General Knowledge Workshops: Music Fundamentals
1 day, 9:15 am - 4:00 pm

This workshop explores the big picture of music: how the notes fit together into scales and keys, how harmony affects everything we hear and feel in music, and how the structures of music guide what we hear and how we perform.
For high school students, aged 12 to 18.
Course Outline
Session 1: Scales, Keys and Modulations
- Discussion: what are scales for?
- How we hear music
- What is a scale?
- The Major Scale
- The Cycle of Fifths
- The Minor Scale: three types
- Changing Key (Modulations)
- How to spot modulations
Session 2: Modes and other scales
- Where do our notes come from?
- The origins of western music
- The Medieval Modes
- Other types of scales
- Equal Temperament
Session 3: Large Musical Forms
- Discussion: What is structure for?
- Movements
- The Sonata
- The Symphony
- The Concerto
- The Suite
- The Overture
- Summing up
Session 4: Forms Within Forms
- Through-composed
- Theme and Variations
- Fugue
- Binary
- Ternary
- Song form/32 bar form/A-A-B-A form
- Minuet and Trio form, and Scherzo
- Rondo
- First Movement or Sonata Form
- Sonata Rondo form
- Analysing forms
- Form in performance
- Summing up
This workshop can be split into two 3-hour workshops, Key, Tonality, Modes & Modulations and Form and Structure