Music Theory with Max R.

Ever pondered upon a visceral reaction that you had in response to listening and/or playing a striking sonority or melodic passage of music? Do you wish to gain insight into the ingredients that form the basis of your emotional connection to musical sound? Are you seeking to elevate your musicianship to further enhance your work as a performer? Or do you simply wish to acquire fundamental knowledge to help prepare for required testing? Regardless of objective, I seek to empower you with the cornerstones of music that can lead and hopefully motivate you to further pursue any of your musical goals. As a professional vocalist who is passionate about the science of both singing and music, I aim to disseminate an outlook on the theory of music not as a purely artificial system of random, pedantic rules and formulas but rather as an ingenious codification of scientific laws that speaks to the core of our innermost selves. Moreover, having a penchant for musicology and the history of music, I strive to place the theoretical materials that I teach both within their historical and cultural contexts, with the hope of further enriching the student's fascination with the opulence of the musical material. I hold a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from Boston University. I draw my knowledge of Music Theory from multiple graduate level theory, musicianship, and musicology courses that I studied during my time at that institution. Moreover, I currently perform and teach both voice and piano professionally. I frequently employ my study of ear training with the former and use my comprehension of music theory in particular with the latter in order to guide those students in the learning of this fundamental instrument. The topics that I can cover with you range from the rudimentary basics of notation to chromatic chord progressions and even some post-tonal procedures. The following list includes a selection of specific topics that I can cover: elements of pitch and the harmonic series, elements of meter and rhythm, major and minor key signatures, diatonic triads and seventh chords, species counterpoint, tonal chord progressions of the basic phrase in two and four part voice-leading, embellishing tones, secondary dominants and other "borrowed" chords (e.g. mode mixture, Neapolitan sixth, augmented sixth) , key modulation, large-scale musical forms (e.g. sonata form, chromatic harmony, and some atonal styles (e.g. modes, sets, and twelve-tone rows) I look forward to working with you