Terms of use

The rules for using this site, and what is and is not promised.

Last updated on September 23, 2026.

Purpose

These terms govern access to and use of musictheory.center, published by Felix Kohler. Using the site means accepting them as they stand when you use it. If you do not accept them, do not use the site.

They are completed by the legal notice and the privacy policy, which are part of them.

Access

The site is free, open to everyone, and needs no account. The cost of the equipment and the connection used to reach it is yours.

It is provided on a best-efforts basis. Access may be suspended for maintenance, changed or withdrawn without notice, and no compensation is owed for an interruption.

Acceptable use

Using the site, you undertake not to:

disrupt it, overload it, or interfere with how it is served to others;
circumvent or probe its technical protections;
extract its content in bulk by automated means beyond what the published machine-readable files (/llms.txt, /llms-full.txt and /sitemap.xml) offer;
reuse its content beyond quotation without the permission described in the legal notice;
use it for anything unlawful.

The content

The lessons, chapters and reference pages are written for teaching. They are checked with care and offered in good faith, without any guarantee that they are exhaustive, current or fit for a particular purpose.

Music theory is in large part a set of conventions rather than laws. Where this site states a convention, it says so; where practice differs between traditions and teachers, it is not the site that is right and your teacher who is wrong.

Messages and suggestions

If you send a suggestion or a correction, you allow it to be used to improve the site, free of charge and without that making you a co-author of it. You are asked not to send anything confidential, and nothing you do not have the right to share.

Intellectual property

The site and everything written, engraved and programmed for it are protected. What may be reused, and how, is set out in the intellectual-property article of the legal notice.

Liability

To the extent the law permits, the publisher is not liable for indirect loss arising from the use of the site, nor for a fault in your own equipment or connection.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for wilful misconduct or gross negligence, for personal injury, or any liability of which a consumer cannot lawfully be deprived.

Changes

These terms may change. The version that applies is the one published when you use the site, and the date at the top says when it was last changed.

Applicable law and disputes

These terms are governed by French law.

Any dispute is first to be raised at mail@musictheory.center, so that it can be settled amicably. Failing that, and as a consumer, you may bring proceedings before the court of the place where you lived when the contract was concluded or where the harmful event occurred, as article R631-3 of the Consumer Code allows.

These terms are published in English, French and Spanish; should the versions diverge, the French one prevails.