Learner Reviews & Feedback for Developing Your Musicianship by Berklee College of Music

Course realistically takes 15-20 hrs/week of work, not "3-5 hrs/week" as said in course description, that clearly assumes either someone already knows how to play piano well, or already knows music theory well, if either of these skills are lacking, be prepared to spend 15+ hrs a week to understand the material (2 hrs/day). The prof says in the video "just practice 15 mins a day" which is complete hooey, it takes at least 1+ hr/day uninterrupted practice at the piano to get close to skillful at the material presented, plus another 0,5-1+ hr of theory study on paper review. I highly recommend this course but the amount of time should not be underestimated (like so many music people seem to do, because they likely had many years of music exposure already).

I am new to music, and music theory. I have always wanted to learn, but I thought it would be too hard. This class has helped me so much, and learning to compose my own music is starting to look a lot more attainable.

This is a really great course. It's broadened my scope of music a lot. I never use to think much of Jazz and Blues, but I've really got an appreciation for it now. :)

Absolutely great! The professor is just incredible. The way he teaches is very clear, easy to understand and not boring at all. I absolutely recommend this course to everyone.

I'm very happy to have completed this course. I learned a lot during a few weeks and enjoyed it too! Professor George W. Russell, Jr. is amazing. He makes learning music fun and Samy Elgazzar is a great assistant and always very helpful! I will continue with the next courses of the specialization :) Thank you so much! :)

This was so great for helping me to join the dots between gaps in my knowledge, i really don't find theory easy at all. George Russell the teacher is brilliant!

I had loads of fun, as mandatory :) No surprise if your taking classes with the amazing George W. Russell Jr. Thanks, master!

I learned so much in so little time. I actually impressed a musician friend of mine when I rattled off and showed him all the chords I learned on the keyboard. I played a 12 bars blues riff on the keyboard, tracked it, and then played a melody and tracked that and made an mp3. I cannot say enough. If I ever have the honor of meeting the professor who taught this course I will tell him I learned more about music in 6 weeks with his superb methods of instruction than I ever did in other courses. I am trying to save up money so I can take an official Berklee online course. This course was awesome! It truly showed why Berklee is in a class by itself.

The best introduction to Music to COMPLETE beginners like I was when I completed the course several years ago. It teachers music through practice, listening to and doing - making you acquire complex theoretical concepts naturally. This is a course I feel need to return to from time to time - if only for its listening practice!

Just wonderfull.Thanks to all people who took part in making this course and of course Professor George W.Russel,Jr. This step-by-step approach is very cool. I like this very basic and strong foundation with a lot of exercises, mnemonic tricks and of,course, the main requirement-to have fun=)

5 Stars because the workload was not heavy and I had enough time to go through lessons several times so I could better master the subject-matter, and also because the teacher was clear in his lectures and I am certain I can apply these skills in my everyday life.

I loved taking this course.

An amazing course that fills up your energy thanks to its excellent professor!

George is the best teacher ever!!! It is my favourite Course at Coursera. Thanks to George, I have learned to differ musical intervals and the basics of improvisation. First I use to doubt, whether the ear training really does work. I had no music school education experience. After some few lessons I was so suprised, when I saw my progress and good results. I understood that the simple methods really work. When you have a slowdown, and you cannot go further (like I use to do) just trust George and try again and again. It will work. You do not have to be a professional musician to succeed in this course.

George, it was wonderful to meet you at the beginning of my music career. Thanks a lot!!!

Great course for beginenrs to understand the basics of music tehory by applying it directly. The lectures are very entertaining with nice musical examples. The professor is outstanding!!! I really enjoyed the lectures. Even if I play saxophone I startet playing on the piano a little bit and learned a lot. I will take the other courses as well. Thank you very much for this great course.

It is a beautiful course for beginners. Even if you know the basics of music theory, it is still a good course to learn ear training and chord progressions. The assignments definitely help to apply whatever you have learnt. George W. Russel Jr. is one of the best teachers in this field. He teaches the concepts effortlessly and always emphasizes on having fun while learning music.

This course is a good way to start structuring your musical knowledge if you did not have a more formal background. The course is straight to the point, but one step at a time. Professor George W. Russell Jr. is very charismatic and the videos are fun to watch. Either if these are your first steps or you are in an intermediate level, I bet you'll enjoy this course.

Excellent. Very skillfully organized. If you never had a formal music training and you are a musician of some kind, this is where to begin. I thoroughly enjoyed the course. It finished perfectly with Final Project where I composed and wrote my own 12 Bar Blues riffs and improvised over my keyboard. I also learned learnt many things about playing keyboard here.

Great course, thank you very much. I absolutely loved the ear training using different intervals and building scales. Furthermore, that was great to learn something about how to play piano since I had only played guitar prior to taking this course. If more tips can be included, that will be wonderful. Thank you once again for providing this course!

This is an excellent intro course. The instructor clearly had a lot of fun preparing videos, and it's contagious. There is a high-level of polish here - even pacing, helpful study guides, solid video production values and active teaching assistant in the forums. I learned a lot in this class, but aside from that it was just a good time :).

This is a very eye opening course. I loved every minute of it and had fun. It requires a lot of technical support that was woefully lacking. I think the problem is from Cousera. and their help desk is very unhelpful. I had serious problems submitting my work due to bugs in the system.

This course is excellent for a beginner like me. I'm loving everything about it - the content, structure, not to mention the instructor's charismatic style. This is a much appreciated opportunity to learn and understand music theory from someone who has such obvious passion for music.

Hands down the best music theory course I've ever taken. I had trouble with understanding theory in the past, but this course has made it so incredibly easy. I'm so happy with the results!

Je ne pensais pas que l'harmonie/solfège pouvait être aussi amusante ! C'est ce que prouve ici Mr Russel par son immense qualité de pédagogue. En plus d'être un excellent musicien, le professeur aime ce qu'il fait, il s'éclate, et il transmet le tout.

J'ai suivi la formation n'étant pourtant pas un grand bilingue, mais tout est aisément compréhensible. Je précise toutefois que j'ai déjà de bonnes notions d'harmonie/théorie, et qu'ici tout n'était qu'un rafraichissement de ma mémoire, mais qui m'a fait énormément de bien.

Cependant, je ne peux pas donner 5 étoiles car Berklee ne peut s'empêcher de faire sa pub et un temps considérable qui aurait pu être consacré a un approfondissement de notions est dédié à des interviews inutiles d'élèves ainsi qu'à des vidéos de performance qui à mon sens n'ont rien à faire dans un MOOC, aussi respectables puissent-elles être.

De plus, malgré le côté très didactique de Mr Russel j'ai trouvé qu'il allait très vite sur certaine notion à quelques moments, et j'ai pensé qu'un élève qui n'en aurait pas connaissance pourrait être assez vite largué à ce niveau là.

Very low content: I got more information about Berklee than about music from this course. It is more of a show-off of the university than it is an actual informative course. Looks a lot like a yt tutorial, just much fancier because they are berklee. I watched from the beginning to the end waiting for them to start talking about anything other than naming intervals, but it didn't happen. They try to ear-train you, but any app for ear-training will do it better. Quite disappointing.

A nice, gentle course to introduce you to actually creating some music. It's much more practical than the Fundamentals of Music Theory course by the University of Edinburgh, but not at all as detailed or information-rich. I'd say do the FOMT first and then come back and do this specialisation.

The professor has an infectious enthusiasm which is very nice to see, and after hearing Adam Neely mention his name too, I feel a bit honoured to be 'taught' by him, through a screen though it may be.

The Berklee marketing is a bit insistent and forceful and I'd take half a point off for that if I could, but on balance that is easy to ignore and doesn't affect the course content.