I. Pitch // FEB 17th
Welcome, fellow tonebase Academists! ♪♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
In this thread, we will be talking about the first lesson of our music reading course. Please use this thread if you have any questions concerning the workbook (coming soon!) or general questions concerning pitch in standard music notation!
Click here to access Session 1: Pitch // Feb 17th (11am PST, 2pm EST, 8pm CET)
Find the other sessions here: Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Download the first workbook here
I will post the answers to the questionnaire on Feb 24th!
After the livestream, submit your assignments by replying to this thread!
See the pinned reply below to learn about various ways to write down your weekly assignments!
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To complete the weekly assignments and get feedback in this thread, you will need to scribble down certain symbols that don’t exist in regular text editors like Microsoft Word or Pages. Therefore, make sure to have on hand either one of the following:
- Option 1: A piece of staff paper and a pencil
- Option 2: A tablet with an app you can handwrite in
- Option 3: Notation software (a good free option is MuseScore)
On the last page of the workbook below, you can find our tonebase staff paper template. Feel free to print out a couple of copies to use throughout the course!
Alternatively, you can draw staff paper on a blank piece of paper with a ruler. Make sure you draw 5 parallel lines at equal distance and not too far from each other (see screenshot above).
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Mircea Hello Mircea! Very excited about this course, specially about the Fingering chapter, such a headache in terms of choosing what sonority is best for a determined passage :S See you tomorrow!
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Diego Arboleda Thank you Diego! Hope you enjoyed today's livestream!
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Mircea
Here is my recording of the notes of Ex 1e. Please provide feedback.
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BHASKAR this is great! You played all the notes perfectly and everything looked and sounded great! Congratulations on a job beautifully done!!!
Your second and third string are a bit out of tune, but that's beyond the scope of this course. You did nothing wrong there, all guitars go out of tune over time.
If you want to fix that in the future, you can always download a free tuner (there are many apps for both iOS and Android) or even use your a free web tuner.
Alternatively, I taught a lesson on tuning by ear on tonebase - it was actually my first ever collaboration with the platform!
Click this link to watch it.
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I am very excited! Will it also include details regarding music theory in general?
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BHASKAR Thank you, Bhaskar! Hope you've enjoyed today's session! I know I've already answered this in-stream, but just for the benefit of those who weren't there:
Yes, there will be some music theory in this course! I've tried to keep the general level of theory nerdiness manageable, since every topic can be a huge rabbit hole you can spend years in. But throughout this course, we will learn about all the basic music theory concepts that are required for you to read music correctly and fluently as a guitarist.
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@Mircea, very energetic workshop. Gracias.
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Mircea
Attaching the Session 1 exercises
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Jose Luis Ochoa Thanks a lot, Jose!!! Glad you enjoyed it - and congratulations on submitting the first-ever assignment of this course!
It was almost perfect - just a couple of things in the first few exercises. Great job overall, hope to see you around the forums and in the future sessions!
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Mircea Thanks for the feedback. That tricky A versus C note with ledger lines.
Mircea -
Jose Luis Ochoa yes! These are the trickiest ones.
Now, when it comes to the video, I don't seem to be able to open it. Can you make sure its privacy settings on YouTube are set to "unlisted", rather than private? If it's unlisted, it won't show up on your profile or on any searches, but you can still embed it here on the forums. I'm currently getting an error message ("This video is private"), so I can't comment on it.
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Mircea I changed to unlisted. Let me know. Thanks.
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Jose Luis Ochoa perfect! That worked.
And great job!!! Not a single note mistake in your video. (Beautiful tone and hand posture too, although we won't be talking much about technique in this course!) Congratulations on a job very well done!
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It was a wonderful review of the basic concepts of music theory and sheet notation. I had some knowledge of it in the past and I needed a thorough review. So glad that you refreshed my knowledge! Multumesc! E foarte drăgut din partea dumitale!
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BHASKAR Thank you so much, Bhaskar! Very happy to hear you've enjoyed it. Hope to see you in the next sessions too! And wow - cu placere! That's some awesome Romanian you got there
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Hello Mircea:
I can read but i'm not as fluent to read a score from top to bottom without having to stop here and there so I'm here to "refresh and fill in the gaps". Can't join the livestreams because of time differences but will watch them and stay connected through the forum.
Thanks Mircea!
Here is the first assignment.
PD: You have a beautiful sound, by the way!
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Phil Meissner Ding ding ding, we have a winner! This is perfect - no errors here at all! Very happy to hear you'll be joining us asynchronously. Hope to help refresh those gaps over the next few weeks, as you say!
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Could not make the live session unfortunately. But I have since watched it. Man you tire me out , so much energy! Anyway really enjoyed it. Will do the exercises later, wife wants me to to build a garden shed first!! Should be able to make the next live session, looking forward to it. Thank you. John A.
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JOHN ANDERSON Awesome, so glad you enjoyed it!
Hahah you're right - I've been told this about my energy levels for many years now
During my undergraduate studies, my teacher used to sometimes jokingly introduce me as "this is Mircea, my highest-energy student" 
Looking forward to seeing you here and perhaps in the livestreams in the next couple of weeks! Whatever you do, remember the wife comes first!
hope the garden shed is turning out well!
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Hi Mircea,
Nicely paced session, it was many years since I originally learned music notation. I attach the photos and playing. My cat joined in so apoliges for the incidentals :)
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Bill Dodd Great job!!! Congratulations on the recording - that was perfect! No mistakes at all anywhere.
For the written exercises, you almost managed the same thing! Just one little detail I noticed in the first exercise - that single note marked below was wrong. Keep it up! This is a great start.
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Mircea ‘fraid my G’s can look like f’s I will be neater in the future
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Bill Dodd Ohh was this a case of me not reading the handwriting right? I'm so sorry about that, I've always been pretty horrible at handwriting recognition! I do apologize and offer this virtual cookie as a token of goodwill:
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Here is my reply to the thread with the completed assignments. Will soon follow it up with a vid of the Ex 1e.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
