Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Coursera Free Berklee Music Course Update and Mid Way Review


I know, I know... I really need to learn how to draw ovals lol.

My first Coursera course is already 1/2 way complete. It's only been 3 weeks but I already feel like I have learned quite a bit. I have a pretty solid foundation when it comes to singing, especially in choirs, but this course has really helped me develop my understanding of chord structures and further my ear training and keyboard skills.

In my current course, Developing Your Musicianship, I have learned about major and minor triads, major seconds, major thirds, perfect fourths and perfect fifths and how to identify them by ear as well as other important concepts. The Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do method works best for me when identifying these. For example, a major second is Do - Re, a perfect fifth is Do - So and so on. I feel like this course is really helping me become a better musician because I am learning things that I would not have thought to study on my own.

So how do the classes work?

In this particular course a set of video lectures are delivered online each week. The students then watch the lectures, take a quiz, practice on their own and submit an assignment for peer review.

The system has worked really well for me and I like the video lectures a lot. One nice thing about the quizzes is that they incorporate sound clips from Soundcloud to be evaluated which makes it more like a face to face exam.

If you are interested in this sort of thing I highly recommend Coursera and my instructor George W Russell Jr. The platform works well on mobile devices and regular computers which makes it really easy to complete wherever you may be and the content is very relevant and valuable. Also, the Berklee student performances that they share each week are ridiculously inspiring!

<3 KM






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