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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Getting Started With Music Theory by Michigan State University

4.5
stars
731 ratings

About the Course

This course is a brief introduction to the elements of music theory for those with little or no music theory experience. We will explore pitch, rhythm, meter, notation, scales, keys, key signatures, meter signatures, triads, seventh chords, and basic harmony. If you listen to music or play music by ear, and you want to know more about how music is organized and notated, this course is for you. By the end of the course, you should know all major and minor keys, how to read and write in treble and bass clef using standard meters and rhythmic values, and how to notate and harmonize a simple melody. This course can serve as a stand-alone basic music theory course, or it can be a springboard to more advanced theory and composition courses. Your instructor is Bruce Taggart, Associate Professor of Music Theory at Michigan State University, in the College of Music, where he has taught undergraduate and graduate music theory since 1996....

Top reviews

WV

Aug 20, 2020

Course was quite tough , eventually I had given up on this course, but consistency made me learn and I went through rigorous learning in finding the chords and middle C notes. Yes I made it in the end

CM

Jul 22, 2020

Fantastic lectures and very easy-to-understand, hard to master lessons. This course will leave you with a much deeper understanding of music if you are a beginner to music theory like I am.

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26 - 50 of 269 Reviews for Getting Started With Music Theory

By milad n

Jan 24, 2021

is was great cours for me specially because I learned theory of music in traditional way in traditiolan music of Iran and I saw in this cours there are many things more then traadition in music theory ...

By Ricardo B

Jun 26, 2017

I'm a software developer who can't play any instrument, and I enjoyed this course a lot. There are really no pre-requisites, any beginner can take this course, even if they can't tell apart do from re.

By Danila G

Oct 24, 2018

The course gives much practice and many useful hints to help students easily identify notes, chords and their inversions in sheet music. A very good help to any course in music theory!

By Nikki O

Apr 19, 2020

This course was a great way to get into music theory. It does help if you have some background knowledge first but a little more study and you'll be just fine anyway.

By Francesca F

Jan 20, 2021

This course is very well-planned and well-taught. You get a clear start on many basic concepts of music theory.

By Japheth M

Oct 23, 2020

The course was quite tough but covered most of the categories. Professional way of teaching.

By Fred D

Jan 19, 2019

Clear concise modules, excellent instructor. Wish there were a sequel. Recommend highly.

By Juan J A L

Nov 8, 2020

Excelent Course, So complete, and the teacher learn so good.

By Nikita K

Feb 22, 2020

May be little bit frustrating for absolute beginners.

By Jayla w

Dec 29, 2020

I AM PLEASE WITH THIS COURSE

By Sehnaz Y

Dec 6, 2020

Thank you!

By ABHIJIT B

Jan 23, 2021

good

By Marc S

Jul 20, 2017

Overall an excellent course with a lot of foundational theory. A lot of it can get complicated and tedious, especially towards the end. It also requires a fair amount of memorization. These are all necessary steps and there's no faking your way through it. I enjoyed it a lot and am looking forward to that first a-ha moment that ties the teachings into a real-world use case!

A few pieces of feedback: (a) the videos themselves could be a little better. eg. when discussing things with a keyboard on screen, the keys should light up in sync with the instructor's lecture. Similarly, when spelling the chords out, notes could be highlighted or added to the staff as the lecture progresses, rather than after the entire chord has been broken down. (b) the test questions in the middle of lectures will sometimes ask you about something that was on screen for a split second before cutting over to the question. It would be great to add an image to the question for reference (similar to the ones in the quizzes), otherwise it's very hard to answer the questions.

All in all, small gripes, and I would still highly recommend this course to anyone interested in getting their heads wrapped around the basics of music theory.

By Rick P

May 17, 2020

Although its called ''Getting Started With Music Theory'', this course is already quite comprehensive and advanced. It covers a lot of material in a relatively short period of time. I've been playing instruments for many years and have had music theory in the past, despite this I found this course to be quite complicated at times. If someone has no previous knowledge of music, this course might be too difficult to start with (especially when non-native English). Some tests I''ve had to redo multiple times and when I got some answers wrong I didn't understand why. It also didn't give any explanation to these anwsers. The in lecture questions often come up too quickly blocking the screen you need to see to know the anwser. This is also something that can be fixed. Overall I feel like I understand more than I did before, however I still don't fully comprehend the material and will have to watch all lectures again.

By Jordan H

Jul 6, 2017

This was a great course with a great instructor! Only reason I did not give it all four stars was simply because a lot of questions that really needed a visual to answer were not provided with said visual. There were a couple of questions in the quizzes that would not accept the correct answer (after I would specifically study those specific parts if I did not get them right the first time). The only other thing keeping me from giving it a full five would be the fact that the practice questions inside of the videos would not give you nearly enough time to look at whatever musical example you had to answer questions on. Would've been great if you could see them while you answer questions.

By Richard R

Feb 19, 2019

Great course for anyone trying to enter the world of music theory and even better for someone with a little bit of a background on music. There are some problems with the in-lesson questions where you have to pause a number of times to actually view the thing that is being asked and then proceed to the question.

Also you will need a lot of complementary material to get most of this course but in general this was great, totally recommended.

By Matthew T

Nov 13, 2017

Really informative course, great little introduction to music theory - only complaint I would have is that on some of the lectures, the question flashes up really quickly and without any link to a picture in the question, meaning you have to keep clicking back to earlier in the lecture to see what you are actually answering the question on!

By Mike V

Jan 1, 2021

Sometimes tests seemed to require information I didn't pick up in classes. Might be me though.

By David L

Dec 22, 2020

May be a little difficult for early beginners, but with practice all can be understood

By Laurel J

Dec 14, 2019

I am giving it 2 stars for several reasons. The main reason was the in video questions usually were asked about a pic seen very briefly before the question was asked. Half of these did not have a link to the pic. in question. Making you have to guess. Another reason is the teacher was pouring out tons of info but in such a fast pace and not in a language a beginner understands. Half the course I felt lost. Last, I am marked ad partial completion only because I am auditing the course, I watched everything, read everything, answered the discussion questions and everything else I needed to do. I did not take the tests because they were locked for paid participants, but I should show a completed for an audit like other courses do.

By Krishna G

Aug 29, 2021

While I did learn in this class, the presentation of the material was ineffective. It was merely audio with black, white, and green images -- in other words, an unengaging voice-over-only interaction with the professor (who talks too quietly with little variation or intonation of voice.) The assessment process was also troubling... specifically, the lack of diversity in the test questions and the fact that the professor requires not a usual 70% to pass, but much-higher 80% minimum, which is not always possible to achieve for such complex and challenging subject matter. This all makes for a pretty demanding course which proclaims to be "beginner" level.

By Peter M

Dec 28, 2020

Not very helpful. Would be good to have handouts on the course material.

By Yelamanchili S

Jun 15, 2020

i feel the basic are not really thought but they are expected to be implied in the exams. really tried to make up with the lesson and tests but the basics still being thought to a beginner are incomplete. i found so many other sources who are teaching just out of passion and no experience in a much clear and easy way that i had to go and listen to their classes and then come back to attempting few questions here. i don't think how these MOOC classes are supposed to work. no offence but maybe there are a lot of people finding this class perfect but for a beginner like me its still difficult.

By Deleted A

Jun 16, 2020

This course is not "getting started" it's more "Halfway to the top and then some".

If I had actual musical experience, then I would be much happier to learn. I do not and am finding this course so difficult. My ears are not trained to hear specific notes and the first week doesn't give you enough to train them. I don't understand the staves and how a f,a,c,e can all of a sudden be an e3. What is that?

My fault for assuming this would be entry level with no previous experience needed to learn the basics of music theory, but this course is 100% for someone who is seasoned in the music arts.

By Eric W

Dec 22, 2020

Very hard to follow. Wish there were more visuals instead of a narrated power point. I was not able to get past week 1.