Music theory that finally makes sense.
Free, plain-English lessons for piano and guitar players who want to understand what they’re playing — not just copy it.
Pick your way in
Three doors into the same room
Theory is one subject. How you meet it depends on what’s in your hands.
Piano
Start at the keyboard. Note names, hand position, reading two staves at once, and your first real chords.
Piano lessons →Guitar
Start at the fretboard. Open chords, how tab actually works, and why the neck is laid out the way it is.
Guitar lessons →Music theory
The part that connects both instruments. Scales, intervals, keys and chords — the rules underneath the songs.
Theory lessons →The path · in order
Each one only makes sense after the last
Most people quit theory because they started in the middle. This is the order it actually builds in.
Read the staff
Note names, clefs, ledger lines. Where the dots live and what they mean.
Rhythm and time
Note values, time signatures, and counting out loud without losing your place.
Intervals
The distance between two notes — the single idea everything else is built from.
Scales and keys
Major, minor, and why a key signature saves you writing sharps all day.
Chords
Triads, sevenths, inversions. Stacked intervals, nothing more mysterious than that.
Progressions
Why chords move where they move, and how to hear it coming in songs you know.
Latest lessons
Written for the question you actually typed
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Hands together
The genuinely hard part of the piano. What makes it manageable is refusing to do it all at…
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Your first chords
Four shapes in the left hand, and the keyboard stops being an exercise and starts being music.
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Strumming and rhythm
Your left hand knows the chords. Your right hand is the reason it still does not sound like…
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Your first open chords
Four chords, and thousands of songs open up. The shapes take an afternoon — moving between them is…
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Holding it, and why your fingertips hurt
Sore fingertips are normal and temporary. A tired wrist is not, and it will not fix itself.
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Meet the fretboard
Six strings and twenty frets suggests a hundred and twenty notes. There are twelve. Everything else is a…
Practice tools
Things to use, not just read
Open in the browser. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.
One lesson a week
Tuesdays, ten minutes, one idea
A short practical lesson in your inbox — with the exercise to go with it. No theory for theory’s sake.