Saturday, April 16, 2011

News

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post for mymusictheory- I just noticed that the last one was about Christmas presents, so this post is long overdue!

What's been happening with the site?
Membership is growing steadily - as I write we have 944 registered users of the site - thank you all for your interest and support! Likewise the Facebook MyMusicTheory fanpage is constantly growing and just passed the 300 fans mark! If you haven't registered or "liked" us yet, you might be wondering what the point is. If you register as a member (free) you will receive irregular emails about updates to the site, for example when a new course is published or old materials are updated. You need to be a registered member if you want to buy any downloads. If you become a fan on Facebook, you'll also get news and links related to music and music theory, including news of worldwide projects, competitions and innovations.

New material on the site
We recently published the exercises for the grade 4 music theory course, which means that we now have the whole of grades 1-5 covered in terms of courses and exercises. A lot of people email me asking when grade 6 (or 7 & 8) are going to be finished, and the answer is always "how long is a piece of string!" I work on the site whenever I get a moment, but I find myself with less and less free time, having two small children! For those desperate to get started with grade 6 and needing some assistance, don' t forget you can always ask questions in the mymusictheory forum, or you could use our paid marking service to have your work corrected.

Book Recommendations
Finally I'd like to recommend a book I finished reading recently:

The Singing Neanderthals by Steven Mithen

This book examines where music and song come from, from an evolutionary point of view. What use is music for the survival of our species - why did we evolve to be able to sing and dance, and to experience emotion through music, when no other mammals appear to have these traits? What connection do music and language have, and which came first? It's a fascinating look into the past and very well written.

Suitable for anyone aged 15+ who has an interest in music.