Dulcimer Music Theory 201

Description General Information Description This course is designed to teach applied music theory to mountain and hammered dulcimer players. In this class, we will learn the inner workings of music, deepen our understanding of chord progressions, chord substitutions, arranging, modal scales, tonal harmony, diatonic seven chords, & inversions. We will be using standard notation on a music staff in treble & bass clefs and relating concepts back to our dulcimers. You do not need to be a good sight-reader, but some may want a cheat sheet handy for reference. By using dulcimer-friendly keys for the applications, theory will be relevant and accessible. We will also encounter unfriendly keys for comprehension, but not for applications. Tuition for 5 sessions: $125. Goals As we meet weekly, we will review past concepts, and build on them into the next area. There will be time for interactive questions and answers, as well as discussions and hands-on learning– all from the comfort of your home. Mark will provide handouts and other supplemental materials as needed. Assignments are optional, but are a valuable tool to learn the material and practice new concepts. We may not get to all the topics above. Our goal is learning for mastery Attendance This is a 5 Week course that meets on Thursdays weekly for 75 minutes. Your tuition holds your space for all 5 sessions. Each week’s class is recorded in case you can’t make them when they are live! Course Materials Recommended Reading Tonal Harmony, 6th Edition by by Kostka & Payne (this edition came out in 2009 and I chose it because it is readily available used). Just the textbook–NOT the workbook. (Optional, somewhat hard to find, $$, and can be hard to make sense of without an interpreter like me, but EXCELLENT resource.) Music Theory for Dummies, 3rd or 4th Edition, by Pilhofer & Day. Try to familiarize yourself with music notation software, like MuseScore, which is free. It may be handy to google “music staff” or “grand staff” and print a few pages of blank music staff. Required Materials We will be using Zoom. You will need to download the latest version of the Zoom software or app if you are using a tablet or iPad. If you are on a laptop or desktop, you can use Zoom without the app on your browser. Note: You will get class information and links on a confirmation page after checking out, AND you will also get that info in an email immediately after. Please check your spam folders before contacting if you don’t see it right away. Course Schedule Week Date Topic Reading Exercises 1 April 7 Diatonic Chord Practice: Diatonic Chord Practice: diatonic triads in major and minor keys, diatonic seventh chords in major and minor keys. These topics help you predict the chords that come up in our repertoire and will help you expand your chord choices when arranging on your own. 2 April 14 How to Use Voice Leading: Harmonic progression, sequences, circle of 5ths, differences in the minor mode. Using 7th chords, harmonizing a simple melody. These topics will get you out of your chord rut of only using the same 3 chords all the time. I’ll help you know what to look for so you can add a lot more colors to your chord pallets. . 3 April 21 Chord Substitutions and Application: Harmonic progression, sequences, circle of 5ths, differences in the minor mode. Using 7th chords, harmonizing a simple melody. These topics will get you out of your chord rut of only using the same 3 chords all the time. I’ll help you know what to look for so you can add a lot more colors to your chord pallets. 4 April 28 Embellishing with Nonharmonic Tones: Intro, classifications, passing tones, neighbor tones, suspensions, retardations, embellishing, lead sheet symbols, appoggiaturas, escape tones, neighbor groups, anticipations, pedal points. This topic is the basis for embellishing the melody itself. We’ll learn to identify them first, and then how to add them into our dulcimer tunes. 5 May 5 Everyone Can Compose–Especially YOU! Now that you know the rules of the game and how to break them, let’s apply what we’ve learned by following a few basic steps to write your own tune! We will actually start this topic on Week 4 and use this session to see what they sound like and how to apply more of what we’ve learned. Optional Materials www.musictheory.net Have your book and something to write notes and solve problems on. You may want to have your instrument nearby to help you visualize at times. You may want to have multiple monitors or devices if you plan to use handouts as PDFs. Otherwise, make plans to print handouts. QUESTIONS? Use my contact page to email me with any questions you might have.