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 theory 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.I have a music degree and learned all this stuff and a lot more. This presentation is an excellent, high-quality overview of this non-theory junk.It's extremely culturally-biased and, again, offers no real theoretical explanation.If you want real understanding of music in a useful 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 actually works rather than how aristocratic European music notation works.For some other perspectives, check out http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/htmlRT/contents.html and http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ttss.html (normally I wouldn't push these on average folks, although they are superb but the HN crowd should be fine with them)