OT: Fundamentals of Music Theory

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dubdisciple
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Re: OT: Fundamentals of Music Theory 2014/08/20 13:41:00 (permalink)
mettelus
dubdisciple
I'm already behind on this course. I may just peak in  get fully immersed next time it is offered


Hey Dub, this class is actually structured very oddly... it has no assignments, only quizzes and a final exam... and all things are due on the same date - August 24th!! Someone familiar with the staff already could come in late and finish it pretty easily.
 
Caveat to this - each week has about 30 minutes of pre-done videos, but they are adding additional ones for further explanation based on the forums. I also made a suggestion to shift interval explanation into week 1 and explicitly tell students that quizzes are not "due" on a given week, since the following weeks clarify information (although they did drop a couple pieces of info in Week 2 and said "this will be explained further in Week 4"). Based on this syllabus being in its infancy, waiting may make for a better structured course.
 
My concern with this course from an instructional standpoint if for the true novices in the class... some have no musical background at all, so the "brief mentions" of significant topics have been why I have been posting in the forums there. Week 1 trundled many novices since they present the stave (symmetrical) yet never correlate that to the chromatic scale (asymmetrical), then quizzed students on the stave and where the m2's are (yikes!!). The comedy is in these MOOC's, folks in the forums will contradict before expounding info... if you want a chuckle, read my "The black keys matter!" in there.


I resorted to downloading all vids to watch later. Just too overwhelmed at the moment.
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mettelus
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Re: OT: Fundamentals of Music Theory 2014/08/22 08:06:51 (permalink)
dubdisciple
I resorted to downloading all vids to watch later. Just too overwhelmed at the moment.


Given the infancy (and criticisms) of this course, that is probably the best option. I have no doubt in the level of knowledge of the instructors, but the format of the class could be significantly better. The course is geared more to analysis than application (composition), although much of this can be inferred from the material presented.
 
The final is not necessary to "complete" the course (I did choose to blow it off in lieu of doing composition work on another piece), and supposedly a key will be posted (so definitely download that too if it is). The example they did post was rather sketchy, so I am very interested in seeing a detailed solution (not sure if we will get what I am expecting though). I did learn a lot of things I should examine further because of the course, and one person did post a thread with 3 music theory white papers (I downloaded them if you want them).
 
An interesting point with the final - someone scanned the score into MuseScore (I believe) then posted it, along with a MIDI file. I pulled the MIDI into SONAR and copied/pasted the 4 instruments into a single track (set to violin)and printed out the sheet music (treble/bass clef only) which significantly reduced the "chord analysis," since it now looks like a simple sheet of piano music. I was hesitant to offer this in the forums, as I am assuming that a "DAW" is foreign to many in there and time is a commodity in rare supply. Although I didn't do further analysis, it gave me a good opportunity to stretch my MIDI usage of SONAR, which is always a good thing.
 
Aside with SONAR - I remember sharke asked about Cakewalk's "Chord Analyzer" MFX a while ago, and I have that installed (possibly from Producer 7?). This was the first time I ever used it, and when the 4 MIDI tracks were combined, it does rather nicely (including inversions) for a MIDI track. I "thought" this was still in the X versions, but not sure now?? Very neat MFX though!

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DeeringAmps
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Re: OT: Fundamentals of Music Theory 2014/08/22 09:15:15 (permalink)
The circle of 5th's "Hey Joe" The Leaves.
Music Theory is the way "lesser" players/writers explain what "better" players/writers do.
I have to agree with Noel, nothing taught by rote leads to creativity; in my experience anyway.
The fundamental concept of Algebra is:
if A=B and B=C then A and C are equal.
Simple logic, and the way I approach life.
Of course and then there's this:
 
When I find myself in time of trouble
Yoko Ono comes to me.
Speaking Japanese to Lassie.
Let Lassie, let Lassie, etc.
 
When all the broken hearted Beatles
living in the world agree
There can be no answer
Let Lassie
 
Tom

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