ICAN presents The Shape of Music Mete Bakircioglu

Welcome to “The Shape of Music,” a five-part series where we go through the magic of music—how it works and what makes it sound so good. Music is an art form that we’re all familiar with to a certain degree. It’s the sounds that make us want to move or laugh or cry or try new things. Read along as we learn about music theory, which is a fancy way of saying “how music works.”

Welcome back to “The Shape of Music,” a five-part series where we take you through the magic of music. I’ll explain how music works and what makes it sound so good. Last episode we studied rhythm: the heartbeat of music. Follow along as we learn about melody, the tune that gets stuck in your head after you listen to a song.

Welcome back to “The Shape of Music,” a five-part series where we take you through the magic of music—how it works and what makes it sound so good. So far, we’ve learned about rhythm (the heartbeat of music) and melody (the “meat and potatoes” of music). Now that we’ve got the basics down, let’s take it up a notch. Join me as we examine the keyboard!

Welcome back to “The Shape of Music,” a five-part series where we take you through the magic of music—how it works and what makes it sound so good. So far, we’ve learned about rhythm (the heartbeat of music) and melody (the “meat and potatoes” of music), and the musical alphabet which is used in these for understanding music. We specifically learned about the keyboard, and how it maps out this alphabet. Now that we’ve got the building blocks down, we’re going to expand on the musical alphabet and learn about the musical language!

Welcome back to “The Shape of Music,” a five-part series where we take you through the magic of music—how it works and what makes it sound so good. So far, we’ve learned about rhythm (the heartbeat of music) and melody (the “meat and potatoes” of music). We explored the musical alphabet through studying the keyboard. Finally, we navigated the musical language: how different families of instruments produce different colors of sounds. This is the first part of a two-part lesson where we dissect and analyze the circle of fifths, the treasure map to music theory.

This is the second section of a two-part lesson where we dissect and analyze the circle of fifths, the treasure map to music theory. In the first half, we started learning about how this diagram maps out the relationships among the 12 unique tones of Western music. We examined its history and how it displays key signatures. Join me as we take a look at a few more functions of the circle of fifths.