Theory studio
A grounded, editorial tour through harmony, rhythm and composition. Twelve chapters with examples on the fretboard.
01How this course works
Each chapter mixes a short concept with hands on examples and exercises you can do today.
Plain language, no jargon. Five minutes to grasp the idea.
Every chapter shows the idea on a real fretboard so it sticks.
Three to five short drills that turn the concept into a skill.
Listen, play, create. The chapter ends with a small creative prompt.
02Table of contents
Every chapter stands on its own. Read in order or jump to what you need today.
Learn the seven natural notes, the five accidentals between them, and how this twelve note alphabet repeats across the fretboard.
Recognise the twelve intervals inside an octave by sound, by song reference, and by shape on the guitar.
Understand major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads as combinations of two thirds, and find them anywhere on the fretboard.
Stack triads on every degree of a major scale and you get the seven chords that power most popular music.
Recognise authentic, plagal, half, and deceptive cadences, and use them to shape phrases.
Major seventh, dominant seventh, minor seventh, half diminished, and diminished seventh, the five flavours that take you from folk into jazz.
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian. Learn each mode by character, not by formula.
Read time signatures, feel the pulse behind them, and understand how groove emerges from grouping beats.
Syncopation places accents off the beat. Swing reshapes pairs of eighth notes into a triplet feel. Both turn straight time into something alive.
Move each voice the shortest distance to the next chord and harmony stops sounding like a sequence and starts sounding like a story.
Borrow chords from the parallel minor (or major) to add unexpected colour while staying in your key.
A simple workflow for assembling a verse, a chorus, a bridge, and a coda, then deciding what to cut.
03Learning path
Read in order if you are starting out, or pick the lane that matches what you want to play next.
Notes, intervals, the alphabet of music.
Triads, diatonic chords, cadences, seventh chords, voice leading, modal mixture.
Seven moods of the same scale and how to actually use them.
Meter, syncopation and swing. The pulse behind every song.
Putting it all together into a song you can finish.
We saved your place in the chapter you were reading last. Pick up the thread when the moment is right.
