I enjpyed the lectures. I have no musical background and found the final exam frustrating in that I felt that the course info had not prepared me for such detail. I am a self-motivated learn and studied independenty for the exam. I would not recommend this course for total beginners.

This course is DEFINITELY NOT for beginners as they initially lead you to believe. I took this class to hopefully help my daughter in her high school music theory class if she needed it. I've taken plenty of online classes over the years and this was definitely one of the most difficult!

They really need to let potential students know that a solid background in piano and/or guitar is necessary before tackling this course. Despite the fact that I've been playing flute for over 40 years, and have a dance background, I was very lost throughout this course. There's nobody to explain anything and the final exam (especially part 2) was nearly impossible to complete accurately. It was as if they wanted us to read their minds. I did learn some things but it was not-at-all a pleasant experience.

I am a musician of almost 55 years and never learned theory. This class was WAY too difficult for even an experienced musician like me. I play bassoon, flute, piano and ukulele and the concepts here were just DUMPED rather than explained and built upon. This class was like dropping off all the building materials for constructing a house and then never explaining how to build the foundation, let alone erect the structure and complete the job.

The first few intro lectures were very interesting, but then at some point sheet music reading became an absolutely must have skill and I had lots of pain counting all those lines just to read and understand the question. This totally ruined the whole course for me. While being able to read sheet music is an important skill and I'd definitely love to have this skill, you can't just say "ok, read it".

The course material itself is enjoyable, but the quizzes don't work properly. The feedback given to the same responses between retakes is contradictory.

unas cosas vienen en español y otras no, ¿como puedo responder las preguntas si todas vienen en ingles y yo no hablo ese idioma?

Surprisingly tedious. Material presented better in other courses.

FUCKING GARBAGE ASS SCAM

Thanks to the lecturers for a good course!

Maybe the material can seems difficult to those who trying to learn the basics only through the videos. I preferred to combine the course with reading a book on the basics of music theory. Lectures with quizes became a good practical addition to the book and seemed easy enough for me.

The second part of the final exam was really hard. There were many questions in it for which the course does not provide sufficient skill training background. But I regarded it as a motivation for doing some research work. And after watching some videos on YouTube, reading Wikipedia and various articles on harmonic analysis, everything fell into place. It was worth it since after such kind of work the basic skills are strengthen very well.

Overall an excellent introduction to music theory. The course makes you work a little bit but rewards you by expanding your understanding of musical structures and ideas behind them. You're also able to analyse and write notation after you have finished the course.

I've always played by ear and never bothered to learn basic theory as I never felt I would be needing it in the future. I also felt that music theory was complicated and (excuse me) dull. In that sense, this course makes an exception and I was able to finish the five weeks in a month working maybe couple of hourse per week. Now, especially after this course, I think my musical understanding has progressed.

The Coursera learning environment works very well both on laptop and mobile.

Excellent introduction to music theory. Some of course content was not the first time that i covered but i find that this helped me put it all together. I found the harmonic analysis section the most useful. I did not find that the symbols to describe the chords were well explained. I learned in correcting peer exams that V7b meant the V chord with the minor 7th. During the exam , i was not sure if it meant that the root of the V chord was flattened. Now i know. But, perhaps i missed integrating that information. Overall, this is an excellent course.

My goal in selecting this class was to get a base in harmonic analysis and i happy that i selected this course as my first course in music theory.

This was an excellent course! I've played piano for years and never understood how the composers were moving from key to key or creating the effects they got. This really opened my eyes and I want to know MORE! My only minor complaint, is that I would have appreciated it if you had covered how to name the chords between the two staffs, how to deal with repeated notes, when is it an inversion, what to consider between the two staves and how to account for "extra" notes. As such, the practical part of the exam did cover this and I thought your grading notes were excellent. I was pretty wary about that part of the exam but am really glad I did it (including the peer reviews). Thank you.

I really like this course. As a person who plays piano but don't know too much about music theory, I think this course i's a little difficult but not too difficult.

Feedback: I do have one feedback for the final quiz though. I think some questions from the final quiz is a bit stretching. For example the concept of passing note(a note you can overlook when analyzing chords), and a chord could be analyzed as different key is not mentioned much in the course lecture material. I know we have some related analysis in the last reading material for Bach's prelude. But I feel more explaining or introduction of these new concepts in video lecture will be even more helpful.

I'm 25 years old and I've been writing and preforming my music for the past 6-7 years. I've never received a proper musical education growing up so through the years I've mostly skimmed through the "basics" of music theory and just paddled along with my listening and a little help from my friends. This course is the first of its kind that I've ever done and it was splendid! The material was nicely spread out and was organized in an agreeable fashion that made things truly more understandable to me. I hope to continue getting better at understanding what works and what doesn't in the music world and this was another nice first step. Thank you!

I did several courses on music theory online and this course may be on an introductory level on a music school level. But for everyone else this is advanced level. It is without any doubt the best course on music theory that I have participated in. I also want to mention that the tests are pretty hard to pass (otherwise we are not learning are we). I appreciate that the University of Edinburgh is sharing this with the world. It is very helpful. And I appreciate the time spend on learning, planning, organising, writing, recording etc. I know that 5 stars is not enough. Thank you guys.

Thank you for this course. I took piano lessons from 3rd grade through high school, but my instructor never taught me anything about music theory. When my friends were all forming bands, I could never figure out what they were talking about when I tried to join them. Now, I am 52 years old and this course just connected all of the missing dots. This was very challenging and I had to go outside to learn some things, but that is what you have to do in college. This was a great start to help me pick up where I left off many years ago. Thank you again, I really appreciate this course.

I started this course thinking it was going to be something and ended up being something more difficult than i was expecting. I had experience with music theory and it helped me navigate this course easier. Both of the final exam modules are actually rather difficult for a novice but if you have a proper studying schedule won't be a problem. I recommend using the forum. Personally i'm thankful that those two final exam modules were difficult because it gave me confidence in what i already knew and pushed me a bit to be more thorough will analyzing music. Thank you very much

Honestly, there a gaps in the material but at the end, it's a course not a 4 years study in music which demands from you to play an instrument. But the course covers everything practically and it comes from an university, meaning that it worths it at all ways because the quality of tests, teaching, videos, etc, it all comes from a big and experienced team.

I just want to add that I am happy of udnerstanding now the fundamentals opening to me the doors to other roots in music fields and possibilities, Thank you all for bringing it free.

I commenced this course as complete beginner, I have never owned a musical instrument or played a musical instrument or read a single note of music. This is a completely new field for me. Each week I put in a lot of hours (outside my regular job) to absorb, understand and apply what I was learning. It was very challenging, but the exhilaration of leaning the fundamentals of the language of music was so worth it. The course has given me a new appreciation and understanding of music that I was ignorant of before.

It is a very challenging course. The materials covered in the lectures are not sufficient to pass the quizzes and exam. I spent a lot of time looking up material on the internet, and am glad I made it in my first attempt! It is a great course for anyone who has a passion in music , and is willing to invest many hours to understand the fundamentals of music theory. I am now learning jazz piano comping, and better understanding of harmony and modulation would definitely help.

Love this course so far! As I am using this for a quick review for my music theory to supplement my years of piano music before taking the AP Music Theory exam later this year, this course is very informational and helpful. I wish they had released a vocabulary list each week as either an assignment too for just a completion grade, or given hand in hand with the printouts each lesson to help develop the musicianship and familiarity of music's unique jargon.

This course helped me a LOT with Music Theory. The explanations were easy to follow. The quizzes and the final exam reinforced everything I learned. I would always go and try what they showed in the videos; playing the scales and figuring out the chords, it's very helpful. So enrolling in the course requires practice from your side too! Overall an amazing course; a lot of concepts to take in which will be with me throughout my musical journey!

seria importante reforzar la aplicación en otros idiomas para facilitar lectura y comprensión de temas.

Francamente la semana 5 se me dificulto por las traducciones, recomiendo dividir el tema en dos semanas por su complejidad; el instructor es muy bueno pero las grabaciones se deben mejorar y citar mas ejemplos prácticos. las ligas a otros sitios para reforzar el conocimiento son buenas pero se podría recurrir a ejemplos de YouTube

Thanks!

What a wonderful course. The instructors were so engaging and knowledgeable... and talented! It is a topic that I've always wanted to know about but never had the opportunity in school to learn about it. It got pretty technical at times and, like learning a language, it really takes a lot of memorization or experience to fully grasp the subject matter, but the parts that I could follow, was just what I was hoping to get from the course!

The course was a thorough review of Scales, Keys, Chords, Intervals, Progressions, Interludes, Modulations, Cadences, and much more. The reading and analysis of a classical work by Beethoven was very enlightening. I believe that most of the students found the course to be interesting and a valuable learning tool.

The instructors were very informative and well versed in their working knowledge of the fundamentals of music.