Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People
This isn't "music theory" (although almost everyone thinks it is). This is "music jargon and notation systems". A <i>theory</i> is something that explains an observed phenomenon. This jargon and notation stuff doesn't explain music, it just guides you through the jargon and notation.<p>I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an <i>excellent</i>, <i>high-quality</i> overview of this non-theory junk.<p>It's extremely culturally-biased and, again, offers no real theoretical explanation.<p>If you want <i>real</i> understanding of music in a <i>useful</i> way for real people, I recommend Bob Snyder's book "Music and Memory: An Introduction" which was actually written to teach creative artistic people about how music <i>actually</i> works rather than how aristocratic European music notation works.<p>For some other perspectives, check out <a href="http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/htmlRT/contents.html" rel="nofollow">http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/htmlRT/contents.html</a> and <a href="http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ttss.html" rel="nofollow">http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ttss.html</a> (normally I wouldn't push these on average folks, although they are <i>superb</i> but the HN crowd should be fine with them)