The open hi-hat on every “and”, while the kick hits the beats, is the typical house offbeat.Syncopation, Offbeats and Groove

OstinatoMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a short pattern repeated without change while the chords change underneath. The repeated rhythm creates the movement, and each new chord gives it a different color.Arpeggios, Arpeggiators and Sequences

P

Passing toneMelody, bass and arrangement: A melody mixes chord tones, which land and sound stable, with passing tones, taken from the scale, which connect them. By placing the chord tones on the strong beats and the passing tones between them, the melody locks onto the harmony.How to Write a Melody Over Chords

PatternIn your DAW: The word first means a typical placement of kick, snare and hi-hats, like the four-on-the-floor of house. In some DAWs, such as FL Studio, a pattern is also the block that holds the notes of a part, the equivalent of a clip.Essential Drum Patterns by Genre

Pedal pointChord progressions: A pedal point is a note held in the bass while the chords change above it, which creates tension whenever a chord doesn't contain it. A tonic pedal anchors the music, and a dominant pedal builds a growing sense of expectation, very useful in a build-up.Pedal Points, Drones and One-Chord Loops

Pentatonic scaleScales and keys: It's a five-note scale with no half steps at all, so no note clashes, which makes it ideal for improvising. The major pentatonic keeps degrees 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of the major scale; the minor pentatonic, with the same notes and a different home, keeps degrees 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the minor scale, like A, C, D, E and G.Pentatonic and Blues Scales

PhrygianScales and keys: It's a minor scale with its second degree lowered a half step; E Phrygian is played on the white keys starting from E. That note pressed right up against the tonic from above creates a dark tension, which you often meet in dark techno, metal and some drill.The Modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian

Piano rollIn your DAW: It's your DAW's MIDI note editor: a keyboard turned on its side, with one row per half step and time moving from left to right. Each octave has twelve rows, seven for the white keys and five for the black ones.The Twelve Notes of the Piano Roll

PitchNotes and pitch: It's what makes a sound seem low or high. It depends on the frequency of the vibration: the higher the frequency, the higher the sound.Sound, Pitch and the Octave

Pitch bendNotes and pitch: It's a separate MIDI message, not a note: it slides the pitch smoothly up or down. You often control it with the wheel on the left side of many MIDI keyboards.What Is a MIDI Note?

Pivot chordChord progressions: It's a chord shared by two keys, which serves as a doorway from one to the other. Since it belongs to both, the key change that follows it goes almost unnoticed.How to Change Key in a Track

PolyrhythmRhythm: It's two different pulses layered on top of each other, like three against two or three against four. A three-step pattern repeated on a sixteen-step grid is a simple form of it: its accents shift from one bar to the next.Odd Time Signatures and Polyrhythms

Power chordIntervals and chords: It's the chord that keeps only the root and the fifth, often doubled at the octave; it's written with a 5, like C5, which contains C and G. The name comes from guitarists: with no third, it has neither a major nor a minor color, just weight.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

Q

QuantizeNotes and pitch: Quantizing moves the start of the notes you played to the nearest grid line. Its strength is often set as a percentage: at 50%, the notes only move halfway, which fixes the big mistakes while keeping a human feel.What Is a MIDI Note?

Quarter note (crotchet)Rhythm: It's the length of one beat in 4/4, written 1/4 in your DAW, which is four steps on a 1/16 grid. A half note (minim) is worth two, and a whole note (semibreve) four, that is, a whole bar.Note Lengths: Whole, Half, Quarter, Eighth

R

RegisterMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the pitch zone a part plays in. Roughly, the sub and the bass take the low end, the chords the mids, between C3 and C5, and the melody and vocal the top; doubling a part at the octave strengthens it without muddying the mix.Registers: Giving Each Part Its Place

Relative keysScales and keys: Two keys are relative when they share exactly the same notes but not the same tonic, like C major and A minor. The relative minor sits three half steps below the major tonic, and it's the resting note that tells you which of the two you're hearing.What Is a Key? The Note That Feels Like Home

RepitchSound: It's the simplest way to change a sample's pitch: you change its playback speed, and the pitch follows. One half step corresponds to a speed multiplied by about 1.0595, roughly 6 percent, and an octave doubles the speed.Pitching and Time-Stretching Samples

Roman numeralsChord progressions: They number the chords of a key according to the degree of their root: uppercase for major chords, lowercase for minor ones, and a small circle for diminished. In major, you always get I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi and vii°, so a progression written this way transposes effortlessly.The Chords in a Key

RootIntervals and chords: It's the note a chord is built on and that gives it its name: A for Am. Played in the bass, it's the safest choice for a bassline or an 808.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

S

SampleIn your DAW: It's a short audio recording you reuse in a track: a drum hit, a loop, a vocal or a piano chord. Its key shifts by as many half steps as you transpose it, and you change its tempo or pitch by repitching or time-stretching.Pitching and Time-Stretching Samples

SamplerIn your DAW: It's an instrument that plays a recording, a sample, at the pitch of the MIDI notes it receives. Its pitch is set in half steps, often under the name transpose or pitch, and in cents for fine tuning.Note Frequencies: Tuning Kicks and Samples

Sawtooth waveSound: It's the waveform that contains every harmonic, which makes it bright and rich. It's the starting point for a lot of leads, basses and pads, and a stack of detuned sawtooth waves is called a supersaw.Harmonics and Timbre

ScaleScales and keys: It's a selection of notes, most often seven out of twelve, defined by a pattern of distances from a starting note. Choosing a scale means keeping the rows that sound good together, so your notes stop clashing by accident.The Major Scale

Scale degreeScales and keys: It's a note's number in its scale, from one to seven counting from the first note. Talking in degrees rather than note names lets you describe a melody or a chord in any key.The Major Scale

Scale highlightingIn your DAW: It's the option that grays out or colors a scale's rows in the piano roll. You'll find it in FL Studio's piano roll and in the clip Scale mode of Ableton Live 12, and Logic Pro offers Scale Quantize; you set the root note, then the scale.The Major Scale

SectionMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a block of the track, most often 8, 16 or 32 bars long, that has a role: intro, verse, chorus, build-up, drop, breakdown or outro. Energy is shaped mostly by adding and removing elements from one section to the next, and transitions line up exactly with the start of each block.Song Arrangement: Energy and Structure

Seventh chordIntervals and chords: It's a triad with one more third added on top, the seventh. The five common types are maj7 (major seventh), m7 (minor seventh), 7 (dominant seventh), m7♭5 (half-diminished) and dim7 (diminished seventh), all very present in lo-fi, house and R&B.Seventh Chords and Extended Chords

SharpNotes and pitch: The sharp, written ♯, raises a note by a half step: F♯ is the row just above F. The natural sign, written ♮, cancels a sharp or a flat and gives the note back its natural pitch.Sharps, Flats and Notes with Two Names

Sixteenth note (semiquaver)Rhythm: It's a quarter of a quarter note, written 1/16: exactly one step on the usual drum machine grid. A hi-hat line in sixteenth notes hits four times per beat.Note Lengths: Whole, Half, Quarter, Eighth

Slash chordIntervals and chords: In a chord name, the note written after the slash is the bass note: C/E is a C major chord with E in the bass. These chords are used for inversions and for basslines that walk down step by step under changing chords.How to Read and Write Chord Symbols

SnapIn your DAW: It's the grid's magnet: the notes you draw or move stick to the chosen division, like 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 or triplets. Snap works on what you draw, quantize on what you've played.Bars, Beats and Steps

Spectrum analyzerSound: It's a display that shows the frequencies in a sound, from the lows on the left to the highs on the right. It helps you spot the fundamental of a kick or an 808, and the stock EQ in most DAWs has one built in.Note Frequencies: Tuning Kicks and Samples

StabMelody, bass and arrangement: It's a very short chord, hit like a percussion instrument, often on the offbeats. Typical of house, it plays both a harmonic and a rhythmic role.Chord Progressions by Genre

StaffNotes and pitch: It's the set of five lines that sheet music is written on; each line and each space stands for a white key. The treble clef fixes G4 on the second line, for the melody register, and the bass clef fixes F3 on the fourth, for the bass register.How to Read Sheet Music in Ten Minutes

StampIn your DAW: The stamp is a tool in FL Studio's piano roll that places a complete chord in a single click; other DAWs offer similar tools. It's handy, but it doesn't replace the habit of building your chords by hand, counting rows.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

StepRhythm: It's the smallest box on the grid, the one in a drum sequencer. On a 1/16 grid, each beat is cut into four steps, which you count “one e and a”; this division of the beat is called subdivision.Bars, Beats and Steps

Strong and weak beatsRhythm: In the classical tradition, in 4/4, the first and third beats are the strong beats, and the second and fourth are the weak beats. The backbeat of pop and hip-hop puts the snare right on those weak beats.Syncopation, Offbeats and Groove

SubMelody, bass and arrangement: It's the lowest zone of the spectrum, roughly 20 to 60 hertz, and by extension the very round bass that fills it. You feel it in your body as much as you hear it, and small speakers barely reproduce it; a little distortion adds harmonics that make the note audible everywhere.Tuning Your 808 and Sub Bass

Suspended chordIntervals and chords: It's a chord where the third is replaced by a neighbor: the second in a sus2, the fourth in a sus4. Csus4 contains C, F and G; with no third, it's neither major nor minor.Triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

SwingRhythm: Swing slightly delays every other subdivision: on a sixteenth-note grid, the “e” and the “a” land a little after their place. DAWs express it as a percentage, but not on the same scale: on MPC-style drum machines, straight timing is 50%, elsewhere it's often 0%, so trust your ear.Syncopation, Offbeats and Groove

SyncopationRhythm: Syncopation shifts the emphasis: a note starts on a weak part of the beat and holds over the next strong part, which then arrives without a new attack. It gives a bassline or a melody a sense of pushing forward.Syncopation, Offbeats and Groove

T

TempoRhythm: It's the speed of the pulse, the steady beat you tap your foot to. It's measured in BPM, and the same tempo can feel slower or faster depending on where the snare lands.Tempo and BPM

ThirdIntervals and chords: It's the interval that spans three letter names, like C to E. The major third has four half steps, the minor third three, and it's the third that decides whether a chord sounds major or minor.Intervals: The Distance Between Two Notes

TimbreSound: It's the color of a sound, what tells a piano apart from a synth playing the same note. It depends mostly on which harmonics are present and how strong they are.Harmonics and Timbre

Time-stretchSound: It's a process that changes a sample's tempo without changing its pitch; its opposite, pitch-shifting, changes the pitch without changing the tempo. Both sometimes leave artifacts, especially over large changes.Pitching and Time-Stretching Samples

TonicScales and keys: It's the note that feels like home, the one the music rests and ends on. It gives the key its name: in A minor, the tonic is A.What Is a Key? The Note That Feels Like Home

TransposeNotes and pitch: To transpose is to move every note of a pattern by the same number of half steps. The pattern keeps its shape and only changes pitch; in the piano roll, you just select the notes and move them up or down together.Half Steps and Whole Steps

TripletRhythm: A triplet fits three equal notes into the time of two. DAWs mark it with a T: 1/8T for three eighth-note triplets per beat, 1/16T for six sixteenth-note triplets, and you have to switch the grid to triplets to write them.Dotted Notes and Triplets

Triplet feel (compound meter)Rhythm: We talk about a triplet feel when each beat divides into three instead of two, as in 6/8 and 12/8. A bar of 12/8 is counted as four big beats of three eighth notes each, which gives a lilt close to a shuffle.Odd Time Signatures and Polyrhythms

TritoneIntervals and chords: It's the six-half-step interval that cuts the octave exactly in half, like F to B. It sounds unstable and calls for resolution: it's the heart of the tension in the dominant chord.Intervals: The Distance Between Two Notes

U

UnisonSound: On a synth, unison stacks several copies of the same voice, each slightly detuned, and often spreads them from left to right. It's the tool for wide pads and leads; it's better to keep the sub as a single voice.Detune, Beating and Stereo Width

V

VelocityNotes and pitch: It's how hard a MIDI note is played, on a scale that goes up to 127. The instrument usually uses it to set the note's volume, sometimes its brightness, and on drums it's the first tool for groove.What Is a MIDI Note?

VoicingIntervals and chords: It's the way a chord's notes are laid out: their order, their spacing and their octave. A close voicing fits within an octave, an open voicing spreads over more, and two voicings of the same chord share a name without sounding the same.Chord Inversions and Voicings

W

WaveformSound: It's the shape of the vibration an oscillator produces, and each shape has its own recipe of harmonics. The sine wave has none, the triangle and the square have only the odd harmonics, and the sawtooth has them all.Harmonics and Timbre

Whole step (whole tone)Notes and pitch: A whole step is worth two half steps, that is, two rows in the piano roll. Between C and D, for example, there's a whole step, with a black key in between.Half Steps and Whole Steps