ILP Participation

The lesson "Music Theory for Songwriters" by Julian Velard, commenced with a short introduction that focused on what to expect and to assess what you knew. There was a short quiz that tested what you already knew and the questions were focused on what was to be taught in the lesson. The next few sections focused on technical parts of music such as keys, notes, chords, etc. This information is vital for later on, when Velard assesses different song forms. The song forms covered were mainly those used in commonly in pop music, today.

The order of the lesson was:

1. Introduction
2. The Building Blocks of Harmony
3. Triads and Chord Progressions
4. Chord Progressions and Voice Leading
5. Song Forms
6. Conclusion

From this lesson, I learned about octaves, the naming system of chords, voice leading, keys, and song forms. Octaves are the halving or doubling of a note. For example, if you start at A 440 Hz and want to go up an octave, you double the Hz (Hertz) and go to A 880 Hz. Going down an octave would mean going from A 440 Hz to A 220 Hz. The lesson progressed through other technicalities of music theory to eventually build to song forms. Within this section, the penultimate of the lesson, I learned about the elements of song form and the familiar forms in pop culture today. Some of the important and common elements of songs are the Intro, Verse, Chorus, Hook, and Refrain. The Chorus being generally the most important in modern pop. As well, the hook is important today. One strong example of the use of a Hook is the title "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. Some familiar song forms in today's music are Simple Verse form, AABA 32-bar form, Verse without Chorus form, and Through-composed form. 

Beneath are some of my notes: