music fundamentals Archives - Richard Kahn Music

Tonic, Dominant, Subdominant: The Three Primary Colors of Harmony

By Richard Kahn | August 14, 2026 |

Blue, yellow, red wooden blocks casting shadows

The primary chords of any key — tonic, dominant, and subdominant — are the three foundational harmonies from which all Western tonal music is built.

The Triad: Western Harmony’s Core Unit

By Richard Kahn | July 24, 2026

Lit candle on carved wooden tripod stool

If rhythm is the time dimension of music and melody is the pitch dimension, then harmony is the depth dimension — the vertical stacking of pitches that gives…

The Major Scale: Seven Steps to Anywhere

By Richard Kahn | July 7, 2026

Sunlit circular skylight with spiral concrete ribs

A scale is not a melody. It is an ordered inventory of the pitches available in a given key — the pool from which melodies, harmonies, and progressions are…

Intervals: The Building Blocks of Melody and Harmony

By Richard Kahn | July 3, 2026

Two trapeze artists reaching across dark tent

An interval is the distance between two pitches. It is the most fundamental measurement in music theory — the unit from which melodies are constructed…

Sharps, Flats, and the Enharmonic Twins

By Richard Kahn | June 19, 2026

Queen of Spades playing card with candles

The musical alphabet has seven letters — A through G — and the piano keyboard has twelve distinct pitches per octave.

The Piano Keyboard: Twelve Keys, Infinite Music

By Richard Kahn | June 16, 2026

Row of glass bottles filled with colored liquids

The piano keyboard is Tool Number Two, and it is the most important physical diagram in the study of Western music theory.

The Staff: Music’s Map of Sound

By Richard Kahn | June 9, 2026

Birds on power lines over rolling green hills

The staff is Tool Number One — the primary surface on which Western music is written and read.

Time Signatures: The Blueprint Behind Every Beat

By Richard Kahn | June 5, 2026

Drafting compass and ruler on architectural blueprint

At the beginning of a piece of music — just after the clef, before the first note — sits a fraction that is not quite a fraction.

Notes, Rests, and the Language of Duration

By Richard Kahn | June 2, 2026

Small spiky animal on red dirt

Every sound has a beginning and a length. Those two facts — when a sound starts and how long it lasts — are the raw material of rhythm.

What Is Music? Sound, Silence, and Measured Time

By Richard Kahn | May 29, 2026

Person walking across snowy landscape at sunrise

Here is the most stripped-down definition of music you will ever encounter, and also the most durable: music is sound and silence in time.

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