NotePlayMusicShort music theory and history videos
One idea per video, in under a minute. Watch an explainer, then try the matching practice or tutorial.
Music theory
Why does F major have a B♭?
Hear the major scale pattern, watch it break when you start on F, and see why one flat in the key signature fixes it.
Why does 3/4 feel like a waltz?
Hear Happy Birthday lean on beat one, hear it limp when forced into four, and see what the two numbers of 3/4 mean.
Stop counting lines: read treble clef with 3 landmarks
Learn middle C, treble G and top F, then read any nearby note by stepping line, space, line from the closest landmark.
Why does G major have an F♯?
Play G major on white keys, hear the tone and semitone land the wrong way round, and watch one black key fix the pattern.
Happy or sad? One note decides
Hear C major turn into C minor when one note drops a semitone, then hear the same change in Frère Jacques.
Remember every Grade 1 key signature
Count five notes up from C for G and D major, five down for F major, then see how the Grade 2 minor keys share those signatures.
Stop counting lines: read bass clef with 3 landmarks
Learn bottom G, bass F and middle C, then read any nearby note by stepping line, space, line from the closest landmark.
Music history
The tune Grieg hated
Why Grieg hated his troll music, and how one short tune played faster and louder shows accelerando and crescendo.
Never play this at your wedding
"Here comes the bride" is from Wagner's Lohengrin, where the marriage is over by morning, and a royal wedding in 1858 made it the world's wedding song.
The loudest joke in classical music
Haydn wrote a gentle tune, then hit the audience with one fortissimo chord, all to beat his own former student. The story behind the Surprise Symphony, from pp to ff.
Für Elise probably wasn't for Elise
Beethoven never published Für Elise, the manuscript is lost, and the name may be a misreading. Was it for Therese Malfatti, or a singer called Elise?
Beethoven never heard his greatest music
Beethoven's hearing began to fail in his late twenties. The secret 1802 letter, the masterpieces he wrote while going deaf, and the 1824 premiere of the Ninth where he could only see the applause.