Crying in the Club: Songs Within Songs and Intertextuality in Pop Music
A lengthy, in-depth look at the self-referential nature of pop music and what that means for legality and creativity in music.
Articles with entry-level theory. Use for courses on guitar, piano, reading music.
A lengthy, in-depth look at the self-referential nature of pop music and what that means for legality and creativity in music.
New to songwriting? It always helps to create pull for your listener using harmony. Here are some chord options for resolving tension!
An analysis of how Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score for Joker helps anchor the narrative and characters in both their story and their timeline.
What happens when a computer decides what makes popular songs formulaic versus iconic? Total controversy. But let’s take a deeper look…
In this post, courtesy of Reverb Machine’s Dan Carr, we break down the chord progressions of Thundercat’s most beloved jazz-inspired songs.
Writing and playing in irregular time signatures is tough, but here are ten great songs with grooves that sound effortless and infectious!
A quick and fun breakdown of one of David Byrne’s most slippery songs from the Talking Heads catalog, and why it works so well…
Thinking about how chords relate to the notes in your melody is an important aspect of voice leading with intention — here’s a quick guide.
Discover the hidden music theory gem holding together one of the greatest TV theme songs of all time, and who gets the last laugh about it.
Making chords from the scale you’re in is fine, but borrowing notes and bringing them in from other scales and modes, now that’s fun!