When you Google "music theory," the first site that comes up is Ricci Adams' Musictheory.net. I'll admit at the outset that I've always been a big fan of this site, and it's the first place I send my students to if they're looking for outside help.
The interface is very clean. The start page features three pull-down menus: Lessons, Trainers, and Utilities. Along the top are a series of tabs to facilitate use of the page (translations, faqs, about us, etc.). Translations are available in British English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, and Serbian.
The Lessons start at the very beginning with staves and clefs and progress all the way through Neapolitan chords. The site does not tackle topics like modulation and more advanced chromaticism (there are no Augmented sixth chords, for example). The progression as laid out on the site make this site a suitable complement to most first-year theory courses. The material is broken up thoughtfully into manageable chunks: staff and clefs, note duration, measures and time signature, rest durations, dots and ties, simple and compound meter, and odd meter.
The lessons consist of very clearly explained, well produced Flash animations of each theory topic. These animations include sound and the pace of progression is controlled by the user. Each page gives you the opportunity to print it out if need be. One really nice feature is the pop-up keyboard that is available throughout, so that you can "play along" with the lessons or try things out on your own.
As an example, I looked at the lesson on "Steps and accidentals." The material was very clearly explained using a minimum of verbiage and avoiding any unnecessary technical jargon. The animations were very clear and accompanied by appropriate sounds. Adams also tackled the E#/Fb (i.e., white-white sharps and flats) in the lesson, potentially staving off some confusion down the road.
The site also has Trainers which allow students to practice and drill what they've learned in some of the lessons. There are chord, interval, pitch, and scale identification drills, ear training drills, and instrument trainers. The brass trainer, for instance, gives you a note and asks you to hold down keys on your computer keyboard that correspond to the valves on a trumpet. The trainer is customizable to French horn, trombone (asks for slide position), tuba, and euphonium.
Finally, the site contains some useful compositional tools: a chord calculator, which allows you to set a key and select a Roman numeral. The pitches that correspond to the chord you've selected appear both as letter names and as highlighted keys on a piano keyboard. There is also a matrix generator for twelve-tone music. My only objection here is that it's still "old style," calling the prime form of first row statement P0 regardless of the starting pitch (more recently, the trend has been towards a fixed-0 system where pitch class C is always 0 and rows are labeled according to the first pitch class). The matrix calculator does not give results in pitch class numbers, but does represent "black key" notes as both sharps and flats (i.e., A#/Bb).
Overall, this is a really great site with a lot of useful features. If you are a high school student looking to study music in college and need to hone your theory chops, this is a great site for you. If you are a freshman or sophomore music major looking for additional practice or great review, this site is ideal.
The interface is very clean. The start page features three pull-down menus: Lessons, Trainers, and Utilities. Along the top are a series of tabs to facilitate use of the page (translations, faqs, about us, etc.). Translations are available in British English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, and Serbian.
The Lessons start at the very beginning with staves and clefs and progress all the way through Neapolitan chords. The site does not tackle topics like modulation and more advanced chromaticism (there are no Augmented sixth chords, for example). The progression as laid out on the site make this site a suitable complement to most first-year theory courses. The material is broken up thoughtfully into manageable chunks: staff and clefs, note duration, measures and time signature, rest durations, dots and ties, simple and compound meter, and odd meter.
The lessons consist of very clearly explained, well produced Flash animations of each theory topic. These animations include sound and the pace of progression is controlled by the user. Each page gives you the opportunity to print it out if need be. One really nice feature is the pop-up keyboard that is available throughout, so that you can "play along" with the lessons or try things out on your own.
As an example, I looked at the lesson on "Steps and accidentals." The material was very clearly explained using a minimum of verbiage and avoiding any unnecessary technical jargon. The animations were very clear and accompanied by appropriate sounds. Adams also tackled the E#/Fb (i.e., white-white sharps and flats) in the lesson, potentially staving off some confusion down the road.
The site also has Trainers which allow students to practice and drill what they've learned in some of the lessons. There are chord, interval, pitch, and scale identification drills, ear training drills, and instrument trainers. The brass trainer, for instance, gives you a note and asks you to hold down keys on your computer keyboard that correspond to the valves on a trumpet. The trainer is customizable to French horn, trombone (asks for slide position), tuba, and euphonium.
Finally, the site contains some useful compositional tools: a chord calculator, which allows you to set a key and select a Roman numeral. The pitches that correspond to the chord you've selected appear both as letter names and as highlighted keys on a piano keyboard. There is also a matrix generator for twelve-tone music. My only objection here is that it's still "old style," calling the prime form of first row statement P0 regardless of the starting pitch (more recently, the trend has been towards a fixed-0 system where pitch class C is always 0 and rows are labeled according to the first pitch class). The matrix calculator does not give results in pitch class numbers, but does represent "black key" notes as both sharps and flats (i.e., A#/Bb).
Overall, this is a really great site with a lot of useful features. If you are a high school student looking to study music in college and need to hone your theory chops, this is a great site for you. If you are a freshman or sophomore music major looking for additional practice or great review, this site is ideal.