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Beginner

First Steps

The absolute basics — notes, scales, intervals, and how chords are built.

By the end You'll be able to read a lead sheet and understand the notes, scales, intervals, and chords behind it.

Begin with “Pitch and the Chromatic Scale” →
  1. 1 Pitch and the Chromatic Scale Pitch is just frequency — how fast a sound wave vibrates — and the chromatic scale is what you get when you divide one octave of pitch into the smallest steps Western music uses: t… foundations tier 1 →
  2. 2 Half Steps and Whole Steps Every scale, chord, and melodic line in jazz is built from just two distances: the half step and the whole step. Get these two intervals into your ear and your hands, and you have… foundations tier 1 →
  3. 3 Intervals An interval is just the distance between two notes — how far one pitch sits from another. Everything you play or hear in jazz is built from these distances: a chord is a stack of i… foundations tier 1 →
  4. 4 The Major Scale The major scale is the ruler jazz musicians measure everything against. Every chord extension you'll ever name — a 9th, an 11th, a ♯11, a ♭13 — is defined as a distance from this s… foundations tier 1 →
  5. 5 Scale Degrees Scale degrees are the numbered addresses of notes in a scale, counted from the tonic (the "home" note, degree 1). They exist so musicians never have to think in absolute pitch name… foundations tier 1 →
  6. 6 Key Signatures A key signature is a shorthand: instead of writing a sharp or flat next to a note every single time it appears, you declare it once, at the start of the staff, and it holds for the… foundations tier 1 →
  7. 7 The Circle of Fifths The Circle of Fifths is a map of all twelve pitches arranged by the interval that binds Western tonal music together: the perfect fifth. It looks like a clock face and gets taught… foundations tier 1 →
  8. 8 The Natural Minor Scale The natural minor scale is the sound of minor in its plainest form — no altered notes, no borrowed tension, just the dark mirror image of The Major Scale. It's also the baseline ev… foundations tier 1 →
  9. 9 Triads A triad is three notes stacked in thirds: root, third, fifth. It's the smallest unit that can sound like a complete chord rather than just an interval, and every richer harmony in… foundations tier 1 →
  10. 10 Seventh Chords A seventh chord is a triad with one more note stacked on top: another third, landing a 7th above the root. That single added note is why jazz doesn't really run on triads the way c… foundations tier 1 →
  11. 11 Chord Symbols A chord symbol is a compressed instruction, not a full score. It tells a player the root, the quality, any extensions or alterations, and sometimes a bass note — and then gets out… foundations tier 1 →
  12. 12 Lead Sheets A lead sheet is the minimum viable score for a jazz tune: one line of melody, a string of Chord Symbols above it, sometimes lyrics below. That's it. It exists because jazz assumes… foundations tier 1 →

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