Music Made Easy

Gain complete understanding of rhythm, melody, and harmony and recognize pitches on the musical staff and keyboard. By the end of this course, you'll be able to read, write, and even play simple pieces of music!

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$165

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$150

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Starting March 12 | April 16

Details + Objectives

Course code: lrm

If you enjoy music and would like to know more about what makes it work, this is the course for you. You'll gain a complete understanding of rhythm, melody, and harmony, and you'll be able to recognize pitches on the musical staff and on the keyboard. Each lesson will build on previous lessons, while also introducing new musical concepts.

You'll explore the keyboard in full detail, with an emphasis on the structure of major scale and the signatures of major keys. You will examine the many significant contributions early music theorists made to the understanding of music and be able to build intervals, major scales, and chords. By the time you complete this comprehensive and full-featured course, you'll be able to read, write, and even play simple pieces of music!

What you will learn

Learn the fundamentals of music and gain an understanding of how it works
Develop and understand how meter is used to organize rhythm in music and how to read rhythmic notation
Examine the contributions of musical theorists from the past and understand music more fully
Discover the development and construction of musical scales
Learn to recognize, recite, and even create your own music

How you will benefit

Gain an invaluable understanding of the origin, function, and creation of music
Become musically literate in just 6 weeks
Feel empowered by your ability to read, write, and play music

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

In this first lesson, you'll go through an overview of the major elements of music—melody, harmony, and rhythm. It's important that you understand these general terms because you'll explore each of them in detail in the coming lessons.

This is your introduction to the concept of rhythm. You'll explore its various components: beat, meter, and time signatures. You'll also learn how to read and apply time signatures to music.

You'll continue exploring meter in this lesson and then look at aspects of rhythm such as syncopation and tempo. You'll learn how and why syncopation is used.

In this lesson, you'll delve into the musical concept of melody. You'll learn to read the treble and bass clefs. You'll find out how to read notes found in musical compositions and how to notate pitches to create music.

For many compositions, pitches are used that do not fall within the pitch range of the musical staff. With this lesson, you'll discover how to notate these pitches through the use of ledger lines.

If you've wanted to learn how to play piano, you'll love this lesson. The focus is on learning the names of the keys on the keyboard. You'll match the pitches from the staff to the keyboard, so you'll be learning to read and play at the same time. By the end, you'll be able to read and play simple songs.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to build major scales. The scale is the building block for composing a piece of music. You'll find out how to construct a scale on any pitch.

This lesson introduces you to the names of each member of the scale. Knowing these names will enable you to discuss the functions and roles of each pitch in any key. These concepts have roots in ancient Greece, so you'll learn a little about those who have influenced how people create music.

Having covered major scales, you'll now examine the names of the major keys. You'll learn how to recognize the name of a key by the key signature and how to recognize a scale from the name of the key.

This lesson will discuss the last musical element, harmony. It will focus on creating more than one pitch at a time—the layering of musical pitches. You'll begin by looking at two simultaneous pitches, known as intervals.

In this lesson, you'll continue to explore intervals. One thing you'll learn is how to invert them, which is helpful when you work with chords. You'll also discover how to build three note chords, which are called triads.

In this final lesson, you'll examine some of the simple relationships between triads. You'll learn how to identify which chord should be used for harmony in simple two chord progressions.

Instructors & Support

Marianne Murawski

Marianne Murawski earned her Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of Maryland, her M.M (master of music) in Music Theory, and her B.A. in Music. Her dissertation, Theory through World Music, focused on developing an introductory music theory course that used world music examples. She has been teaching courses in music fundamentals, music appreciation, history of rock music, and world music at several colleges and universities. She is an active member of the College Music Society, giving presentations at Conferences including an International Conference in Vienna, Austria.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course. The course is geared towards those who have no musical background, those who play but do not read music, or anyone who is interested in understanding the fundamentals of music.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.
You must have speakers or headphones.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

I'm amazed how much I learned about reading music and music theory in such a short time and with such little effort. The course is well organized and interesting. Thanks

I must admit that when I first read about this course, I laughed and thought there was no way that in 6 weeks I would be able to read and write music. I will now eat my words. I not only understand what I am doing when it comes to reading and writing music, but I am feeling a lot more confident when I perform. Thank you so much.

I truly enjoyed this course. Thank you for having this music refresher course at such an affordable price.

It was nice to see a different perspective to music instruction. The extra lessons were interesting too. It was nice to learn more about the composers and history of music.

What a wonderful opportunity to learn more about a topic without getting overwhelmed!

Thank you very much. I gained so much knowledge! I am going to start taking piano lessons which I always wanted to take.

Thank you very much for this course. I learned a lot and truly enjoyed it.

Great course, with a very knowledgeable instructor who made difficult concepts easy to understand. I highly recommend both the course and the instructor!

Marianne put together an outstanding course. This was at the outer edges of my experience, and I learned so much. I got so much more out of this course than I was expecting.

I really enjoyed this class. I am completely new to music, and was amazed that I never had the need to ask any questions. It was all right there in the lessons, explained perfectly.