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The Fourth

Lesson 27 from: Music Theory for Electronic Musicians

J. Anthony Allen

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Lesson Info

27. The Fourth

Next Lesson: The Second

Lesson Info

The Fourth

All right, let's dive into Part six of music theory for electronic musicians in this section. We're gonna talk about the fourth and the sixth, and we're gonna kind of talk about those together because they're related and we're gonna talk about the seventh and the second, which are also kind of related in a little bit of a different way. And they were gonna do Ah little example analysis in this chunk also. So let's dive in. Okay, So let's start talking about the fourth by doing a quick little review. So remember when we started this class, we said that what we wanted to do was talk about the notes that sounded good together. That was our goal. And what we've done so far is talk about, um, the octave and we're talking about the interval of the fifth and then the interval of the third and building cords using the route the third, the fifth and eventually the seventh on the seventh, like we just talked about has kind of a special quality, so we don't want to use it all the time. But someti...

mes it's nice to put that seventh in there now. The fourth and the sixth. We skip right over, didn't we? And I guess the second also, um, hold on to the second for a minute. We'll talk about that later in just a minute. But, um, we skipped over the fourth in the six. So let's talk about the fourth. Well, neither the fourth or the sixth are incredibly useful to us for building chords. At least not directly. We don't build cords with the fourth, right. Let me put my scale back up here, okay? There's my major scale C major scale. Right. So the fourth would be this from C. Teoh, right? 1234 Now, what's weird about this is that they are actually both the fourth and the sixth are actually incredibly useful to us for building cords. Just not directly. You have to do a little bit of maneuvering to get them, Ah, to work the way we want. And here's the weird thing, though. The weird thing is, you've already been doing it. You've already been using fourths and sixes in your cords. The cords that we've built so far because when we talked about inversions, we talked. I kind of snuck in there. Um some fourths and some sixth is and you didn't even notice. So let me point that out. Now how that how that works. So let's go back to the fifth for remember, the fifth is gonna here. So this is the interval of right. Just humor me for a second. Let's count half steps. 12345678 8/2 steps, including the bottom and top notes kept. So when we do an inversion we generate. And not on Lee um, the inversion of the cord. But each interval, every interval that we've talked about so far has an inversion. You can think of it kind of like its opposite. Like it's, um, what's the word with the It's evil twin? Let's think of it as its evil twin. Um, that's kind of a weird thing to think about, but that's okay. So every interval has an evil twin. It's inversion. So ah, fourth, if we invert 1/4 so let's take the top. No, and put it an octave down so still G to see, but let's count half steps now. 12345 six. Not 8 6/2 steps is 1/4 thing. This now is 1/4. So the inversion of 1/5 is 1/4. Um, the evil twin of 1/5 is 1/4. If we invert it, it becomes 1/4. So this is the fifth. But if I put the g on the bottom, it becomes the fourth. So when we did our C major Triad or any major triad just like this, But I invert it like that. Still a major triad. But there's 1/4 in it now, right? Um, we still would consider that to be the interval of 1/5 when we're talking about the cord because the cord, the notes of the chord, R, C, E and G But the interval by itself technically is 1/ down there. So every interval has an inversion that makes up a different interval because, um, our scale is not perfectly symmetrical. Let's look at that another way. Let's go back to looking at our actual fourth. So the fourth above sea is f right. But to get from F up to see from left to see is 1/5. So if f is our bottom note and we count up from there, we end up with a fit right. In other words, from C to F is 1/4. But if I take half down from F to see is 1/5 because the inversion of 1/4 is if it by inverted fourth, I get 1/5. If I invert 1/5 I get a force. That's just how it works. So you've been using fourths already when we inverted courts. We don't use them directly to build cords. There's no real cord where we count the first, the fourth, the sixth or something like that. And it kind of does make court. But that doesn't make the kind of traditional, major minor chords that we've been talking about. Um, because we like to use the 1st 3rd in the fifth. Um, but remember that fourths exists as the evil twin of the fifth

Ratings and Reviews

exoslime
 

this is great and very helpfull class, i make and wirte music for more than 2 decades and never gave much about theory, i trusted my feelings to what sound good and what not. Bu t recently i became interested but it all seemed very difficult to me and i didnt got the points behind music theory and how everyhing works together. This class was a game changer for me.. music theory is so simple if you have somebody to explain it in words so that you finally can understand it, and thats Anthony, he is a brilliant guy and he explains it in a simple way that you can easily understand whats going on. This is perfectly the case with this course, the sections are short and to the point, not much talking around and leaving the path, you can make fast progress end learn how music theory works, this is a 5 Star ***** course and hopefully there is more to come

Emane Filali
 

Fabulous course. As a person with dyslexia, trying to remember the notes and chords as letters only is impossible. I love the visual way the chords are demonstrated and explained. I was originally put off by the "electronic" aspect, thinking it was only for learning how to use piano edit roller. However, as a beginner in playing the piano, this course is applicable to all who want to learn and understand music theory in an interesting visual way. Looking forward to next lesson. Will definately be purchasing the course after. Fantastic tutor and course.

Giulio Lazaretti
 

Very good class!! Makes it much easier to understand and apply the rules of theory. Anthony is also very wise to suggest to trust your ears, even if what you've written doesn't fit into those same rules. I am so very grateful for you putting this together, Anthony, and for making it available for the general public, Creative Live. I am also very glad I was given the opportunity to learn english in my home country (Brazil), in which many barely know how to read and write in our own native language (portuguese) due to our public education being so bad (which, by its turn, has to do with the myriad of vile creatures that inhabit our representative chambers). Tks XoXo!

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