Music theory, with something to hear
Theory is the grammar of music: the names for things you already hear. Swung teaches it in four parts, rhythm, harmony, melody and form, and every idea comes with a loop you can play and change, so the word and the sound arrive together.
Rhythm
When things happen
Tempo, meter, swing and syncopation: where the hits fall and how fast they come.
- BPM and tempo: beats per minute, tempo as walking speed, and one beat climbing the ladder of genre tempos.
- Time signatures: 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8 on the same drum kit.
- Swing: every second hat late, from straight to shuffle, on the slider below.
- Syncopation: hits just before or after the beat; the tresillo’s 3-3-2 and the dembow are built on it.
- Half-time: the snare once a bar, so 140 BPM feels like 70.
Move the swing slider on the pattern page to hear the hats go from straight to shuffle.
Learn the grammar by ear
The course teaches every idea here as a sound first and a word second, with something to play in each lesson. Unit 1 is free with a Google sign-in.
Pick up where you left off
Carry on with Unit 1; each chapter adds the next part of the grammar.
Harmony
Which notes sound together
Chords, keys and progressions: the mood of a track.
- Chord progressions: I–V–vi–IV and vi–IV–I–V, in any key, voiced in five styles, with the Roman numerals explained.
- Colour notes: the same chords with sevenths and ninths added, which is what makes lo-fi sound like lo-fi.
- Chord rhythm: chords on the beat hold a track up, chords off the beat make it bounce.
- Major and minor, the key, home and away: taught by ear in Unit 4: Harmony; pages are on the way.
Am9, Fmaj9, Cmaj9, G9 on an electric piano; the pattern page plays the plain triads for comparison.
Melody
The part people hum
Scales, shape, repetition, question and answer.
- The pentatonic scale: five notes that fit over every chord, which is why riffs built from them never clash.
- Question and answer: a phrase that ends in the air, then one that lands home.
- Shape, steps and leaps, repetition: taught in Unit 5: Melody.
A, C, D, E and G over the chords; add any of the five on the pattern page and it still fits.
Form
How a loop becomes a song
Phrases, sections, energy, tension and release.
- Eight-bar phrases, verse and chorus, build-up and drop, breakdown and bridge: taught with a full arrangement in Unit 7: Form and energy. Playable song-structure pages are next on the list.
- Genres: a style is a familiar combination of patterns at a typical tempo; each genre page says which, and lets you take the loop apart.