Finding home

You can already do this, even if you have never studied music. When a song ends properly, you know. When it stops in the wrong place, you feel it — something is unfinished, and nobody has to tell you.

Listen. Four notes climbing, and the last one lands somewhere settled.

That landing place is the tonic, and musicians usually just call it home. Every key has one, and it is the note the others are all measured against.