#theory
- Alternative tunings — chip music outside 12-TET conceptTwelve equal semitones per octave is a choice, not a law, and on most chips it is a choice made by a lookup table in the ROM rather than by the hardware. Change the table and every note in the tracker moves — the …
- Chord inversions and voice leading conceptAny chord tone can be the lowest note. Take minor 0 3 7 , move the bottom note up an octave and re-measure from the new lowest note:
- Chord progressions conceptChords have jobs: degree 1 ( tonic ) is home, degree 5 ( dominant ) pulls back home, degree 4 ( subdominant ) is the scenic route between them. Most songs are clever trips away from home and back. Written as scale …
- Diatonic chords — why it is not always 0 3 7 conceptA triad = root + a third + a fifth, but "a third" comes in two sizes (minor +3, major +4) and the fifth is usually +7, sometimes +6 or +8:
- Harmonic series and overtones conceptEvery pitched sound is a stack of sine waves at whole-number multiples of one frequency. The lowest is the fundamental — the note you hear — and the ones above it are its harmonics (or overtones, or partials). Their …
- Rhythm and groove in 16 rows conceptIn 4/4 with 16 rows per bar, rows 0 and 8 are the strong beats, 4 and 12 medium, everything else weak: 0 > 8 > 4, 12 > the rest . Notes on weak positions — especially just before a strong beat — create syncopation , the …
- Scales and modes — your palette of notes conceptA scale is a subset of the 12 semitones written as offsets from a root. Stay inside the set and almost everything you play fits together. Changing the root of the same scale type is transposing; the pattern of numbers …
- Semitones — the only unit you need conceptOne semitone = one step in a tracker 's note column = one piano key (black and white counted equally). Every interval, chord and scale is a pattern of semitone distances, which is why tracker arps are written as numbers …
- Serial composition — rows, retrograde, inversion conceptSerial (twelve-tone) technique orders the 12 semitones into a row and forbids repeating any note "until he has passed through all the other notes of his 'row'"; it evolved in the 20th century "as the final stage of …
- Writing melodies that work conceptTwo questions decide a melody note: is it in the current chord? and is it on a strong beat? Chord tones on strong beats (rows 0, 4, 8, 12 of a 16-row bar) make the melody sound anchored; non-chord scale notes are …
- 0 3 7 lab toolA single-file browser app ( 037-lab.html , lives in ../037-lab next to this wiki) that teaches music theory in semitones for tracker musicians, built by m64. Named after the question "is the chip-arp formula 0 3 7 the …
- Greg Heo personAuthor of the five-part "Introduction to Musical Theory" in traxweekly #74–#86 (October 1996 – January 1997), covering the elements of music, dynamics and texture, musical form and cadences, key signatures and scales, …
- Leviathan personMusician of Renaissance and kosmic who wrote traxweekly 's first article, "Modal and Chord Theory" (#1, 12 March 1995) — a modal chart and degree-based chord formulas for the self-taught (source: …
- shawnm (Shawn, NOISE) personHead of the Quebec group New Objectives In Sound Exploration ( noise-group ), an orchestral-percussion student at McGill who tracked in scream-tracker-3 and preached ear over theory and "do what you hear" over the …
- Vegas (T.J. Lerner) personMusician of the group Mystique in 1996, an impulse-tracker user who saved as S3M, and one of the scene's pro-theory voices. The main source for this page is his TraxWeekly interview of June 1996 (source: …
- 0 3 7 lab — techniques & theory (summary) summaryProse and data extracted from 037-lab , a single-file browser app that teaches music theory in semitones for tracker musicians. Twelve "chip & tracker techniques" cards, eight theory cards, an interval table and the …
- TW #1 — Modal and Chord Theory (Leviathan) summaryThe very first TraxWeekly article, written because "a lot of the self-taught musicians out there were really only composing by ear" ( leviathan ).
- TW #107 — Layman's Music Theory, part one (Zinc) summaryzinc , who has "absolutely no formal music training", writes the theory primer he wished existed: how to spell a triad from interval qualities. No further parts followed in the archive's TOC.
- TW #18 — Advanced Tracking Tips III: voicings (Necros) summaryHow necros turns a flat C–F–Dm–G progression, tracked as three root-position triads per chord, into C9 | Fadd2/C | Dm7 | Gsus4–G.
- TW #21 — Tracking Tips (Dan Hartrell) summaryA 14-year-old Mazurka member's beginner lesson, built around a hypothetical newbie called Studly, on why melodies need scales and rhythm — with the scale formulas written as tracker keyboard steps.
- TW #39–40 — Chord Theory? / Chord What? (Maelcum, Trixter, Basehead) summarySparked by Atlantic's review in #37 reporting a #trax argument (Aahz, basehead and necros vs. a tracker who said "chord theory is not required to write good music").
- TW #41 — Interview with Shawn (shawnm / NOISE) summaryDennisC interviews Shawn (IRC nick shawnm ), head of the small group New Objectives In Sound Exploration ( NOISE ), an orchestral-percussion student who tracks in scream-tracker-3 . The same shawnm wrote "Serial …
- TW #46 — Serial Composition (shawnm / NOISE) summaryA short introduction to twelve-tone technique plus a 1994 music-history essay on Anton Webern, offered to the scene as "just another compositional technique to take into account". The author is shawnm , the Shawn of …
- TW #50 — Aesthetics of Composition and Music Groups (Spyder / NOISE) summaryAn opinion piece from #trax conversations about music groups and "the philosophy about composition practices", written after one year of tracking.
- TW #62 — Interview with Vegas (Kal Zakath and Kleitus) summaryKal Zakath (jtown) and Kleitus interview vegas of Mystique, an IRC capture from "several weeks" before NAID '96; the preface adds that his NAID entry "The Path Taken" was selected by the jury and finished 15th, and that …
- TW #7 — The Importance of Music Theory (Future Assassin) summaryA personal essay by an 18-year-old tracker who plays by ear and never had a lesson — the earliest traxweekly piece in the theory-versus-ear argument that flared up again in #37–#40 ( s-tw039-chord-theory-debate ).
- TW #74–86 — Introduction to Musical Theory, vols 1–5 (Greg Heo) summaryA beginner's theory course written for trackers by greg-heo , who admits "I'm not an experienced tracker" but had a music teacher's vocabulary. Every example is given in tracker terms.
- TW #80 — #trax Mass Interview (Zinc) summaryzinc interviewed "every non-idler in #trax at once", collecting answers by private message so nobody saw the others'. Mostly banter; a few questions produce usable scene data.
- TW #87–#97 — Music Theory: A Modern Approach (The Modsquad, seven parts) summaryThis is satire , the sequel to the chiptune "seminar" of #77–#81 ( s-tw077-chip-off-the-block ): fake gear lists ("$450 TB-202", a Speak & Spell), "musical DNA", Elvis, juggling raves, a prison inmate given …