Learn keys for electronic music

A keyboard course for people who make electronic music. No notation and no songs to learn: shapes, distances and patterns you can use straight away for leads, chords, pads, basslines and arps, in whatever key your project is in. Take the placement quiz to see where to start, begin at section 1, or go straight to the jam room.

12 sections and 173 interactive exercises that check your playing, with a MIDI keyboard, the on-screen keys or a phone. Free, no account.

Take the placement quiz Open the course Open the jam room

Sections

• 1. Finding your way – Black-key landmarks, note names, octaves and Live’s numbering, semitones, and how keys compare with frets and Push pads.
• 2. Fingers and time – Finger numbers and the five-finger position, playing with a click, 8th notes, and velocity accents.
• 3. Scales as safe zones – Minor pentatonic, the black-key scale, natural minor, Dorian, and transposing instead of changing key.
• 4. Every key, part 1: the black-key ladder – Which black keys each key uses, and the order they join in. E, D, B and G minor, finding home fast, key-flash drills.
• 5. Every key, part 2: busy keys and any key – F♯, C, C♯, F, B♭, E♭ and G♯ minor, Dorian, Phrygian and harmonic minor, all-twelve drills and improvising in a random key.
• 6. Chords from shapes – Triads by counting semitones, the chords in a key, inversions, voice leading, major keys, and the same loop in any key.
• 7. Pad voicings – Sevenths, ninths, add9 and sus2, leaving out the root, two-hand voicings, the one-shape stab, pedal notes and fourths shapes.
• 8. Stabs and rhythm – Chord stabs on a 16-step grid: on and off the beat, syncopation, short and held stabs, swing, triplets and shuffle, and any key.
• 9. Basslines – Left-hand roots, octave bass, root and fifth, approach notes, legato for glide, and improvised lines that land on the root.
• 10. Arps and loops – Broken chords by hand, feeding an arpeggiator, triplet arps, odd-length figures that drift against the bar, and looping motifs.
• 11. Leads and improvising – Playing back by ear in any key, motifs, call and response, space, landing on chord tones, expression, and 16 bars in any key.
• 12. Two hands – One hand holds while the other moves, bass with stabs, bass with a lead, splits, capturing ideas in Live, and a recorded 16-bar take.

Patchpad is a free reference of drum patterns, synth patches and reminders, written for a selection of real hardware.