Understanding music theory

Welcome to this resource! We are so pleased to share these open licensed educational materials, in which we deal with the building blocks of musical stave (sometimes known as staff) notation, a globally recognised language that is designed to communicate musical ideas. The particular ideas and concepts that we cover here include scale, and key, and harmonisation, and metre. The content has been devised to introduce the basic symbols and concepts the five-line stave, and to explain the ways that this notational system can be used to represent and also to analyse musical sounds. The materials cover topics such as pitches and scales, intervals, metre, proceeding to more sophisticated topics of key, time signature, harmonisation, cadence and modulation. While the materials in this book begin from foundational principles of Western tonal music notation, what we teach here is really not all elementary. For decades and decades, these topics have been explained many times over in different media: In music lessons and lectures and conversations, in concert halls and classrooms and homes; in educational television programmes; in informal homemade teaching materials by instrumental teachers; in textbooks and workbooks that can be found in bookshops and libraries around the world, and – for the past 20 years – in a proliferation of digital content and technologies. Our contribution in this particular resource includes video lectures and their transcripts, supporting text explanations and illustrations. We expect that you have your own reasons for seeking out this resource, and that every individual’s own prior musical experiences and background will create a unique context in which to make sense out of these materials. On this assumption, we have begun from basic first principles, but we have sought to explain the concepts behind each topic in a critical and thoughtful way. There are lots of reasons you might be interested in these resources. The open licensing means that both students and educators can make use of the audiovisual, text, and image sources that we share here. In terms of the content itself, the topics that we cover include practical skills and knowledge. Depending on your existing practice or interests, these skills could add an extra dimension or understanding to your musical life. Gaining fluency in both reading and using music notation might give you access to new repertoires or deepen your