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Small Bites

Content from our social media — music theory, songwriting, engineering, mixing, synthesis, and more — collected in one place. If you saw something on our page and want to find it again, it's here. Read it, search it, share it.

Featured Bite

Major Key Don't Assume: picardy third

Don’t assume that just because you start off in a minor key, that you have to end up in one.

Unexpected Minor Endings

Here are three unexpected ways to end a song in a minor key.

songwriting finish

Raise your hand if you get stuck finishing a song.

Survivor Bias

You can’t learn how to be lucky, but you can learn a lot from failure.

Cat Gut

Cat gut? No. Despite what you may have heard, instruments are not strung with cat gut. Neither are tennis rackets. They never have been. Sheep gut? Sure, but not cat.…

Video thumbnail: If you ever played a pretty chord progression in a minor key and then just switched to a major at...

Picardy Third

If you ever played a pretty chord progression in a minor key and then just switched to a major at the end, you probably just played a pickerty third.

Video thumbnail: I didn’t make something clear when I said the difference for me in moving from tape to digital was...

Certification

I didn’t make something clear when I said the difference for me in moving from tape to digital was in that pause when you had to rewind after you did a take.

Video thumbnail: What do you do with a diminished chord?

where does a diminished chord go

Where does a diminished chord resolve? The passing, leading-tone, and auxiliary functions that make diminished chords useful — not just theoretical.

Weather Sonification

84 years of barometric data from NOAA, sped up 26 octaves. Every hurricane, every northeaster, every season — turned into sound.

The Six dB Trick

Tricking yourself is just not a good long-term strategy.

Explain Compression and Sidechain in thirty seconds

When the TV is on too loud and you turn it down, you are acting like a compressor.

Video thumbnail: You’re setting yourself up for disappointment if every time you sit down to make something, you...

Iterate

You’re setting yourself up for disappointment if every time you sit down to make something, you expect to make something great.

Songwriting: top down bottom up

It’s only fair that I tell you what I mean when I say bottom up or top down songwriting.

Video thumbnail: If you ever notice that six steps up the scale this is a major sixth but if we invert it this...

Interval Inversions

If you ever notice that six steps up the scale this is a major sixth but if we invert it this becomes part of a minor chord.

polarity and phase

One thing that tends to confuse new engineers is the difference between phase and polarity.

All Bites

Showing 12 of 610 articles (Page 50 of 51)

Video thumbnail: Hey, Producers! You need to know a little music theory. I’m going to be hosting a free Zoom...

Hey Producers! You need to learn some music theory

Hey, Producers! You need to know a little music theory. I’m going to be hosting a free Zoom workshop on the intersection of harmony and acoustics. …

Take yourself to work day

Good morning. Let’s make today take yourself to work day. At least let’s strive to make every day a day where you do what you love and where you love…

Tools

There is no best microphone.

Video thumbnail: Even if you have no interest in electronic music, if you want to get into music production, the...

Synthesis is the language of sound

Even if you have no interest in electronic music, if you want to get into music production, the language of synthesis is the language of sound.

Studio Hack

Two things in the studio you’ll never find me without.

Sine Waves?

So producers were always talking about sine waves, but what are they?

What does weather sound like

Human beings hear between about 20 hertz and 20,000 cycles per second.

Video thumbnail: I’m Nathan and I’m the founder of Beat Kitchen and I really hope you’ve enjoyed this little piece...

This and this

I’m Nathan and I’m the founder of Beat Kitchen and I really hope you’ve enjoyed this little piece on music theory.

Chord Identification: Step 3

Today is part three in our series on identifying chords and we’re looking at the edge cases.

Chord Identification: Step 1

Three steps to identifying a chord.

Video thumbnail: Chord ID part 2. With the chord in its root position, most chords are going to sit solidly within...

Chord Identification: Step 2

Chord ID part 2. With the chord in its root position, most chords are going to sit solidly within these two pillars of a perfect fifth. This is a …

Video thumbnail: Yesterday in class one of the students brought in a sweet Thundercat song called Dragon Ball Durag...

Thundercat Chords

Yesterday in class one of the students brought in a sweet Thundercat song called Dragon Ball Durag and it’s a great example of chords that are just …