the last test contains a lot of information that wasn´t applied on the course

I am going to be very realistic about the course here, so please take it seriously. This course is for beginners indeed as per the learning procedure is concerned, however towards the end of course, things get very difficult and few assignments/quizzes are really very difficult. And specially the final assignment is damn tough, its beyond imaginable as far as beginners are concerned, I do not think that a beginner can actually crack that paper in 3 or 4 months time, its almost impossible. I have been associated with music for almost 10 years now, and I did this course for the certificate, I found the final quiz to be very very challenging and its going to be impossible for you if you're a beginner, it literally has extracts from Classical Piano pieces and ask you to refer to a certain portion of it and all the questions of the last final assignment are from such extracts which are very tough to comprehend. If you know music for something like 2-5 years, this course is for you. Also please refer to a very good music theory book along with the course like AB Guide to Music Theory by Eric Taylor, or Berklee Music Theory part 1 because several concepts here have just been touched and not discussed in depth. Overall, from my POV I am extremely satisfied with the course because it wasn't a very big deal for me, but if you are a beginner, you might not like the way it ends. So think twice before you enrol. I hope this helps, all the best.

Would have given this 5 stars if not for the final written exam which included multiple questions containing material that was covered nowhere in the course materials (e.g. chromatic harmony, German 6th notes, clef changes, chords that are neither triads nor 7ths, phrase analysis, etc.). Grading criteria was also unclear in several places.

I honestly hate giving negative feedback, but feel that a warning to any genuine “beginners” is necessary.

This is NOT a course for beginners. In fact, if you are new to music theory this course will likely hurt your confidence and enjoyment of music. The feedback is loud and clear in the discussion forums and obvious from the 86% initial failure rate on most weekly exams. At first I thought I might just be slow, which is still likely, however the stats don’t lie, and statistically speaking this course fails dramatically at preparing its students to successfully pass their exams.

It’s a shame that they tried to cram so much detail and information into such a brief course. Some of the instructors were quite engaging and obviously very knowledgeable, but unfortunately the overzealous course criteria made it a nightmare to try and digest or even keep up with everything being covered.

If you already have some music experience then you might find this course more appropriate, but if it's fundamentals on a beginner you're looking for, look elsewhere.

The best course one can wish for in Music Theory. Very convenient, clear, includes examples and exercises during the lessons, and a sheet of summary in the end of each lesson, as well. The instructors are very lovely and clear. Things are explained in a way that even as an absolute beginner you can follow. I had a slight knowledge before, but I wanted to refresh and continue from where I stopped. This course allowed me to do it in a very short time, without skipping anything, and without feeling I am "missing the train". The order in which the material is given is also thought of.

Everything in this course is considered, thought of, and given a big value.

One can get the course for free or pay (very cheap compared to its high level) to get the certificate of completing it. There's only one thing that you need to keep in mind, in the non-paid (free) option, the materials cannot be viewed backwards after completing the section/week (only the first week remains available). So when I completed week #2, quickly, and passed the test, then proceeded to week #3, I couldn't go back to week #2 to view some things I wanted to re-read for deeper understanding.

Thank you very much for the free content you give, for the beautiful way it is given. All the instructors are great. I am very grateful. I have completed 2.5 weeks in a matter of few days only, and I am very excited to continue. It made me reconsider buying the course to get the certificate, and have the whole material for further access. After this course, I am more sure and determined about my decision to pursue my dream and learn music.

Very good course which hammers home the essentials.

Good enthusiastic lecturing and importantly on completion progressed onto Coursera Musicianship Specialisation which I have now almost completed

Difficult but very thorough, I feel my understanding of music to much deeper now. I definitely found rereading and rewatching the course material super helpful to complete the course. Thank you!

I enjoyed the course and have learnt a lot. There seems to be a bit of a leap at the end of week 5 where the modulation analysis suddenly becomes more complex than the material before it.

I learnt a lot from this course. Not only does it give you a lot of insight into music theory it changes the way you look at music and leads one to appreciate music as a whole more.

Muito bom o curso de teoria musical, so faltava a legenda em português, mas o curso segue um rumo bem explicativo, gostei!

Perfect music course for beginner!

I learned much from this course. It targeted the things that I set out to learn. However, I really disliked Part 2 of the final exam. Many of the questions covered material and concepts that were not covered or not covered adequately in the lecture material. This left my answers open-ended. At the same time, I saw answers from my peer reviews that contained language and phrases nearly identical to the rubric. Was my review of the lecture material and additional research really out of touch with what my peers were learning or had my peers seen the rubric content before submitting the final? For this and other reasons associated with the peer review, I would like never to see a peer review on Coursera again.

Some of the pictures in the quizzes the name of the pictures reveals the answer to the question

I wouldn't recommend this course to any beginner who doesn't want to start hating music. It's definitely not a course for the beginners. First of all, it tremendously lack structure. For instance: guys are talking about "Degrees of a scale" for full two weeks and only THEN explain what it is. First 3 weeks are somewhat understandable, but later on it gets so hard that it's impossible to understand without extra material. I constantly checked other sources to stupidly not get lost completely. I studied music for 7 years about 15 years ago and though I'd refresh my memory with this course, but the absence of good course structure made it almost impossible. Teachers are nice though and I still learned a lot of new things and had my "A-ha!" moments. Hence 3 stars and not 1.

The first few weeks are at a good pace in my opinion. It's when you reach the last 3 weeks that the difficulty level jumps up drastically. There are a lot of assumptions on the teachers side that the students not only grasped the previous material, but that they can apply it to future lessons as if it is a first language. I did learn some things from this course, but I was lost by the end. i think some more in-depth videos, and maybe even another week or two of coursework, would have really helped to get the information across and to stick. I felt like they spent more time teaching the basics than they did the more advanced stuff, and I feel like if anything, it should have been the other way around.

It's surprising to see that this course has been listed for beginners on Coursera. At most, it is suitable as a refresher for those who are already familiar with music theory. The lectures are disorganized, and the course practically falls apart in week 3. New concepts are introduced and brushed over too quickly to comprehend, and Wikipedia pages are often linked as supplementary course material rather than a substantial explanation of the topic at hand. The weekly quizzes and final exam are unnecessarily difficult, demanding a much more sophisticated understanding of music theory that is not covered in this class. If you are new to music, I would not recommend this course.

Pros of this course:

- Some weeks are actually informative and easily understood

- You get to know some basic stuff if you are a beginner in music theory(like myself)

Cons:

- Information during other weeks is so badly pitched and structured that you will probably guess your answers at the graded assignments

- The graded assignments themselves are for some reason a lot more demanding and sophisticated than what was given at the lectures.

- The final exam is a nightmare, be aware

Overall, I found this course quite interesting because before it, I was a complete noob in music theory, and now I know a thing or two. Isn't it a progress?

They just throw all the material at you without giving you enough explanations or exercises. This situation gets worse in the last two weeks and you can hardly breathe. It is like, "Okay now we have learned that 1+2=3. Let's talk about calculus."

Very challenging course. The material presented in the lessons is not sufficient to pass the exams. You'll need to seek out additional sources on your own. I did, however, learn a lot and I ended up doing pretty well.

I enjoyed the course and passed although the material was challenging for a novice. The course organisers need to be aware of the following.

(1) The material isn't always presented in a logical sequence. For example students are expected to understand chord inversions and something about cadences before they are introduced properly (in a subsequent week).

(2) Too little emphasis is placed on the more advanced parts of the course, e.g. modulation.

(3) Parts of the course look like they've been lifted straight from university material with little consideration for the MOOC learner (the last video, e.g.).

(4) The final exam covers concepts that were barely touched upon during the course, for example, passing notes, and is very different from anything that learners are subjected to throughout the course.

Hard to rate this as some was good, some was awful. The course started out almost too easy, and then was "good", for a bit, then went downhill, just dumping information on you in short lectures with not much emphasis on context or reasoning. The quizes , especially week 5 and 6 were way out in the weeds of difficulty for which you've been prepared based on the lectures. But I finished it and it did motivate me to learn, even though I spent a LOT of time on Wikipedia and other sites to figure it out. ADVICE: When you open a quiz, first PRINT it, and work it offline. You very likely will fail the quiz first (or second, or third) times, and the feedback hides the answers, so really hard to figure your what you did wrong if you don't have it all in front of you.

It's surprising to see that this course has been listed for beginners on Coursera. At most, it is suitable as a refresher for those who are already familiar with music theory. The lectures are disorganized, and the course practically falls apart in week 3. New concepts are introduced and brushed over too quickly to comprehend, and Wikipedia pages are often linked as supplementary course material rather than a substantial explanation of the topic at hand. The weekly quizzes and final exam are unnecessarily difficult, demanding a much more sophisticated understanding of music theory that is not covered in this class. If you are new to music, I would not recommend this course.

The first few weeks were pretty good. However, the last two weeks are too advanced for a "Fundamental" course. Modulations are definitely not beginner territory - even when there was a warning about the difficulty of this section, I still don't think it should be included in the course. The final assignment is also extremely difficult and requires a significant amount of of external reading as many minor but important details were not mentioned. Overall, the syllabus needs to be revised.

This is very misleading. It is not for beginners and is very difficult towards then end. The beginning was amazing! I understood everything. But right after Week 2, things went downhill. The lessons were very rushed and the lecturers were not explaining very well. For some people this was easy, but this is not the FUNDEMENTALS. It's definitly a course for people who already know music theory and just want to touch up on a few areas...

A lot of overly difficult and obscure questions for a basic fundamentals course. If I have to spend 2 hours reading course material from OTHER sites to find an answer, it doesn't really say much for the instruction here does it?

Plus, just way too much emphasis on cadences.

Gave it a second star because it was free.