Music Theory Classes

Music Theory Classes
What's your experience?

Over at www.mymusictheory.com we had our largest number of guests ever last month, with over 14,000 unique visitors viewing the site - thank you all for stopping by! This got me wondering a little about who you are all are. We've got a small number of fans on Facebook now - you can become a fan by clicking the link in the Facebook box to the right of this article, and it's really nice to see some faces of people who use the site - and wonderful that the fans so far come from every corner of the globe! We've got a handful of fans from the UK, Malaysia and the USA, and fans from 14 other countries - not bad from only 31 fans!

It would be really interesting to know what brings you to the site. Are you taking music theory classes at school, or may be privately? Are you studying at university? Are you a teacher? Add a comment below and tell me why you use the site!

 I get a lot of lovely emails from guests to the site, and occasionally people ask me about my own background - how I got  into music theory studies and why I do the site for free, for example.

I never attended music theory classes as a kid (although I certainly did while studying music at university). I taught myself how to read music (treble clef) using a recorder book when I was about 7 or 8, I think, and then transferred what I'd learnt to playing the piano. The only problem was that I was still using recorder books, and was playing recorder duets as though they were written for piano! My left hand was expert in the treble clef, but I had no idea about the bass. I started piano lessons at about 10, and remember struggling at the start because I was so used to expecting the left hand to have a treble clef line! I soon added in clarinet lessons as well as French horn at school, and before long my piano teacher decided to get me started on music theory.  We spent a few minutes of each half hour lesson going through past papers, starting at grade 1, when I was around grade 2 on piano.

Meanwhile at school, music theory classes were so easy! I don't think we learnt anything about how to read music. I do remember watching "Mary Poppins" and other musicals, and messing about with percussion instruments. Even when I got to GCSE level, music theory wasn't taught in class - by that stage we were expected to know it already. I wonder if it's the only GCSE music where you are expected to learn the material outside of school? (Although I've heard that you don't even need to be able to read music to do a GCSE in it these days. I took mine in 1989, the second year after they were introduced. We did O level papers as practice exams, and they were so much harder!)

My piano teacher got me through all the past papers up to grade 5, and I remember being really nervous before the exam, even though I knew everything inside out! I got 96 out of 99 (it used to be marked out of 99 for some reason!) and still wonder what I lost those three marks on.

Ever since the first days of attempting the grade 1 past papers, I've just loved music theory. I like the fact that it combines the logical/mathematical with the artistic/creative in a way that very few other subjects do. I've been a teacher for the last 12 years, and apart from teaching music I'm also a qualified and experienced English teacher. I  run www.mymusictheory.com because I love teaching and nothing gives me more pleasure than being able to encourage others in their learning. I know that many music students don't get the tuition they need in their music theory classes at school, and often their instrument teachers don't have the time (and sometimes the knowledge) to train their students adequately, and that's a shame.

I've never met anyone who regrets studying music theory, classes at school or wherever. It increases your enjoyment of music, makes you a better performer, and is even really good for your brain - research has shown that doing activities which employ both halves of your brain (i.e. the logical and the creative) can actually increase your overall brain power - because such activities cause new neural links to grow between the two hemispheres.

So what about you - what do you (or don't you) get from your music theory classes, and what motivates you to learn music theory?

Video Lessons from Mymusictheory

I have had a lot of requests from people for some basic lessons in how to read music.
A lot of these requests are from adult choir members who are struggling with using a score in choir practice, and who would like to be able to understand the blobs and lines in front of them!

So, I've decided to produce a series of simple video tutorials which teach people how to read music. Each lesson will take just 5 minutes and will introduce a handful of ideas and then practise them. I've kept the commentary to a minimum on purpose - the best to learn is to watch, think, and then do.

A lot of the music lesson videos I've watched fail because they try to introduce too much new material too quickly - which is overwhelming for most people. Learning to read music takes practice and time. You need to do a little every day, and you will soon see results.

You'll also get to see my face and meet my cats!

The first lesson teaches the staff (or stave, if you prefer), the treble clef, and three notes: G, A and B.

Pentatonic Magic

Pentatonic
scales have only 5 notes in them.

Pentatonic scales are the basis of many folk songs across the world, and have been used for many hundreds of years. These days, pentatonic scales still feature heavily in pop music, and are a great springboard to improvise from.

The most common type of pentatonic scale is the one produced if you play only the black keys on a piano keyboard - C#, D#, F#, G# and A#. You can tranpose these notes and produce a pentatonic scale that starts on any note at all. If you start on C, you should play C, D, E, G, A.

Taking out the F and B of the usual C major scale, you're left with a handful of notes which sound good blended together in many different ways. F and B, making the interval of an augmented 4th or a diminished 5th, are harshly dissonant. When you eliminate these notes from the scale, the notes you're left with are really easy to improvise with (both melody and harmony), because you won't accidentally play these harsh discords. 

Last year, Bobby McFerrin (of "Don't worry, Be Happy" fame) demonstrated the magic of the pentatonic scale at the World Science Festival. Watch the video closely - how does the audience know which note to sing next?