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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Meet the fretboard
Six strings and twenty frets suggests a hundred and twenty notes. There are twelve. Everything else is a…
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Hands, posture and finger numbers
Nobody wants to spend time on this. It is worth ten minutes anyway, and here is the selfish…
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How many keys does a piano have?
Eighty-eight, and it does not matter. What matters is the pattern of black keys that tells you where…
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Chords are stacked intervals, nothing more
Take a note, skip a letter, take the next one. Every chord you will ever play is built…
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What is an interval in music?
An interval is the distance between two notes. It gets measured two ways at once, which is the…
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Barre chords: why they hurt and how to fix it
It is almost never grip strength. It is thumb position and where you place the finger.
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.