4 Principles to Understand Music

Description

This book is intended for improvising musicians, composers, music students and in general all people who want to understand how music works. It covers many questions that you may ask yourself and that seem to have been forgotten over time like "where does the major scale come from?" along with a traditional knowledge base, as well as innovating explanations and theories over the foundations of today's musical practices, including the changes that blues and jazz have yielded in music theory. Everyone will certainly find something here that he/she does not know yet, but the main objective of this book is to replace the many "rules" (that are often given without explanation why we should follow them) by four "principles" that once understood, will provide correct musical solutions independently of a style, and a logical musical behavior granting you creative freedom. Their applications cover in depth how melody operates over harmony, and the wealth of chord relationships (you may find some that you don't use yet) and related scales and tensions. You will also find an introduction to "Rhythmic Harmony", a theoretical (and teachable) approach of how rhythm works based on the analysis of African rhythms.