You've covered a lot of ground. Before we move on to chords, let's take a lap and make sure everything is solid. If anything below feels fuzzy, follow the links back and spend some time with it. There's no rush, and this is not a suggestion to be polite. We really mean it.

The concepts up to this point are all fairly straightforward, and it's tempting to read through a lesson, think "yeah, that makes sense," and move on. But there's a real difference between understanding something and having it be automatic. If you're still counting half steps to figure out an interval, or still working through the scale formula to name the notes in a key, you're going to struggle with chords and harmony. Not because those topics are harder conceptually, but because they assume you can do this stuff without thinking about it.

So if you're not confident with the material below, go back. Spend time with the trainers. A few minutes a day over a couple of weeks will do more for you than powering through the next three units in a weekend.

You learned that Western music uses 12 unique notes, arranged in a repeating pattern of half steps. A half step is the smallest distance between two notes. A whole step is two half steps. Notes that sound the same but have different names (like C# and Db) are called enharmonic.

You learned to read those notes on the staff — five lines and four spaces — using the treble clef and bass clef. Notes outside the staff sit on ledger lines.

Practice: Note Trainer | Notes quick reference

You learned that music is organized in time around a steady pulse, and that how fast or slow it moves is the tempo. Beats group into patterns of strong and weak called meter, and we write that down with a time signature.

You learned note values — whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth — and how ties, dots, and rests shape the rhythm. You learned the difference between simple meter (beats divide into 2) and compound meter (beats divide into 3). You learned what triplets are, how swing works, and how syncopation creates groove by accenting the unexpected.

Practice: Rhythm Trainer

You learned the major scale formula (W-W-H-W-W-W-H) and how it defines a key. You learned to read key signatures — the sharps or flats at the beginning of the staff — and the order they appear in. You learned three forms of the minor scale: natural, harmonic, and melodic.

You learned that every major key has a relative minor that shares its key signature, and that the Circle of Fifths maps out how all twelve keys relate to each other.

Practice: Scale Trainer | Key Signature Trainer | Scales quick reference | Key Signatures quick reference

You learned that the distance between any two notes is an interval, named with a number (how many letter names it spans) and a quality (perfect, major, or minor). You learned the three families: perfect intervals, major/minor intervals, and the tritone. And you learned that knowing your major scales gives you a shortcut to naming any interval.

Practice: Interval Trainer | Intervals quick reference

See how much stuck. This pulls from everything above.