Music Notation & Literacy

ensures that students understand and become skilled in using elements of musical notation.  Each level offers age appropriate exercises in reading, writing, and identifying notes and rhythms.  Common musical concepts and terminology (such as tempo markings and articulation marks) and formal indications (such as repeat signs, Codas, etc.) are also covered to ensure students become completely conversant and literate.

Music Notation and Literacy provides the foundation for material covered in private lessons and many other CMP classes.  Beginning students are strongly urged to take a Music Notation & Literacy course.  Students with more experience are invited to take the course to review or to fill in any gaps in their previous education.

Scale, Chord & Key

Scale, Chord & Key ensures that students understand and become skilled in recognizing and manipulating the tonal building blocks of many western musical styles.  Each level offers age appropriate exercises in reading, writing, identifying, and playing or singing different types of scales and chords.

Familiarity and then fluency with scales such as major and minor pentatonic scales, major and minor diatonic sclaes and modes, major and minor blues scales, chromatic scales, whole tone scales, odd and even octatonic scales are developed.  Likewise, a variety of different types of triads, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th chords are studied, as are non-triadic harmonies like those based on 4ths, 5ths, and clusters.

For older and more advanced students, scales and chords are studied as critical elements of musical expression and the building blocks for projecting Tonality and ultimately, Musical Form. For jazz and blues musicians, particular emphasis on chord voicings (like rootless shells) and standard chord progressions (or changes) are given heavy emphasis.   

Facility with scales, chords, and keys is a critical gateway to a more complete musicianship in many different musical styles.  Used correctly, learning and practicing scales and chords develops the ear, bolsters technical skill, are helpful for sight-reading, transposition of scores, and memorization, and essential for improvisation and composition.

Advanced Harmony

is the sequel to Scale, Chord & Key, and the means by which motivated students jump into study of more advanced concepts like Tonality, foreground and background harmonic design, procedures like Tonal Shift, structures such as Extended Chords, and complex relationships like Chord Substitutions and Modal Mixture.  Advanced harmony students encounter these phenomena through lectures and discussions, in and out of class written and listening exercises, score and recording analysis, and through composition or improvisation sessions.

Topics include: function theory, species counterpoint, an intro to Schenkerian theory.

Permission of the instructor is required for enrollment.

Tune Time, American Mix, SoPo Sound

TuneTime and American Mix introduce and reinforce one of the critical elements of making music—spinning melodies.  Songs are a powerful means by which we are connected with others, not only while singing, but also in the deeper, philosophical, spiritual, or human sense.  It’s indisputable, songs have made the world what it is and can be vehicles for personal, community, and even global transformation.  Every musician should learn to sing, and this is how we get everyone doing it.

On a more practical level, these courses provide students the opportunity to sing in groups with other students and faculty.  Students learn a variety of songs in different styles, and they practice singing in time, in tune, and most importantly, with sensitivity and pleasure.

Rhythm & Groove

provides a platform for studying and making rhythms.  Each section offers a variety of age and skill appropriate exercises in playing, reading, and writing rhythms.  Students learn and practice the essentials of moving deliberately and playing in time.  Playing accurately on the beat and in the meter are each given thorough attention, usually through hand drumming. Students are encouraged, although not required to purchase and bring a hand drum (such as a djembe) to Rhythm & Groove classes.  (Purchase orders for drums can be placed with the Center upon enrollment.)

In these classes, much effort is put into helping students to not only count rhythms accurately, but to also feel and enjoy rhythmic flow.  Such embodiment of rhythm is critical in just about every musical style and truthfully, a life-enriching skill.