Week 1 — Readings & Resources · The Map

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 1 of 16 (Week 1) · two sessions per week
Your primary reading is the Week 1 chapter (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer.

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the way you'd open any link a friend sent you. Nothing to buy, download, or sign into.

The load is light on purpose: six links, grouped by the unit's three big ideas. One item per group is plenty; all six is thorough. If a link disagrees with the course on a convention (some sites number octaves differently or shrug at enharmonic spelling), the course convention in the Week 1 chapter wins — that's not the site being wrong so much as the field having dialects, and this course speaks one dialect consistently.

① The keyboard, letter names, and the address system

Maps to the chapter's keyboard is a map and every note has an address sections, and Session 1's Segments 2–3.

• American Standard Pitch Notation (ASPN) — Open Music Theory — the octave-number system this course uses (their "ASPN" is our scientific pitch naming: middle C = C4), with keyboard diagrams that show exactly where each octave begins and ends. (reading, ~10 min)
• Half Steps, Whole Steps, and Accidentals — Open Music Theory — includes the clearest published walk-through of the black-key groups and which white keys have no black key between them, plus enharmonic equivalence. Read it for the keyboard geography even if you skip the rest. (reading, ~12 min)

② The staff, clefs, and ledger lines

Maps to the chapter's staff section and Session 1's Segment 4.

• Notation of Notes, Clefs, and Ledger Lines — Open Music Theory — how notes sit on lines and spaces, how the clefs assign letters, and how ledger lines extend the map. (reading, ~12 min)
• The Staff, Clefs, and Ledger Lines — musictheory.net — the same ground as an animated click-through lesson: short, visual, and self-paced. A good first stop if you'd rather watch the staff assemble itself than read about it. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)
• How to read music — Tim Hansen, TED-Ed — the whole idea of staff notation in five animated minutes, including where middle C sits and why the staff is a map of pitch. (video, ~5 min, captioned)

③ Steps, accidentals, and enharmonic spelling

Maps to the chapter's last three sections and Session 1's Segments 5–6.

• Steps and Accidentals — musictheory.net — half steps, whole steps, and all five accidentals in an animated lesson, ending exactly where our unit ends: two spellings, one key. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)

Pick-one quick path (≈15 min total)

Short on time this week? You've read the chapter — then do exactly these two:

1. Watch How to read music (TED-Ed) in group ②.
2. Read the black-key-geography stretch of Half Steps, Whole Steps, and Accidentals in group ①.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move pages. If a link fails, tell Professor Hemsworth and lean on the chapter in the meantime — it covers everything the quiz covers.