Help

• Where do I start?
• Navigating the program
• Sound and MIDI
• Text size
• Exercise papers
• Reference areas
• Adobe reader
• Printing
• Pop-up piano keyboard
• Ricci Adams Music-theory.net

 

Frequently answered questions

• Where do I start?
• The reference areas are not very comprehensive
• I cannot find anything about my favourite composer
• I can’t hear the sounds too well
• Some of the music files are too loud
• Some links don’t seem too work
• The mouse-over sounds do not work
• The drag and drop pages do not work

 

begin your course

Where do I start?

It depends what you want to do (or learn). If you would like to learn the theory of music and have little or no knowledge of the basics then go to the prep-level and follow the instructions. If you have some knowledge of the stave, clefs, notes and rests etc. you could try starting on Grade 1. After clicking through the mini-course pages try the quiz tests to see how much you know or have absorbed.

You may however, just want to increase your knowledge of Composers. Maybe you only want to listen to the audio files or enjoy watching the videos. There is a History section where you may study the history of music in brief and then take a test to see how much you know. The Orchestra section contains all the common musical instruments typically used by the orchestra (and some untypical ones too).

How this program works

Each of the 5 grades have 4 sections (A-B-C-D). Each section has about 10 pages and includes ‘previous/next’ links to avoid long scrolling pages. Use your browser ‘back/forward’ buttons on the top toolbar in the normal way so if you have navigated away from a mini-course to review something then use your ‘back’ arrow or ‘history’ cache to return, but normally all you need to worry about is clicking the ‘next’ button. Use the ‘previous/next’ links to click through the mini-courses.

The entire online part of the mini-course is always accessible from the horizontal menu bar at the top of every page – (all grades) and you will get popup ‘tooltip’ information if you hover your mouse over the page numbers before clicking. After visiting a page you will find the blue page links will have turned orange so you will know where you been!

The reference areas features general music history, composers and instruments of the orchestra. (this material is not always included in rudimentary external examinations but will always be useful for all music students. Enhancing your knowledge will not only deepen your appreciation and love for the subject, but give you a sound foundation for a music degree or other advanced studies – and you will be able to answer those ‘egghead’ questions. The program extras include flash-cards, puzzles, a scale and chord finder and all types of manuscript to freely download.

• In order to progress to the next ‘Part’ or ‘Grade’ you will need to complete an online Test Quiz when on successful completion letters are collected which you try to re-shuffle into a musical term which acts as a password to enable access to the next grade although if you prefer this can be bypassed. (This feature is gradually being phased out)

• Sometimes, links, words or phrases will have mouse-over pop-ups which means you can get a quick definition by hovering the mouse over the word although we haven’t used this universally throughout the program when we realised that the simple windows screen tips do the same job and require much less coding (duhh!).

• If you click on the links you may need to click on the browser ‘back’ button to return.

 

When you have finished a ‘part’ you can download (and then print out) an exercise paper which you obviously have to complete by hand. We will publish answer papers on the site when we get round to it but if you need any help please let us know. (you will need Adobe reader to print out the exercise sheets) Adobe reader will open in your browser so when exiting Adobe you can easily close the whole website by clicking on the white X (with red background) box. Simply click the ‘back’ arrow to avoid this.

You need Adobe reader to print out the exercise sheets and manuscript. Click on the logo now for a free download if you need a copy.

 

 

 

SOUND & MIDI

These picture’s means if you hover your mouse over the link you will hear the sound of the exercise play immediately. (or maybe after a few seconds on a slower computer) try it now. The ‘mouse-over’ feature is also active on many of the music illustrations. When you have completed one of the mini-courses in part A, B, C, or D you may take a test by clicking on one of the ‘Test quizzes’ on the final page of each mini-course.
We recommend you score an absolute minimum of 80% before progressing to the next stage.

UPDATE: 2011 – We have now phased out the mouse-over sound (MIDI) in favour of mp3 audio which is more compatible with the latest browsers and computers.

 

You will find either these buttons on the composer pages of the earlier version and on left clicking  you will be able hear MIDI generated samples of compositions and extracts of the composers most famous works. Make sure your computer is configured to play MIDI files and you have a media player of some kind. In later versions a self contained embedded media player replaces the buttons above which rely on opening an external player. You may need to assign your default media player (Windows Media/Real Player/Quick Time) to play midi files. In Windows media click Tools….Options….File types…. and then tick the midi file box. If you prefer Real Player you need to click on Tools….Preferences….Content + Media Types…click radio button – manually configure media types….and then the SELECT button…. now tick the midi-file box from the list of file types. For Quick Time choose  Edit….Preferences….Quick Time Preferences….File Types….Audi only file formats….etc. We however recommend Windows Media for this program.

If the music is too loud or soft then you may adjust the volumes of the midi/mp3/wav files via your Start Menu…Accessories…Entertainment…Volume control

Music Copyrights:

Some of the audio files and streams have been obtained from websites offering royalty free public domain music or with Creative Commons licenses. The use of these files on this website is purely educational and are not available for download. However, it has occurred to us that although the compositional rights may be in the public domain, performance rights could still be an issue and until we can be certain the copyrights are in order we will be replacing some files with our own productions. If you recognise your own performance on any of the audio files, please let us know and we will either delete the file or credit you with a link or text.

 

The sound of MIDI is generated by your computer so the quality will depend on your own speakers and soundcard.  Although MIDI files can sound excellent with the right equipment they are included on this program for practical (and educational purposes rather than achieving high sound quality for entertainment. Please contact us if you need more technical information.

 

On the instrument pages you may hear the music files in your own (default) external media player (if you prefer) by clicking on the coffee cup picture. Normally there is an embedded media player on the page.

 

 

 

If you are using a smaller monitor screen and are having difficulties reading the text on this page, then click size on the browser menu and then you can choose a larger text.

 

 

You may find our pop-up piano keyboard (with ‘live’ sound) useful throughout the course: You can access the piano pop-up from any mini-course  ‘start’ page where it will appear in its own window which can then be minimized and used whenever required during the course. You can ‘carry’ the ‘Flash’ pop-up around wherever it will be useful for playing phrases, intervals and scales etc.

© 2005 The Pennsylvania State University.

 

Music-theory.net

We have incorporated Ricci Adams excellent theory trainers into the site and they can be accessed anytime from ‘Program Extras’ on the main top menu. You may need to update your browser to see the flash animations.
www.music-theory.net

Reference Areas

• The Composers through the ages area is intended to whet the appetites and give students an introduction to the life and works of some of the most famous composers throughout the tonal periods of composition. Although we will soon be adding another 20 to our collection, knowledge of composers is not overly necessary in most boards syllabi up to grade 5. This section now has quality audio and videos added to every page.

• Again, Instruments of the orchestra covers the most common orchestral and keyboard instruments and gives all the information necessary for up grade 5.

• The Glossary of music terms is also only intended to provide a reference for the most likely tempo indications, performance directions and other music terms needed for this level.

• This program is primarily concerned with helping musicians to gain their theory qualifications so they can progress to grade 8 performance exams. We have provided links to more specialised websites for those of you who like to study at a deeper level.

Printing

Simply click on ‘print’ on the main top toolbar menu and follow your computers printing guide. If you would like to print part of a page then select the relevant part and choose ‘Selection’ from the preferences dialogue box (see below) instead of ‘All’ or ‘Pages’

Please let us know if any of the links or program operations are not working correctly.

There are many links to the web throughout the program for students who wish to research at a deeper level, however we cannot wholly endorse or guarantee the absolute accuracy of any information given by online encyclopaedias or other web sources. Usually the link will open in a new browser window so when close it you can return to the website without using the back button.

Bing, Bong

The notes that play are the notes on the lines of the bass clef G-B-D-F-A. This is the signature logo (the musical stave representing the 5 grades as a sort of ladder to work up one grade at a time) we use on our One-2-Five websites. While on grade 1 we hear the note G – on grade 2 the note B and so on. We hope that this will subliminally teach people perfect pitch as you begin to associate the pitches with the various grades. A good idea would be to try to sing the pitch before clicking on the grade. Hopefully the more you sing and imagine these pitches, the more likely you will remember the ‘experience’ of the sound – how it feels in your head – the vibrations and buzz around your facial muscles, mouth, throat and abdomen. Well it was worth a try…..

 

Composers music Selections

The music samples are midi-files (see sound & midi) If we had enough web-space to use hundreds of mp3 files and could get copyright clearance from the London Symphony Orchestra then that would be great but in truth the midi-files are sufficient for education purposes in order for people to associate the (often familiar) melodies with the actual composer. They are not really intended for entertainment purposes.

2010 Update: We  have recently acquired sufficient web-space to include high quality audio files on every composer and instrument page. ENJOY!

Browsers, Mouse’s, Dragon-drop

Please let us know if you have problems with any of the features used in the website. By November 2008, most browsers should work OK  The site was designed to be used with (Windows) Internet Explorer and we are in the process of trying to solve all the coding and cross-browser sound and pop-up related problems. After enabling the dragon-drop to work on all browsers, Internet explorer seems to work a little stickier and less smooth than the others (just can’t seem to win them all!)

begin your course (Grade 1)

Please enjoy learning music theory with Classycool Music