Fundamentals of (Tonal) Music

Instructor: Leslie Tilley

Email: tilley@mit.edu

Class sessions: T/Th 11:00–12:30 (4-158)

Required Sight-singing Lab: Fri 1-2 pm with Prof. Mark David Buckles (4-270), beginning 2/14

Required Piano Lab (Sign up here after your first class), beginning Monday 2/10

Office Hours: after class or by request (10-266)

Course Description

This course is designed to provide foundational understandings and experiences with one of the richest and most diverse phenomena on the planet: music. There are many ways to imagine a Fundamentals of Music class, and all of them invariably ask us to make decisions about what to include… and what to exclude. In this class, we will explore a small but powerful slice of the world’s musical possibilities: the musical system—developed and codified in Western Europe but spread across genres, countries, and cultures through colonization, globalization, and creative adoption and adaptation—known as tonal music.

This class is a basic introduction to the materials of tonal music. It aims to cultivate skills, tools, and insights that will nurture your fluency in understanding, analyzing, and creating tonal music. You’ll learn to read and write Western music notation (by hand and in music notation programs), sing and play basic piano, listen actively and curiously to music in styles from Gregorian chant to R&B, analyze music both aurally and with a score, and creatively compose music in tonal idioms. Each of these activities will expand your musical palette and musical perspective.

Composition and music creation will be core components of this class, and will give you not only the opportunity to build fluency in tonal music but a chance for artistic expression. Alongside interactive reading, listening, and psets due before each class session (mostly from Artusi: https://www.artusimusic.com/), three composition projects and an analysis project will be assigned during the semester. These larger assignments progressively build on concepts presented in class to solidify your comprehension and fluency with the materials and animate your creativity within their frameworks. At the conclusion of each project, you will either perform your work in class or hear it performed by professional musicians.

The class is open to all students, with preference given music majors, minors, and concentrators, by seniority. No musical experience is required.

Important Links and Files

Syllabus
Composition 1
Composition 2
Analysis 1
Final Composition
Engagement
Other

051 Syllabus S2025 L01.pdf

051 Composition 1.pdf

051 Composition 2.pdf

051 Analysis 1.pdf

051 Final Composition.pdf

051 Engagement Agreement S2024.pdf

Other

Unit Module Links

Module Link	Dates	Weekly Topics
Intro	Feb 4	Course Intro: What Is (Tonal) Music?
Unit 1	Feb 6, 11, and 13	Foundations: Meter and Rhythm
Unit 2	Feb 20, 25, and 27	Foundations: Pitch and Melody
Unit 3	Mar 4 and 6	Foundations: Major Scales and Keys
Unit 4	Mar 11, 13, and 18	Foundations: Intervals and the Minor Mode
Unit 5	Mar 20 and Apr 1	Foundations: Chords, Progressions, and Harmonic Functions
Unit 6	Apr 3 and 8	Expanded Harmonic and Structural Possibilities
Unit 7	Apr 10, 15 and 17	Expanded Melodic and Possibilities (and more Harmony)
Unit 8	April 22, 24, and 29 and May 1	Composition Work
Unit 9	May 6 and 8	The Premiere
Final Class	May 13	Final Class
Links and Resources	(anytime)