Music Theory

A strong understanding of the theory of music and how musical ideas are written down is rewarding in and of itself. This comprehension can also improve musical performance and practise techniques

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Working through Trinity College London's Graded workbooks (and my own supplementary materials), my sessions cover:

• Introduction to musical notation

• Time signatures, rhythm and meter

• Staves and Clefs: Treble, Tenor, Alto, Bass

• Scales, keys, scale degrees, and transposition

• Modality, key signatures and relative keys

• Composition of melody

• Musical terms / symbols etc.

• Chords, triads, inversions, figured bass, cadences etc.

• Musical structure and tonal analysis

• Texture: harmony and counterpoint, canonic and fugal writing

• Avant garde music: atonality and polytonality

Understanding of these areas underpins musicality, and allows musicians of all types to communicate with one another in writing. It is possible, of course, to learn a language without learning how it is written down, but knowing the latter makes working within that language a whole lot easier!