Music Mastery

I don’t claim to be a master, but I’ve been playing piano by ear and composing simple songs for more than a year now. There were a few images that really made music “click” for me. At first when I saw them, I couldn’t understand their structure/organization, so I couldn’t appreciate their importance, but when I took the time to work things out, suddenly I understood their importance. I just grabbed these randomly from google so I don’t claim any ownership or want anything but to share the info I thought was helpful.

I’m also including these as a personal cheatsheet when I practice music.

The first 3 are about relationships between notes also called counting intervals,
The 4-5 pics are about song composition and flow
pics 6-7 are purely musical theory and relates to how sharps/flats work

The first image Chord Formulas describes how a chord is constructed. What counts make a certain chord contain certain notes.

Second images shows you for any key what are definitions of the counted interval (what number corresponds to what letter for each key).

Third image shows different ways to count to make a different musical sound.

The next 2 images are flow charts to help give insight as to what sequences tend to sound good together. Play a numbered chord and transition as per the chart and voila you got a song.

The circle of fifths is used for a few reasons, which I hope these infographics will help remind someone who is already familiar with the concept… If you have never seen circle of fifths before I highly recommend finding a youtube video on it was how I learned and it helped me make connections.

Basic things to observe:

Clockwise gives you fifths
Counter-Clockwise gives you fourths
Consider a key signature (all the notes in a key) each step left from C will add one flat, and each step right from C will add once sharp

For the first circle it is a bit more simple. All of the above applies but it also shows relationships how notes relate to the fundamental (C in case of first circle)
inside the circle right is the minor (6th) of the interval

If we consider the last image, it will also tell us the other main chords in that key and how they relate (with key/legend at bottom)

(may update this page as I get feedback on it)