The School of the Arts · visual, musical & performing arts
Music Theory, Performance & Production
How music is built, played, and recorded — from the first interval to a finished mix, ears first.
Staff, scale, meter, and chord: the working grammar behind the music you already know.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~24 hours
Unit I — Pitch and Notation
The staff, clefs, and ledger lines · Whole steps, half steps, accidentals · Major scales and the key signatures
Unit II — Rhythm
Note values and rests · Meter: simple and compound · Counting systems that actually help
Unit III — Intervals and Chords
Interval size and quality · Triads: major, minor, diminished, augmented · The chords that live inside a key
Unit IV — Hearing It
Recognizing intervals by ear · Simple melodies by ear and by sight · Writing eight honest bars
Four voices, moving well: diatonic harmony, cadence, and analysis from chorale to chart.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~30 hours
Unit I — Rules and Their Reasons
Four-part texture · Doubling and spacing · Parallel fifths and why ears object
Unit II — Diatonic Harmony
Roman-numeral analysis · Predominant, dominant, tonic motion · Cadences and phrase structure
Unit III — Beyond the Key
Secondary dominants · Modulation to close keys · Borrowed chords
Unit IV — Analysis
A Bach chorale, annotated · A pop song under the same lens · Composing a short chorale of your own
Intervals, melodies, and progressions taken in by ear and written down accurately.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~20 hours
Unit I — Intervals and Scales by Ear
Anchor songs for each interval · Major versus minor at speed · Scale degrees and solfège
Unit II — Melody
Sight-singing stepwise tunes · Leaps and how to land them · Dictation: from hearing to page
Unit III — Harmony and Rhythm
Chord quality by ear · Progressions: hearing the bass move · Rhythmic dictation in simple and compound meter
Posture to first recital: a structured first year at the keyboard, hands together early.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~40 hours
Unit I — At the Instrument
Posture, hand shape, and the geography of the keys · Five-finger patterns in C · Reading both clefs from the start
Unit II — First Repertoire
Legato and staccato · Simple pieces, hands together · Dynamics as musical speech
Unit III — Scales and Chords
Major scales, one octave · Primary chords and simple accompaniment · Playing a lead sheet slowly
Unit IV — The First Recital
Pedaling basics · Three pieces, polished · How to run a productive twenty-minute practice
Form, lyric, and hook — the craft decisions that separate a finished song from a fragment.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~22 hours
Unit I — Song Anatomy
Verse, chorus, bridge, and what each owes · Hooks: melodic, lyrical, rhythmic · Studying three songs you love
Unit II — Lyric Craft
Concrete images over abstractions · Rhyme schemes and near rhyme · Prosody: stressed syllables on strong beats
Unit III — Harmony and Melody for Writers
Progressions that carry feeling · Melodic contour and range · Keys and where your voice sits
Unit IV — Finishing Songs
Rewriting: the second-verse problem · Simple demos · Co-writing etiquette and song splits
Microphone to master: recording, mixing, and releasing real songs from a small room.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~28 hours
Unit I — Signal Path
From vibration to waveform · Microphones: dynamic and condenser · Gain staging without clipping
Unit II — The DAW
Tracks, buses, and sends · Recording and comping takes · MIDI and virtual instruments
Unit III — Mixing
Balance first, then EQ · Compression, explained slowly · Reverb and delay as space
Unit IV — Finishing Records
Automation and final passes · Mastering basics for release · Loudness, formats, and where songs go