This is a continuation of my series of notes from when my students and I took the online Write Like Mozart class last year.

Between the 3rd and 4th week of the course, I had an epiphany on the merits of what Professor Edwards calls Texture Reduction and the application of patterns. Here I speak of how Professor Edwards’ approach to teaching music theory as a generative process differs from what I experienced in school and the wonders of applying patterns to textural reductions.  A few quick hints are offered at the end of the post.

This is the fourth post in this series.

Below are the Write Like Mozart Week 3 Notes that I sent my students last year when we took the Write Like Mozart class together.  In this installment, I offer a reference sheet for non-chord tones, thoughts on working with sequential progressions, and a number of hints in completing the assignments and applying what you’ve learned.

This is the third post in this series.

Below are the Write Like Mozart Week 2 Notes that I sent my students last year when we took the Write Like Mozart class together.  I include a summary of figured bass notation, a summary of part writing rules, and some information on how to check your part writing electronically. This is the second post in this series.

In my last post, I introduced the online Write Like Mozart class offered by Coursera. I promised to post some of my notes I sent my high school students from when we collectively took the class last year.

I have logged into the January 2015 offering of the course, and it appears that the videos have not changed since I took the class. The supplemental notes I offer below for Write Like Mozart Class Week 1 are largely unedited from what I sent to my students last year.

This time last year I started a fabulous free online class called Write Like Mozart.  This class is offered through the Coursera, a conglomeration of high quality online classes offered by major universities around the world. Write Like Mozart is taught by Peter Edwards of the National University of Singapore. The class is being offered again starting this week (January 13, 2015), and it is a great time to join in. Because the videos are all online and the assignments are not due until the following week, it is no problem to join the class late. I encourage anybody with at least a high school or College Freshman year understanding of music theory to partake.

As an educator, I found that the Write Like Mozart class offered me new ways of teaching music theory. Some of the key approaches within this course are:

• The theory is learned by composing.
• Harmonic possibilities are derived from variations on previously learned harmonic progressions.
• Increasingly complex harmonic progressions are derived from expansions of the more basic harmonic progressions.
• Significant time is spent on how to write keyboard accompaniment to melody.