Welcome to stavesandstrings.com
Does traditional music theory seem irrelevant and unnecessary to your instrument and musical goals?
Do you want to understand the right music theory to enhance your skills as a modern musician?
This site is suitable for:
- Anyone who wants to understand how music theory works for rock/pop/soul etc.
- Learning how to apply music theory to improve your skills for modern styles of music.
- Popular Music Theory exam support.
You may have encountered traditional music theory in school or when learning classical instruments. This theory contains information that we rarely use in modern music.
However, understanding relevant music theory can have a huge positive impact on the modern musician.
Modern or ‘Popular Music Theory’ focuses on information that can be applied to enhance your skills.
The subjects covered include:
- Scales – how to construct them and how they are connected.
- Chords – how they work and how to build on basic chord formulas to understand more interesting and complex ones.
- Harmony – how chord progressions are built, which chords work better together, and the scales that can be used over chords and in specific keys.
- Transposition – how to change the keys of chord progression and melodies.
- Rhythm notation – deciphers what musical notes and directions mean, and time signatures, key signatures, etc. – relevant to modern music.
How knowledge of these can help your playing:
- Jamming with other musicians
- Improvisation
- Ear training
- How to transpose music to make it easier to play or to fit with other musicians
- Songwriting
- How to understand music scores, which can give you more information than tab
- Can speed up learning and memorising songs
And much more…
Did you know you can even sit Popular Music Theory exams?
Popular music theory exams offer an opportunity to gain grades just like traditional theory exams. There are even UCAS points available from Grade 6 onwards.
What do Strings and Staves do?
This site will provide:
Posts about modern music theory – including information, tips and tricks.
Roadmaps for specific goals.
Courses and tools to get you to your desired outcome.
We also provide support for Popular Music Theory Exam candidates including:
- Online one-to-one lessons
- Worksheets with guidance for troubleshooting common errors and tips to absorb the relevant information
- A marking service to check you are on the right track and give you feedback on things that will improve your exam skills.
Strings and Staves has been created by Lynne Jones – find out more about me here.