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Roman Numerals: Why

November 12, 2024 · Beat Kitchen · Music Theory

Music Theory

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Learn more in the Music Theory guide.

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Roman numerals in music theory — why we use them.

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- EAR-TRAINING-GYM: We explored ear training through deep listening to a single contemporary R&B track, using it as a lens for examining background vocals as independent instruments, arrangement and layering strategy, mix placement and reverb use, vocal delivery and articulation, and song form. The session was open dialogue throughout — students brought their own observations and we used them to go deeper into production craft, melody writing over static harmony, and how a song's emotional arc can be built through stacking and restraint rather than harmonic movement.
- OFFICE HOURS: So many audio questions today. alot about recording and mixing with busses
- OFFICE HOURS: We welcomed a new resident, Hind, who shared a compelling a cappella vocal work-in-progress featuring layered harmonies and an unconventional phrase structure (alternating bars of three, four, and five). The session became a wide-ranging conversation about developing a production ear — listening deeply to music you love, building shared vocabulary with collaborators, and honoring the raw energy of first ideas. We also touched on the unique perspective drummers bring to production, and how to communicate effectively with musicians when your vocabulary is still developing.
- OFFICE HOURS: We spent this afternoon's office hours digging into shoegaze guitar production — specifically how to build dense, washy reverb textures without washing out the mix — alongside a chord progression puzzle a student is working through. Covered the Abbey Road reverb bussing technique, compressor attack as a front-to-back placement tool, layering multiple reverb buses with different characters, and the Temperance reverb plugin's pitch-aware reverb capabilities. Also touched on AI vocal/instrument generation tools (Ace Studio, Cantai) and notation workflow in the context of large-scale music publishing.
- OFFICE HOURS: Worked through a range of student questions during open office hours, covering song transcription and chord analysis (using "Let" by Pine Grove as a live example), arrangement strategy for building and sustaining interest over time, the physics of consonance and dissonance, the harmonic series, equal temperament vs. just intonation, and the phenomenon of inharmonicity in piano strings. Also explored found sound and percussion identification, the relationship between rhythm and harmony across the frequency spectrum, and a demonstration of barometric data sonified as audio.
- THEORY-GYM: We wrapped up this morning's gym session with a discussion of rhythmic displacement and interlocking parts — why having elements of an arrangement land *off* the downbeat creates space, feel, and texture that a locked-in, unison arrangement simply can't. We also spent time on microphone selection for vocals, making the case that the "best" mic on paper is not always the right mic for a given voice, and that your ears and instincts are the most reliable tools you have.
- OFFICE HOURS: We used this afternoon's office hours to orient new and returning students, answer questions about course placement, and revisit the core ideas from the first Music Theory class. The central demonstration walked through the harmonic series on a live synthesizer with an equalizer, showing how a single note already contains the building blocks of a chord — and why certain inversions feel more stable than others due to physics, not convention. We also talked broadly about what music theory actually is: a language for shared experience, not a rulebook.
- INSTRUMENT-GYM: We worked through a foundational lead guitar technique session, starting with an alternate picking finger warm-up across all six strings from fret 1 to fret 12 and back. From there we covered two pentatonic scale shapes — the G pentatonic (starting at the 5th fret, visualized as a backwards "G" curve) and the A pentatonic (starting at the 3rd fret, visualized as a little house or "A" shape) — practicing each five times with strict alternate picking, then testing muscle memory without looking, then exploring free improvisation within each shape using bends, tremolos, rhythmic variation, and note-skipping. We closed with a preview of the homework: linking the G and A shapes together across the fretboard as the foundation for building a full fretboard map.
- OFFICE HOURS: We talked about some guitar problems that Christian was having, and also we talked about signal processing and gain staging. I referenced an article I wrote about 'The Gear of Shoegaze', as Christian was experimenting with getting that style tone for his guitar. We also discussed arrangements, listening habits, and also what synch agencies are and how they work with music in film.
- OFFICE HOURS: We introduced Hinde to some things about Beat Kitchen, and she got to meet Alee. We talked about what office hours are for, and ways to find things around Dischord. Alee and I talked about her song that she was working on and thinking of songwriting in terms of cycles of the year. Also possible beat kitchen meet ups!
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