Hey everyone! I’m trying something a little different: a bite-sized music theory lesson in the form of a video post. If this is something you enjoy/find useful and you’d like to see more of them, the BEST way to show me is to like, comment, and most importantly SHARE this post. This is the clearest indicator you can give me to let me know that this is the type of content you’d like to see more.
A Quick Introduction
Today’s video is about a chord called the V7 chord. If you’re writing music in a major or minor key, you can definitely make use of this chord to provide a strong resolution to a musical phrase or idea. It creates a sense of finality and arrival, because music is often a journey away from and a subsequence return to the “home” chord of the key you’re writing in.
Enough reading – on to the video!
Do you want more video posts like this?
This is sort of an experimental video. It’s not super high-tech. It’s not super professional-looking. But I hope it got the job done. If you found it useful and would like to see more content like this, make sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE on YouTube, and – most importantly – share this blog post and video! You can even use the conveniently-located social share buttons at the top of the post. The engagement through shares, likes, and comments is what tells me that this is the right kind of content to create for you: the VGM Academy community. Either way, let me know!
great lesson tnks 🙂
Thanks!
Love the idea of bite size theory lessons Dan. I feel perhaps a bit too much time is spent on explaining the V I cadence concept which is already well documented. It also meant that Super Mario and FF weren’t touched upon until after the halfway point, which given the title of the video you might expect that to be introduced a bit earlier. My two cents! Looking forward to more of these 🙂
Thanks for the constructive feedback, Sam! Much appreciated!
I’m not sure if it was just my phone, but there was significant delay between the video and audio. I think with some editing you could probably reduce the length of this video by half. When teaching stuff it’s very important to trim the fat. Reiterating important topics is valuable, but the first half seems like a bit much. Looking forward to more videos either way, it’s good information!
Hi Ben – thanks for the comment and feedback. I double-checked the audio/video and couldn’t reproduce the delay. Let me know if it persists. And thanks for the constructive feedback – I can definitely tighten things up a bit as I get more comfortable with the format!
Hi Dan! I recently found your other music theory posts and plowed through them and went “I wish there were more” so this post was a major treat. I really love the bite sized theory videos, you explain the concepts so well to a music theory novice like me. I’ve heard these concepts explained on other videos tons of times before but never really grasped the 7th chord theory until you explained it, you teach really well.
I know others have said to trim down the talking about the concept itself part, but honestly I really liked how much detail you put into explaining it. It made me understand the concept way more, but I am a music theory novice so maybe that’s just me. Either way, I’d like you to keep the length of time spent on talking about the theory part the way it is, but also would have liked to hear at least one of the pieces you were going to talk about before hand, then maybe go into the theory talk and then play the video game example again so we have a point of reference to go off of when we hear the vgm again.
I love these though, please do more! I learn theory a lot easier when it’s using video game music as examples XD
Hi Crystal! Thanks so much for the kind words and the feedback. I think there’s a happy medium to be found: I can definitely teach in a more concise way without sacrificing the detail or number of examples. It’ll just take some practice and editing! Perhaps it’s just a matter of having a quick explanation at first for people who want that, followed by a more in-depth explanation of the technique for those who need it or are interested in the mechanics of how/why certain things work. Thanks again!
I grow up playing with super mario and I find your post very interesting it reminds me of my childhood days. Thanks for this!