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Developing Your Musicianship, Berklee College of Music

4.8
518 ratings
•
151 reviews

About this Course

Learn the basic concepts and approaches needed to understand, create, and perform contemporary music. If you have a passion for music and are curious about how it works, or if you are a musician who learned to play by ear without formal study, this course will provide you with an engaging introduction to key concepts and approaches needed to understand, create, and perform contemporary music. Taught by Berklee College of Music professor George W. Russell, Jr., the course includes six lessons that delve into harmony and ear training—two areas of intensive focus for every entering Berklee student. The course will teach you the major scale and minor pentatonic scale, and how they are constructed. You will learn what intervals are, how to sing them, and how to find them in music. The course explores tonal centers and how to find the key a song is in, in addition to common time signatures such as 4/4 and 3/4. You will learn how to build chords—major and minor triads, and major and dominant seventh chords—and how to build a common chord progression—the I IV V. You will also learn how to recognize the blues and AABA song forms, and write a basic chord sheet to express your song ideas. In addition to the video lectures, each lesson features Berklee student performances and interviews. The students share their musical journey and offer advice for those wanting to study music. The course culminates with an assignment that asks you to compose and perform a riff blues tune using the minor pentatonic scale. Above all, the course is designed to share the joy of creating music and sharing it with others. Samy Elgazzar, a graduate of Berklee College of Music and a successful composer, will be your Teaching Assistant (TA) for the course....

Top reviews

By SG

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Jul 04, 2017

Very educational for both the unexperienced people who has never played an instrument and the musicians that learned how to play by ear and want to expand their musical vocabulary.

By JS

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Feb 03, 2019

Enjoyed this course very much! High quality video content and methodology. The content is easy to understand for beginners. For my tast a bit to much self-advertising.

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150 Reviews

By Daniel Carvajal Pérez

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Feb 07, 2019

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

By Loreal Wimberly

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Feb 06, 2019

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.

By Sveinbjorn Olafsson

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Feb 04, 2019

Cool stuff.

By Audrey D

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Feb 03, 2019

Fantastic course! Both full of sound learning and fun :)

By Jérôme Soiné

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Feb 03, 2019

Enjoyed this course very much! High quality video content and methodology. The content is easy to understand for beginners. For my tast a bit to much self-advertising.

By John Correa

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Jan 22, 2019

Somewhat remedial but a great course. The instructor is incredible!

By Golbahar Khazraei

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Jan 18, 2019

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! :)

By Carlos Fernando Navarro

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Jan 15, 2019

Awesome!

By Ash Lyons

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Jan 14, 2019

Wonderful course! I learned a lot and the instructor is great!

By Rai Sánchez Soriano

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Jan 11, 2019

Amazing method... Thanks!!!

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