Professor Robert Greenberg offers a spirited introduction to the mysterious realm of music theory—the complex syntax of structural and instrumental resources that composers draw on. Sidestepping the necessity to read music, these lectures represent a rare opportunity for learning music theory—for understanding the processes of composition. The course will reward you many times over as you find yourself enjoying much deeper connections with the language of music.
Understanding the Fundamentals of Music
Enjoy a deeper understanding of music’s compositional structures—even if you can’t read a single note—with this fascinating introduction to the basics of music theory.
Overview
About
Dr. Robert Greenberg is Music Historian-in-Residence with San Francisco Performances. A graduate of Princeton University, Professor Greenberg holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He has seen his compositions-which include more than 45 works for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles-performed all over the world, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, England, Ireland, Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands.
He has served on the faculties of the University of California, Berkeley; California State University, Hayward; and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and has lectured for some of the most prestigious musical and arts organizations in the United States, including the San Francisco Symphony, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Van Cliburn Foundation, and the Chicago Symphony. For The Great Courses, he has recorded more than 500 lectures on a range of composers and classical music genres.
Professor Greenberg is a Steinway Artist. His many other honors include three Nicola de Lorenzo Composition Prizes and a Koussevitzky commission from the Library of Congress. He has been profiled in various major publications, including The Wall Street Journal; Inc. magazine; and the London Times.
You can find more music content from Robert Greenberg on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RobertGreenbergMusic.
01: The Language of Music
Professor Greenberg begins the course with an introduction to one of the musical language's key syntactical elements—"timbre," or the actual sound or tone color of an instrument or instruments—beginning with the string section of the orchestra.
46 min
02: Timbre, Continued
His exploration of timbre continues with plucked string instruments and woodwinds—both single-reeds and double-reeds—as well as a discussion of the concept of transposing instruments and dynamics.
45 min
03: Timbre, Part 3
You conclude our discussion of timbre with the brass and percussion families before moving on to the evolution of the orchestra from the early 17th to the 20th centuries.
48 min
04: Beat and Tempo
A simple definition of music offered in Lecture 1 was "sound in time." Moving from our exploration of the "sound" aspect of music, we now begin an exploration of the role of "time" in music.
44 min
05: Meter, Part 1
Meter refers to how individual beats are grouped in a given passage. This lecture considers two basic types, duple meter and triple meter, the "dance meter" of which the waltz is the most enduring and popular example.
47 min
06: Meter, Part 2
Examine some of the ways a composer can manipulate the listener's sense of beat and meter, including syncopation, compound meter, additive meter, and asymmetrical meter.
45 min
07: Pitch and Mode, Part 1
After three lectures of discussion about the "time" aspect of music—rhythm—you will return to its sound aspect, introducing and defining terms such as noise, fundamental frequency, pitch, pitch collection, note, melody, harmony, interval, octave, and overtone and Pythagoras's role in "discovering" the overtone series.
44 min
08: Pitch and Mode, Part 2
Professor Greenberg continues his discussion of pitch and mode with a focus on the essential building block of the Western pitch systems—the octave—and its importance in tonal music. In this lecture you will also explore musical modes.
46 min
09: Intervals and Tunings
Resuming you focus on pitch, you will turn once more to Pythagoras, and his investigation into what is now known as the overtone series. This paves the way for an examination of intervals, the evolution of tuning systems, and an introduction to the major pitch collections.
45 min
10: Tonality, Key Signature, and the Circle of Fifths
This lecture explains the concept of a tonal center, or tonic, discusses how musical keys are constructed and how they relate to one another. It also introduces a fundamental graphic and conceptual aid in understanding keys and their relationships—the circle of fifths.
45 min
11: Intervals Revisited and Expanded
An interval is the relationship between two pitches, and can range from the most simple in terms of acoustical ratio, where the two pitches blend well, to the most acoustically complex, where the pitches blend poorly. This lecture explores that range, from the simplest—the consonant, stable octave—to the most complex—the dissonant and unstable tritone.
48 min
12: Melody
Begin with an examination of the single most important aspect of music: melody. Here you will look at the four basic types of thematic melody: word melody, vocal melody, vocally conceived instrumental melody, and instrumental melody; and continue with an examination of musical motives and motivic development, and the function of motives in creating melody.
46 min
13: Melody, Continued
This lecture reviews and builds on the analysis of thematic melody begun in the previous lecture. Instrumental melody is discussed, along with other types of melody, including accompanimental melody, countermelody, periodic melody, and continuous melody.
46 min
14: Texture and Harmony, Part 1
The idea of texture in music—the number of different melody lines in a given section of music and their relationship to one another—is introduced by discussing the four basic musical textures: monophony, polyphony, homophony, and heterophony.
47 min
15: Harmony, Part 2—Function, Tendency, and Dominance
Functional tonality is the tonal system that dominated Western music from the 16th to the 20th centuries. It is at its heart about tension and release. This lecture discusses the roles of various harmonies.
41 min
16: Harmony, Part 3—Progression, Cadence, and Modulation
Professor Greenberg concludes with the concepts of harmonic progression, the movement from one chord to the next; cadence, the progressions that serve as musical punctuation marks; and the techniques of modulation, by which a composer can change keys during the course of a movement.
48 min
