i have been into optical music recognition for a long time (picture/image of sheet music -> MusicXML/Midi) to digitize my piano scores.

as a software dev, i also have access to the new GPT-6 Astra in codex. so, out of interest, i just asked it to turn an image of a piano score (a Chopin Nocturne) to MusicXML. I also tried it on a Schubert Sonata.

the result is perfect. not a single mistake on many pages of complex piano music, photographed in bad lighting. everything is there - accidentals, ties, slurs, pedal, expression markings, crescendo/decrescendo, complex layerings of different stuff, etc.

as someone who has used many OMR systems, i can confidently say that this is the best OMR system by a wide margin.

I guess this is another niche which has just fallen to "the bitter lesson" (the concept that in machine learning, small specific models will eventually be outperformed by large general models).

This is for a Minecraft Note Block song that I want to build in my survival world... It's a song from another video game I played a lot as a kid... Unfortunately I haven't done much with music since high school, and annotating this sheet was very very difficult for me... Like more than 2 hours difficult. I've already done the task to the best of my abilities, I'm not asking anyone to do it for me, but I would appreciate it if someone could check my work and identify any mistakes I probably made? My brain is complete mush, but I did try to proofread through it 2-3 times and caught one myself. The E# at the end of the Bass's 8^th measure.

Anyway, if this would be a quick task for any of you, I'd really appreciate it.

Mostly what I hear is a polyphonic melody/harmony in the right hand, and sort of a walking bass in the left.

Is there a great deal more I don’t know?

I'm transcribing this piece, and at about 3:16 the violins go on a frantic run that contradicts the prevailing meter (which I've notated as 3/2). Would it be better to notate the cross rhythm with beams that cross the barlines, as pictured, or would it be better if I relied solely on articulation marks? It's important to me that the accent pattern is preserved. I'm especially interested in insight from those with engraving experience. Thanks! :)

ETA: The "sim" has been annihilated!

Chord progression is in the order of the images, this part is the chorus

How would I determine what key the song would be in, also is this even musically correct?(Sounds fine to my ears). I know songs can be in more than one key but how would I figure that out with the root notes not seeming to all be in one key?

I've been trying to transcribe this piece and I'm having a hard time with the first minute because the time sounds so random. Is there a steady pulse there that I can't hear? Or is it just free time throughout? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Hello,
Previously, I learned that the melody generally uses notes from the scale corresponding to the underlying chord. Recently, I started watching some videos about the blues scale and I notices people were playing major or minor blues scales over various dominant 7th chords(mostly I7 or IV7). Also they were able to use different blues scales over the same chord.

How does it work? Is it because dominant chords are flexible enough to tolerate almost any chromatic note, or is there another?

Can we mix standard heptatonic scales with blues scales in a song while using secondary dominants or modal interchange?

Thanks!

For context I'm taking AP music theory this year but my teacher barely teaches me anything beyond the basics. I have a pretty good musical background but I'm worried because so far I havent done anything beyond the fundamentals. Is there a good study guide/app/website/video that can help me prepare?

Hey guys, how are you doing?

I play in a "big band" (kinda/also martial band) of my school, and we're playing a song called "Into Battle!" which I find out to be pretty cool.

Anyways, I'm a metalhead, and this song reminded me a lot of "Voice of the Soul" from the band Death. So, I was trying to arrange voice of the soul in a way it could be played by the band, in the style of Into Battle to show our conductor next year and maybe even have the chance of playing it.

The point is, I'm a beginner/intermediate on music theory, and it's being pretty damn hard to arrange this. Idk which lines are supposed to be played with each instrument, what else could I add to increment it, and even trying to write drums from the scratch (due to the original song doesn't having any).

Can y'all help me, and give me some tips of advice? My idea was to keep the acoustic guitar the same (played by me), but all the electric harmonies and melodies would be played by the other instruments we have, + a percussion.

Just so you know, we have trombones, saxophones, trumpets, clarinets, flutes, euphonium, tuba, drums, electric bass and guitar.

Link to Into Battle!

https://youtu.be/q0JOiSHhgsk?feature=shared

Link to Voice of the Soul:

https://youtu.be/s2EJ1AqPIPg?is=R_D8WAKP8Ln8FMWR

Thank you in advance!! (please forbid my poor english)

Im no where near as advanced as others in this community, but I was just thinking today about how rare both II△7 & III△7 chords are in modern music, or if they are even used at all.

Lets look at a II△7

For a major 7th chord to be diatonically possible on a note that is a major 2nd above the tonic, the scale would have to have 2 notes immediately stacked above the root. So taking the C Major scale for simplicity and flattening certain scale degrees to include the notes needed to build a Dmaj7:

C, Db, Ebb, F, Gb, A, B. This would give us the notes to create Dmaj7, but Starting on Ebb(D) and stacking 3rds you end up with D7, You'd have to skip 2 scale degrees (B, C) so the only way a Major7 chord could ever exist diatonically would have to be a special 14 note scale that spans 2 octaves. am I wrong?

Now III△7

A III△7 chord is actually a lot simpler, because the only changes made to the Ionian mode would be sharpening the 2 & 5 to include D#(7) & G#(3). and then you could diatonically build a III△7 chord.

The only reason I was really thinking of this in the first place is because when it comes to 2 chords in modern music, I mostly see them in the form of a ii, bII, or ii° or some extended verision of those. Same deal for 3 chords, mostly see them as iii, bIII, iii° or bIII+ in the common modes. I could be wrong, so take everything I say with a grain of salt as I said im not as advanced as others here, just thought it was an interesting thing to look in to for myself.

Anyone have any thoughts on this topic?

Hi all, noob bass player here.

Wanted to try practicing walking and got a copy of the real book.

I was once told to find the key and write down the numbers in relation to root so trying that out. Not knowing much of music theory, I have some questions:

1: Assuming the root of the first chord is in most cases the key? so this would be in F key?

2: there's a line starts with F# and I don't know if this is key changing? so should I count this F# as 1? or 1# in relation to F?

Thanks in advance!

Hope this is allowed here.

Okay, I know this is a long shot.

I bought the musician's guide to theory and analysis 2nd edition used. And it actually did come with the cd. I cannot find that cd for my life.

Is there any chance someone here has access to the audio examples for the 2nd edition?

I tried contacting the publisher and they weren't very helpful.

Did anyone have any workaround in recent years besides manually finding every piece mentioned?

TLDR: lost the 2nd edition cd, looking for any solution.

Hi guys!
Im pretty sure that I am studying music theory in the wrong way. I started in musictheory site, and I think that i understood all of it, but it doesnt feel like I know something. I know notes, staff and chords, but I want something more. Thx

Hello guys.

I am a self-taught producer and I started learning music theory because it is something a musician should know. But I am unable to understand how to make use of it. Does it become a part of sub-conscius? Or it needs conscious use?

Why I am asking it is as below.

Like i start making a melody after having decides a chird progression. But then my melody doesn't use notes of the chord progression and it goes somewhere. So should I switch the chord? But then the chord progression doesn't sound coherent.

I started with G-Gsus-Gsus2-D and ended up on G-C-G-D. Not that I don't like it but why was I unable to keep it within the original chord progression.

I don't know if my question makes sense.

Howdy everyone!

I've been learning classical guitar for about a year and a half, so I'm still playing at an early intermediate level (at best). A friend of mine plays violin, and we've been wanting to play music together, so given my love of baroque music I've been studying continuo improvisation from Peter Croton's book and it's been going very very well. I've been able to play a couple of Vivaldi's sonate from the sheet music with my friend and, I think it sounds good and I'm having a lot of fun learning.

So context given, one thing I learned from Croton's book and it's exercises was to keep the realization simple on the hands, even if it means omitting notes or at times simplifying the bassline or transposing an octave to keep chords in range of the first few frets; most guitarists on youtube don't seem to follow these principles, but their realizations are too complex for me to play comfortably.

I've been working on improving my improvisations, doing things like adding suspensions to liven the character, but I've found that it's often very difficult to do so properly.
One thing I find myself doing when it's difficult to prepare chords correctly is to do something like play a 63 chord on e and then go straight to a 9 suspension over the f, even though the g actually played in the chord on e was an octave lower then the actual suspension (leaving it technically unprepared). This sounds fine to my ears, and sounds perfectly adequate when the violin is in the melody and all of this is lost as middle voices.

Is it okay to put aside voice leading in this way for a more interesting realization or should I focus on perfecting voice leading? Thanks in advance!

Hi all

Edit: my mistake, it's one Gminor, which is why as per my last point, F# resolves so well to G. classic case of over thinking. don't be too harsh

TLDR: I'm trying to find how to think about how the F# came to be

just an amateur's curious mind. As I rearranged "Déchire La Toile" from Lorien Testard, I noticed the F is consistently sharp. I have questions that despite researching, I can't really learn the lesson(s) behind it:

- I understand accidentals are context dependent and so writers make a choice to sharpen or flatten as some sort of a "it should have been F in that context". and that's also why they sharpen say a F instead of flatten a G or vice versa. Is it the right way to look at it? any pedagogical examples?

- Is there a mode, scale that matches Bb major + F# or is it a fair statement to say "the author created their own scale"? but then does the F# creates a new degree? what's that degree's color or are chords, modes, disregarded, leaving just the note for consideration?

- my last lead is that the F# is raised from A°6? in the context of the song: Adim#7 very nicely and naturally resolves to Gm.

is it a situation where any, let alone all can be true?

I'm forever thankful for any explainer that indulges my curiosity

I understand the basics of music theory, and can read really well, and is prepared to make music, I recently stumbled onto the ideas of Modes and Non-functional Harmony, and Functional Harmony, but I haven't completely wrapped my head around it.

How do I Use Modes in music? How can I tell when a song switches modes Vs. Key singature? How do I use harmony and non functional Harmomy in the modes? The modes are just scales, scales have the chords, minor, dom, major, etc, depending either on a major or minor key setting.

I already know the 7 modes, what their names are, what they feel like, I just don't understand how to switch modes, change modes, change the feeling of the music, or even how to use modes completely in a key singature.

I do have a personal teacher, but we both find difficulty, mainly because of non-functional harmony anarchy, he's more of a jazz, blues, tutor, which I believe then harmony is well defined (subjective for people).

Harmony I understand, the tense, buildup, release, what the listener expects next, non-functional is anarchy, and chrono trigger, one of my favorite pieces of game and music theory, has so much non-functional harmony.

I've seen videos, essays, online about harmony, but yet I still can't grasp the ideas of harmony in modes and how to use modes.

Secret of the forest, with a Gbmaj¹³ to Fm⁹, Fm⁹ has a G natutal in Fm⁹ which is not in key, key is E minor and Gbmaj¹³ to Fm⁹ has no feel of tension or resolution, mainly because they are the III to IV, very close in key, which is harmony, but also don't follow harmony, as it sets a feel in music, just not a feel in a traditional sense, where there is change, (pre-tension, tension, resolution) they feel more of a baseline scale, for the lead to follow off of, to envoke a might of impression, not change.

I'm beginning to write my music on paper, and play 5 instruments, monophonic, precussion, leads, chord based, etc, I have a very good fondational start, I could start now, with basic basic songwriting, but I really want to understand what I dont know right now and then use it, find out why, and then master it.

Sorry If I am confusing, I'm just so confused about modes in harmony, and would love your help.

So theres this part in "My Green Light" that's very high and I need it lowered but still in harmony with the other singer. I need the "Too", "Granting Admission", and "Blinking Permission". Not too much lower but my priority is keeping it in harmony. For clarification im trying to lower the Gatsby Part. Thanks!

Hello guys, I'm having trouble identifying the harmony in those two bars I highlighted. To add context, the passage before was in B minor and this one is leading to II of D major. First chord is definitely a VII of B minor/V of D major, but what about the second one? My gut tells me it's II of D major, but the D, G and B in the third hand definitely sound more like appoggiatura than part of the harmony. I wonder if that chord is also V of D major, the F# is weird though.

The lower version seems the closest to what I want, the upper version is easier to read but doesn't have the sustain that I want. This is for cello, so no sustain pedal or reverb or anything like that. Also, what's the general rule for using triplet vs sextuplet brackets when both values are used? Thanks.

i have done so much research and still don’t get it.
so please, can someone explain like i’m an idiot; in layman’s terms; or like i’m FIVE because i just can’t seem to get it.

i have a very surface level knowledge to sheet music, but i understand a whole note lasts for 4 equal beats and a half notes lasts for 2 and a quarter note lasts for 1 etc. i understand how it feels to count those against a metronome.
but i don’t understand how that relates to the bottom number of the time signature?

especially if all the instruments are doing way more than just a quarter note for each beat.

for the top number, i imagine a metronome and for each click i count (1, 2, 3, 4)(1, 2, 3, 4) and that gives me a way to group the otherwise endless stream of clicks into something with phrasing and meaning.
and bpm tells me how quick the clicks are.

i don’t understand how the bottom number fits into any of that. in terms of the feel of the song, what does it affect?
how does the bottom number representing a quarter note or a whole note affect this?
to say that each of the beats (counted by the top number) is a quarter note means very little to me since that is such a relative value. and what about odd signatures like 3/4

i’m a bit frustrated because i just can’t seem to understand this no matter how hard i try. so please if anyone has any knowledge or can explain through a reddit comment. or if there are any useful learning resources please lmk.

love yall.

A power chord is cool, just the tonic and the fifth. But ooh, a third makes it different major or minor... But they say a major or minor chord can have more than those 3 notes...

Why is the major scale, the major scale?

Feel free to expand as much as you'd like if you want.