Welcome to 12tone Building Blocks! This is a new series we're trying out where we dissect some of the most fundamental aspects of music theory, and what better place to start than with the basic atoms of harmony? Notes are the root of pretty much everything we as musicians do, so it's pretty important to understand what they are and how they work. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Next: https://youtu.be/bqBjLnLElBc Last: https://youtu.be/AjQeT16H9LQ Harmonic Series video: https://youtu.be/Q8ITu0EASL4 Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold And thanks as well to José N., Logan Jones, Henry Reich, and Jdominioni! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

Music is a language, and like most languages, it has a writing system. Musical notation lets us store and communicate ideas across centuries, but if you don't know how to read it, it just looks like a bunch of dots and lines. In this month's Building Blocks, we start deciphering some of those symbols so you can get a better understanding of how we turn scribbles on a page into beautiful songs. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Next: https://youtu.be/6sGGJT47uUw Last: https://youtu.be/yMgEv8wfDcU Building Blocks: What Are Notes: https://youtu.be/xTOOWe_yLwY Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Jdominioni, and Jody! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

Music, at its heart, is the interaction between different notes, and intervals are how we measure those interactions. Why does one pair of notes sound bright and happy, while another sounds dark and brooding? It has everything to do with the distances between those two notes. On this month's Building Blocks, we dive into the categories and names we use to describe and define those distances and relationships. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Next: Coming soon! Last: https://youtu.be/heRleAas0lY Building Blocks Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTOOWe_yLwY&list=PLMvVESrbjBWplAcg3pG0TesncGT7qvO06 Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Jdominioni, and Jody! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

Scales are one of the most important concepts for most serious musicians, but what are they, and how do you use them? On this month's Building Blocks, we dive into the idea of scales, specific subsets of notes that provide a sense of structure to your music, and we examine some of the most popular scales out there! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Next: https://youtu.be/fJtgzYAQOkk Last: https://youtu.be/UspWDE3gN0A Building Blocks playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTOOWe_yLwY&list=PLMvVESrbjBWplAcg3pG0TesncGT7qvO06 Intervals video: https://youtu.be/heRleAas0lY Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Jdominioni, Jody, Eugene Bulkin, and Yan Han! Your support helps make 12tone even better! Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold and Inés Dawson for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

Almost all music revolves around the idea of a key, but just what is a key anyway? Well, it's kind of like a scale, but a bit more specialized. In this month's building blocks, we dive into what keys are, how they work, and how we use them to help out with our notation, including key signatures and one of the most famous memory aids in all of music, the Circle of Fifths! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Next: https://youtu.be/CiS8gbkDISY Last: https://youtu.be/7wTOLhufgBQ Scales video: https://youtu.be/5qAZKER0u10 Notation video: https://youtu.be/xMedPk94Y_E Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Jdominioni, Jody, Eugene Bulkin, and Yan Han! Your support helps make 12tone even better! Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold and Inés Dawson for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

The study of music theory is largely study of harmony, and harmony is made out of chords, so it follows that chords are pretty dang important. But what are they? In this month's Building Blocks, we finally tackle that question, along with how to build them and which ones you're most likely to see. Chords are kind of a big deal, so if you don't know them yet, check it out! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Next: https://youtu.be/ec7D6KOgCIQ Last: https://youtu.be/N3eoVsdDseU Intervals video: https://youtu.be/heRleAas0lY Notation video: https://youtu.be/xMedPk94Y_E Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold Nakarin: https://www.youtube.com/user/jerom09666 And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Eugene Bulkin, Jody, Yan Han, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, and Oliver! Your support helps make 12tone even better! Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold and Inés Dawson for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

Alright, it's time to get serious. We've talked about all the different things music is made of: Notes, scales, intervals, chords, and keys. Now it's time to put it all together to make really, usable harmony. How do we know which chords to use in which keys? How do notes notes cause chords to sound the way they do, and which intervals define the relationships between them? This is where things get real, and the best tool we have to answer those questions is a model called Functional Harmony. In this month's Building Blocks we look at how to fit chords together into a key, and how those chords help build a cohesive bed on top of which we build our songs. This one's important. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Last: https://youtu.be/SalBNnzUVME Scales video: https://youtu.be/5qAZKER0u10 Keys video: https://youtu.be/LU4K0fa6oj4 Chords video: https://youtu.be/e3BDLZFIMQs Intervals video: https://youtu.be/heRleAas0lY Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold Nakarin: https://www.youtube.com/user/jerom09666 Michael Deakin And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Eugene Bulkin, Yan Han, Jody, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, Oliver, Sebastian Ertl, Jc Bq, and Adam Neely! Your support helps make 12tone even better! Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold and Inés Dawson for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

When it comes to understanding most modern music, probably the most powerful tool in a theorist's belt is the concept of functional harmony. By breaking chords up into families depending on the specific roles they play, we can much more precisely understand what each one is doing within a progression, and we can learn more about the underlying structures of modern harmony as well. Why do certain chords feel at rest while others compel motion? How do some chords tell us what's coming next, setting up powerful, emotional resolutions? All that and more comes down to just three primary chord functions. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/12tonevideos Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/bCTDaj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/12tonevideos Twitter: https://twitter.com/12tonevideos Email: 12tonevideos@gmail.com Last: https://youtu.be/_D_eduogIHk Functional Harmony video: https://youtu.be/eurOGIiArHI Huge thanks to our gold-level Patreon supporters: Ron Jones Jill Jones Susan Jones Howard Levine Elaine Pratt Ken Arnold Nakarin: https://www.youtube.com/user/jerom09666 Michael Deakin Mark Yachnin And thanks as well to Henry Reich, José N., Logan Jones, Eugene Bulkin, Jody, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, Oliver, Jc Bq, Adam Neely, and Jon I! Your support helps make 12tone even better! Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold and Inés Dawson for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!