Chevron Left
Back to Fundamentals of Music Theory

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Fundamentals of Music Theory by The University of Edinburgh

4.5
stars
1,775 ratings

About the Course

This course, revised in 2022, will introduce you to the theory of music, providing you with the skills needed to read and write Western music notation, as well as to understand, analyse, and listen informedly. It will cover material such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, metre and time signatures, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony. This course covers the fundamentals of Western music theory, from the absolute basics to some more advanced concepts. As such, it delivers material for beginners and offers much to experienced musicians alike....

Top reviews

GE

Apr 1, 2021

Very good course which hammers home the essentials.

Good enthusiastic lecturing and importantly on completion progressed onto Coursera Musicianship Specialisation which I have now almost completed

SS

Aug 22, 2017

It was a very nice course. We were able to understand the basics of music theory and how the notations and chords work. Thank you so much to the entire staff of Edinburgh University and Coursera..:-)

Filter by:

401 - 425 of 570 Reviews for Fundamentals of Music Theory

By Nicholas Y L ( Y L

Jan 4, 2021

There is a lot of good things to be said about this course, as it goes pretty in depth about music theory and other relevant aspects. However, there is also a lot of room for improvement as well, as the difficulty level at times seemed pretty intimidating for a beginner course, such as in one particular week (4 or 5, can't exactly remember), where there was very little explanation but a lot of advanced stuff being tested. Overall, it was a great learning experience.

By Sara S

Mar 6, 2018

I've found this course very helpful to improve my knowledge of music theory. Some teachers are very clear and passionate about what they teach. However I don't think I would recommend this course to those who know nothing about music, I think it is necessary to know at least how to read music. I found the quizzes and the final exam very challenging and difficult but they helped me maybe more than the lessons themselves to get a better view on this subject.

By H V S D K P

Nov 13, 2022

The course was well done and helped me clarify some doubts and understand new concepts (I'm a drummer who wanted to understand music theory). There was too much of a leap in the levels toward the second half of the course. I think the harmonic analyses and chord identification concepts, especially if the chord notes are jumbled, or there are passing notes involved, could have been given more time. It would be a great course if it is may an 8-week course.

By Fiona S

Jul 5, 2017

I think that this is an excellent course and I got a lot out of it. However, at times, I found that the quiz and exam questions were far extended beyond the material covered in the lecture. For example, in lectures, the keys were often limited to C Maj, and A Min, but the quiz questions would be much more difficult extending to keys with many more sharps and flats. It might be that further examples, or lectures could be added to address this.

By Kamyar M

Dec 8, 2021

This was a great course in general. I could finally understand some concepts that I have been longing to know for a long time. Very well displayed. Specially Week one - two - four. Week three was a quiet disappointing and the last week was somehow boringly presented. Personally I loved Dr.Moir and Dr.Moran weeks. All in all this was a great course and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to start understanding music theory.

By S m

Oct 9, 2021

This course helped me get farther than ever before will music theory. Most of the instructors and material are excellent. There is a lack of emphasis on the timing and rhythm components, as well as a lower level of lessons for the same topic. Overall the course goes from basic to challenging pretty quickly, but with proper time dedicated it really does a great job cover the Fundamentals of Music Theory

By Xavier T P

Nov 9, 2016

I think it is a really good course, unfortunately too advanced for someone that is just starting to play the recorder and recognises the notes and so on. Also the fact that the notes are ABCDEFG instead of DO.RE.MI.FA... made thinks a little bit confusing for me. I learnt some stuff until 3rd week where started to be quite complicated, 4th week was frustrating. Maybe in the future I'll come back to it.

By Dakota S L

Nov 18, 2019

Great content for an introductory course regarding the topics they covered - helped me fill in missing gaps of knowledge. Lots of clear examples too. My criticisms of the course are:

- Usage of English terminology for rhythms (i.e. quavers, etc.)

- The last video explaining cadences in depth has a lot of audio issues - the instructor is quiet and there are suddenly large spikes in volume from noises

By Gabriel G d O

Feb 27, 2018

I could give five stars, but I've ended up with four and I'll explain why. The course is awesome, instructors are great. The problem is the pace. At some point you have to absorb a considerable amount of information in a short period of time. Of course, it's not a reason to avoid the course, but this feedback could be useful for further adjustments reflecting in a better product for all community.

By Jael T

Jun 30, 2017

This course was really good and I learned a lot, but the teachers jumped around a lot and assumed that the students knew a lot of information already. I was able to survive simply because I had studied about a third of the information presented already. It is a very good course, but not complete. More explanations and examples of HOW to do/calculate the concepts presented would be nice.

By Sarah A

Jul 13, 2020

This course it is a great tool to study about music theory and it helped me to increase my knowledge about this topic. However, I don't think that it's an introductory course, because the quizzes of the latests weeks(3,4,5 and 6) had a gigantic raise of difficulty, Therefore, if you're a beginner in music theory or if you don't know anything about it, I wouldn't recommend this course.

By Anıl Ç

Oct 3, 2016

Generally this course has good subjects and syllabus. In some parts of course they teach reasons of the subjects and it becomes more logical for me. The only reason that I gave four stars is lecture videos are not enough for the final exam. Especially for part 2 of final exam, some questions are more detailed for given lectures. However, it was a good introduction for music theory.

By Jan S

Jan 15, 2017

First of all: Thank you very much for providing this, I've learned a lot!

Why not 5 stars?

In some cases you just used a link to Wikipedia as additional material for a video. In the first and second week you had more details, I know you already kindly invested a lot of time, but I would appreciate if you could add some details to those sections where you just used links.

By Natthanan K

Jul 2, 2020

A variety of topics in music theory was well-organized. Series of practice questions are usefully available. One suggestion is the auditory materials should often accompany written explanations to help learners be acquainted with what you would hear and underlying theory when lecturing about certain topics such as the difference between some time meters or something.

By Hanna D

Nov 30, 2023

The course has a good overview of music theory concepts but be prepared that to really grasp them you need to spend a lot of time practicing on your own and referencing external materials. Don't know if 'fundamentals' is the right title for it because it does get pretty complex pretty quickly and the final exam, imo, is way too difficult for a 'fundamentals' course

By Dulce H

May 7, 2024

It starts very clear and simple, but by the end of the course, it feels more like an intermediate level. As a person who is not a musician, I think it was pretty challenging in the end. However, I'd like to thank the instructors as well as Coursera because now I know interesting things about how music is built, and I listen it from a different perspective.

By Leandro V A

Nov 16, 2020

With the exception of week 3, which is indeed very badly taught, and week 6 which is complex and felt the videos could go a bit into more details, the course met my expectations.

I've always played guitar but never had any music theory training and I leave this course with a lot of answered question of things that I hear in music. It was well worth it.

By Lillian G V

Jun 10, 2018

It's quite good, and everything that was asked in the exams was explained. But I feel it could have been a lot better if they exaplained everything in a more explicit way. Personally, i learn more when things are shown with examples and several concepts than just with listening about the topic, and I know I'm not the only one who learns that way

By michael p

Mar 11, 2023

The material covered by the instructors was very well presented. However there is a big gap between what was presented and what was needed in order to sensibly write the exam at the end. More videos are needed. Also the order should be looked at---some quizzes contained questions which required material presented in future weeks.

By Dr. r n D J G

Mar 5, 2021

Very challenging course. I must say, this is definitly NOT a fundamental or starter course. The level of frustration was quiet high and exploded in week three. Week three is terrible, without any learning benefit. Everything els was challenging, no beginner level in my eyes, but in the end I learned a lot. Thank you!

By marcel m

Apr 24, 2021

The course is very interesting but I would suggest the course material to be complemented by an overall PDF file including a comprehensive summary of all topics ( including the topics for which the lecturers refer learners to wikipedia or other websites) discussed in the course for further reading by the learner.

By Taiwo D ( M

Apr 2, 2023

Great! More explanations can be done to the ending parts like in Cadence and Modulation. So, new learners can get the best out of the course. I'll suggest you take more time to study some other materials online when going through this course as what may seem straight forward and easy for you may not for me.

By Emerson M D V Z

Oct 27, 2021

I think its a grate course, i've lenrt a little by myself, so this reali helped me know my strenghts and weakness, the only think i would change it's that sometimes i think it was a little to dificult because the materials and the test were in two different dificulties (the exams were a lot harder)

By Yvonne G

Nov 18, 2020

It would have been a great course for those new to music theory, but I think the way Week 3 was taught needs a huge improvement. I almost dropped the course because of that alone. But otherwise, the other professors did a great job of teaching music and conveying the feelings it brought with it.

By Ao S

May 29, 2021

The content was great and covers basic knowledge of classical music theory. One thing to say is that the instruction of some problems and the exam were vague and difficult to understand. But I'm satisfied overall and i would like to recommend this course to anyone who is interested in music.