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Not quite. It's the fee for providing an identity-verified certificate of achievement. Regular certificates of achievement are offered for free. The free option is the original method; Signature Track is new.

In either case, you have to do the coursework to get the certificate. And you're right, the course is no different.

I'm not sure it's Berklee's fee. I think of it as Coursera's fee. Although it's possible that Berklee gets some of the money.

Will have to get to grips with how to use it all when I get home and the deadlines etc.

Should be fun none the less

Hmmm the tonal centres were fun, the teacher is great too... although with higher notes what I hear becomes one big mash and I really find it hard to pinpoint the "Anchor" note sometimes up there.

Interestingly I also have issues playing chords up higher on the piano, as it rings on my teachers piano and to my ears just becomes a blur between 2 tones.

(I'm deaf to high frequencies)

Looking forward to week 2 though


also D flat... for some reason any octave I find it hard to pick out.

Excellent start to the course - but I can't find the tonal center to save my life! 8(

There's a thread in the discussion forums in the course with ideas for finding tonal centers.

One idea I'm trying for myself would be to hum various notes, to hear or feel how they seem to fit. Just to listen, not to expect that anything will obviously sound wrong or right. If you're drawn to one of the notes, hold it and listen for if it matches the final bass note and/or the final melody note. I don't expect total success at finding THE! tonal center with this right away this week, or even this month or year, but it's something I've never tried to do before, so I will enjoy listening and finding out how things sound to me.

In the lectures, I mostly couldn't find the tonal center, but on one of the songs Professor Russell played, I tried humming various notes, and nothing sounded obviously bad, but then one note sounded especially mellow, so I held that -- and when the studio audience of Berklee students sang the tonal center, they had the same note! I just about fell out of my chair in astonishment. I haven't been able to repeat that yet but that one wonderful experience will feed me for a long time.

I think it can be a long, possibly years, process of paying attention to these things, of singing and playing and listening, and slowly slowly slowly ideas and skills take root and blossom -- unfortunately in my own experience at a glacial pace. For example, I've been working on various kinds of trying to improve my ear for about 15 years, and it's only in the past year or so that I've started to feel confident about certain aspects of carrying the alto part in my chorus (but only about some aspects, not all), and it's only with this Coursera course that I've started to be able to reliably sing and identify aurally major seconds and major thirds.

That may not be what you want to hear, but I want it to be encouraging: wherever your ear is now, is where it is, and just starting to listen and pay attention will change you, perhaps imperceptibly, until one day you discover that something has changed noticeably.

It's also OK for this assignment to google "songs in C major" and then find those on YouTube and check that a C at your piano sounds good with the song.

That's kind of defeating the purpose of the assignment, isn't it?

See, Polyphonist, it was so amazing that I'm telling everyone I know about it. Twice!

Regarding defeating the purpose of the assignment, googling for songs in C was part of the official suggestions somewhere for ways to approach it. As far as learning from it, I think I stated it wrong -- one could do the pristine method of listen to random songs, hum what you think the tonal center is, check it on the piano, if it's C add the song to your list that you'll submit for homework. But one is allowed to get a jumpstart on this process by googling for songs in C, in the hopes that one will find a lot of songs recorded in C in that list (it's not guaranteed). Then, I got the order wrong, I think, for if as as a self-studier you want to get at least some practice in identifying tonal center. Don't start with a C on your piano. Instead, try humming what you think the tonal center is. Then check on your piano and find out if that's C.

That way you're still getting some practice in listening for tonal centers. Although come to think of it, it would probably be good to listen to some other songs and try to find their tonal centers, in between each try at a song ostensibly in C, in order to reset your ear so you're not cheating your ear by thinking you know the tonal center.

Of course that won't work as a good reset for those people who have really good pitch memory in one way or another, or who at least have a good sense of about where a C is in their vocal range.

Hmmm. Crap. I think I've just talked myself into doing the exhaustive hunt. We have to submit links to three songs, so if songs were evenly distributed in keys, then on average I'd have to listen to 36 songs to find 3 that are in C. Good thing songs are not evenly distributed in keys. Anyway, it's probably good practice at listening for tonal centers to practice it for tonal centers that are at various places in my vocal range.

OK, never mind. I'll retreat to offering the bare observation that the official suggestions do include that you're allowed to start by googling "songs in C major", but if you do start that way, be sure you're working in other ways to be sure you're not cheating yourself out of any and all aspects of aurally practicing tonal center.

See, Polyphonist, it was so amazing that I'm telling everyone I know about it. Twice!

I'm just really appreciative of the fact you shared the site, I was completely unaware that such a site even existed... I am enjoying it very much right now I must say.

As for the tonal centres I managed to find each except the D flat, something about that particular key stumps me in all octaves, it just becomes a big blur of ringing notes and I cannot distinguish one from another. (hey, gives me something to practice though doesn't it? )

Definitely going to continue to the end and see what other courses they have to offer, so thanks again for sharing and good luck with it all.

Well done on finding the tonal centre (you have no idea how confusing it is having center and centre and being English >.<)

This looked really interesting - so I checked it out and have signed up for 'Developing Your Musicianship', taught by someone from Edinburgh University - but it starts in July. Hope they remind me because I'll most likely have forgotten, though no doubt I'll be reminded when I read of others who are doing the course. Thanks for sharing this.

That sounds like Fundamentals of Music Theory. Yes, Coursera typically sends out an email when the course is about to start to remind you. I'm planning to take the course, so I'll probably be starting a thread for it here, unless someone else gets there (or is that here?) first.

I seem to be having issues loading some of the content on the site, despite everything being up to date and seemingly correct.

I'll give it another go tonight if I have the time after lessons, but I was unable to do any of the quiz as it just opened a blank page

I didn't have any problems.

I had to un-enroll due to not being able to fix the issues I couldn't submit half the stuff and kept hitting the deadlines.

Are folks doing the assignments? Still doing the course? What do you think?

Overall, I don't feel like I am getting much out of the course. The theory parts are so basic, even for me. The singing parts during the lecture feel so difficult, even though I had a brief stint in choir. I'll at least continue with the lectures, but am not sure about the quizzes and assignments.

I'm still in the course. I agree the assignments are pretty basic.

On the other hand, I've enjoyed the singing and ear training quizzes. I'm not an adult singer and haven't ever had ear training.


What I really liked about assignment 1 was finding the 3 songs in C Major. When I try to remember individual isolated tones, like an A from a tuning fork, I have a hard time keeping that permanently in my head. But in the context of a song, I can remember the tones.

I'm planning on finding other songs in other keys to create other associations.

I agree this is a very basic course.

The beneficial part, for me, has been learning to identify intervals by ear.

I am signed up for the Music Theory course that starts in a few months, looking forward to that.

I also feel most of the course has been pretty basic so far.

I agree the ear training and interval recognition has been the most beneficial aspect so far. I've tried improving ear training with apps but the course has improved my ear much more than the app/online exercises and in a shorter time. With the course, you're practicing with a real piano rather than piano generated tones on an app. Wish there were more quizzes and practice.

I keep thinking there must be a large jump in difficulty if the final project is to compose your own blues tune. We'll see

It's basic, but I am enjoying it, ditto with the ear training being valuable. I have never messed around with the pentatonic scale, either, so that is fun.

So who has found a song with a 7th interval in the melody?

Forstergirl

You could still listen to the videos, participate in discussions, and post your assignments as a discussion topic for feedback that way -- which probably gets you much better feedback than the official peer-review process anyway, if other courses I've taken are any guide.

The goal of these courses is learning, by using as much of their rich resources as you can. The Certificate of Achievement for whatever reason does act as a nice motivator for many people (although not all people), for whatever wierd quirk of human psychology. If you can't earn a CA for whatever reason, then instead of rolling over and giving up on learning entirely, I think it makes much more sense to fight our psychology and persist with a renewed commitment to learning for the sake of learning.