Music Theory Help

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Burt Markenson
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Music Theory Help

Post by Burt Markenson »

Hey guys, do you know any good websites with alot of information on music theory, composers, and stuff that is relevant to competitions? I'm pretty new to quizbowl and I'm assigned Music Theory for my "specialty" and I'd like to get to know it alot better.

Thanks for the help,
Burt
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by bdavery »

This site has a lot of theory/definitions, while the appendix link at the bottom of the page talks about composers and other useful stuff.

http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Burt Markenson wrote:Hey guys, do you know any good websites with alot of information on music theory, composers, and stuff that is relevant to competitions? I'm pretty new to quizbowl and I'm assigned Music Theory for my "specialty" and I'd like to get to know it alot better.

Thanks for the help,
Burt
Welcome to quizbowl Burt. One of the best websites for studying things like this is Stanford's Culture Page Index. It's also good for studying many other subjects too, so tell your teammates in other specialties as well. Here's the link for music theory:

http://ai.stanford.edu/~csewell/culture/music.htm

And here's a link for various composers and their works.

http://ai.stanford.edu/~csewell/culture/musicians.htm

Also, if your high school has some sort of Fine Arts course it would be great for you to take it. If you live near a college that offers summer classes, look into taking a basic Music Appreciation course sometime. Not only will it help you with quizbowl, you can also earn a little college credit before you even get out of high school. :smile:
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Pure music theory will probably net you 20 points in your entire career. You should definitely focus more on the actual works of famous composers if you want payoff.
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by Scott »

http://www.classical.net/
This site is very good for studying music composers and theory.
I use it frequently and find it really helpful.

This one is good too.
http://www.classicalarchives.com/
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euterpe42
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by euterpe42 »

I just finished AP Music Theory, so I found quite a few helpful sites for the technical aspects of music theory during my time studying. I don't know how often they'd come up in quizbowl, but I hope they help:

http://www.musictheory.net/ (this site is the most basic, if you're not too skilled yet)

http://www.8notes.com/theory/

http://www.dolmetsch.com/theoryintro.htm

http://www.teoria.com/
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by DongDonger »

I'm a musician, and I power a lot of music tossups just because I'm familiar with the pieces. I suggest just listening to them, or playing them if you're a musician. Reading an article or two about them can also help.
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by sssssssskkkk »

DongDonger wrote:I'm a musician, and I power a lot of music tossups just because I'm familiar with the pieces. I suggest just listening to them, or playing them if you're a musician. Reading an article or two about them can also help.
I agree that being a musician and playing lots of pieces will help in quiz bowl, as a musician myself I'm not that great at the music questions because I play the piano and piano pieces are not very well represented - also in the many years that I've been playing I haven't really been paying attention to the names of the pieces and such.
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by DongDonger »

sssssssskkkk wrote:
DongDonger wrote:I'm a musician, and I power a lot of music tossups just because I'm familiar with the pieces. I suggest just listening to them, or playing them if you're a musician. Reading an article or two about them can also help.
I agree that being a musician and playing lots of pieces will help in quiz bowl, as a musician myself I'm not that great at the music questions because I play the piano and piano pieces are not very well represented - also in the many years that I've been playing I haven't really been paying attention to the names of the pieces and such.
If you're going to study quizbowl music, it seems the biggest focus is on operas and symphonies; the latter tend to be the clues for composers and such. Or at least, that's what I've noticed.
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by Unicolored Jay »

Even though I have taken AP Music Theory, it hasn't helped me at all in quiz bowl (except for the rare occasion a piece we covered comes up somewhere in a tossup on a composer or something). Studying works and listening to them has helped me much more, but if you learn all of the basic terms that may come up in music (ex. andante, etc.) then I think you can remember music better. Theory won't directly help, but it can.
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by kayli »

Music theory is awesome for actually understanding what a music question is describing though. If a work is describing multiple glissandos in the cellos, then one can think "Glissando.. gliss... Oh man, I need some lip gloss." or "Oh, this sounds like gliding from one pitch to the next. I think I've heard this before." Also, some questions describe chord progressions in certain pieces so having an idea of what those sound like is also helpful. So, until we get to the point where readers can go "The first part of this work sounds like ShanananananaBOW" without making the questions sound ridiculous, I think that learning basic music theory is helpful in getting music question if just by understanding what the heck's going on.
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Re: Music Theory Help

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

After taking a very introductory music class this term, I can safely say that merely knowing terminology and having a basic understanding of the common things that composers do, e.g. Haydn used tons and tons of strings and Bruckner had great drum parts, allows one to really increase their skill at music questions. If you're in college, I recommend taking a similar introductory class (mine was called Symphonies from Mozart to Mahler).
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