◄Previous: Learning outcomes

# 1 The content

The course begins with a brief introduction to the fundamental elements of western music notation – the staff, clefs and note names. It then moves on to consider the notation of rhythm and of pitch. In addition, the basic form of the chord (the triad) is included, together with a list of the most frequently used performance directions that you will find on notated music (scores). Each section ends with interactive activities that will help you assess how far you understand individual topics or concepts.

Even if you feel that you are already familiar with these concepts it is worthwhile reading through the sections of this course systematically to find out whether there is something that you hadn’t come across before or that you had forgotten.

◄Contents►Next: 1.1 Working through the course

OpenLearn - An introduction to music theory
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.