The Spirit of Music - A Day Course

Understanding the theory of music and how it has developed historically deepens a player's and a listener's appreciation. To this end I'm planning a day workshop when you can enjoy exploring some musical topics that will provide the tools to go further along your chosen musical path.

What I'm concocting is a day exploring music theory, which means explaining music's modes, keys and key changes, intervals, harmony and dissonance as well as the way the music is put together - its "form".

However, I don't want this to be an academic text-book type experience so I'll be putting all these elements into a context of the history of music from classical Greece and Pythagoras up to contemporary times and its music. The history of western music moves through particular phases, moving from music of single line melody to complex polyphony, made possible when music notation was developed and music could be written down.

Rambling Timelines

While gathering background for Ramblings About Music, I've begun to develop a couple of timelines to put everything in a context. One is from Pythagoras to the beginning of the 20th C, the other is from 1900 until today. If you would like to become an editor and add content of your own, contact me.  Each of the timeline's entries can include pictures and sound clips so should become quite a useful educational tool. Here is the first line (which can be viewed in 3D) which as you will see already contains some interesting material: