How Music Really Works: Understanding Melody and the Home Key

If you’ve ever struggled with melody, keys, or why certain notes just feel right, I want to share a book that genuinely changed how I hear music: How Music Really Works by Wayne Chase.

I’m not usually someone who picks up a theory book for fun. Most books explain music through notation, classical terminology, or abstract concepts that don’t translate well to electronic production. But this one was different. It explained melody and “home” in a way that finally made sense – not academically, but musically.

Why This Book Clicked When Others Didn’t

Most theory books start with scales, key signatures, or reading notation. Chase starts with something far more useful:

How the ear recognises where “home” is – even if you don’t know the key name.

He explains the home key as a psychological centre, not a theoretical rule. You learn why certain notes feel resolved, why others feel unstable, and why melodies naturally gravitate back to certain tones.

As someone who writes by instinct, this was the first time a book reflected what I was actually feeling in a DAW.

Melody Explained Through Shape and Emotion

What I loved – and what I think a lot of producers will appreciate – is how the book breaks melody down into:

• Contour (the shape of the line)

• Steps over leaps (why most great melodies move smoothly)

• Repetition and variation

• Motifs (small ideas that become the hook)

There’s very little jargon. No rules for the sake of rules. Just clear reasoning about why certain choices connect emotionally.

A Practical Understanding of the Home Key

The part that stayed with me was how he explained the home key.

Not as:

• A key signature

• A scale

• Or a music theory concept

But as something the listener feels.

You start to recognise that the tonic isn’t just “the first note of a scale” – it’s an anchor point. Everything in the melody either pulls away from it or circles back to it.

It’s the first time I really understood why some notes feel like tension and others feel like release. And once you see it that way, writing melodies becomes clearer and a lot more intentional.

Why This Book Works So Well for Electronic Producers

What sets this book apart is that it’s written for people who make music by ear, instinct, and curiosity.

It’s about patterns, listener psychology, and emotional pull – all things electronic producers rely on.

How This Book Is Seen by Trained Theorists (and Why That’s Fine)

It’s worth saying this: How Music Really Works isn’t universally loved in academic music theory circles.

Some trained theorists take issue with Chase’s terminology or frameworks. He uses language that doesn’t always line up with standard theory textbooks, and he sometimes presents ideas as fresh discoveries that, to a formally trained ear, overlap with long-established concepts. From that angle, the book can feel idiosyncratic, non-standard, or even a bit provocative.

And honestly – that criticism isn’t entirely wrong.

But here’s the important distinction.

Most trained theory criticism comes from a world of notation, formal analysis, and institutional consistency. Chase is coming from a different place entirely: how music actually feels to a listener.

For people like me – producers who learned by listening, experimenting, and following instinct rather than sitting exams – that shift in focus is exactly why the book works.

I don’t need a perfectly standardised vocabulary if the idea makes my melodies land better. I don’t care whether a concept already exists under another name if it suddenly clicks in my head and improves my writing.