Week 4 — Readings & Resources · Major

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 4 of 16 (Week 4) · two sessions per week
Your primary reading is the Week 4 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: seven links, grouped by the unit's three big ideas, and two of them are practice tools rather than reading. One item per group is plenty; all seven is thorough. If a link disagrees with the course on a convention (a few sites run ahead into vocabulary we save for later units, or shrug at enharmonic spelling), the course convention in the Week 4 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 pattern and the scale

Maps to the chapter's one pattern and spelling law sections, and Session 1's Segments 2–3.

• Major Scales, Scale Degrees, and Key Signatures — Open Music Theory — the whole unit in one chapter: the whole/half pattern, scale degrees, signatures, and the circle, with staff examples for every key. Heads-up: its scale-degree names section runs ahead to our unit 5 — skim past the names and keep the numbers. (reading, ~15 min)
• The Major Scale — musictheory.net — the W-W-H recipe assembled click by click, starting from the keyboard the way the first session does. A good first stop if you'd rather watch the ladder build itself than read about it. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)

② Scale degrees

Maps to the chapter's ^1–^7 section and Session 1's Segment 6.

• Scale Degrees — musictheory.net — numbering the rungs of the ladder, animated. Note the dialect difference: this lesson attaches the traditional degree names, which our course holds until unit 5 — enjoy the preview or ignore it, but the numbers are exactly ours. (interactive lesson, ~4 min)

③ Key signatures and the circle of fifths

Maps to the chapter's signature, circle, and enharmonic keys sections, and Session 1's Segments 4–5.

• Key Signatures — musictheory.net — how signatures are written on the staff, both orders of accidentals, and where each sharp or flat sits on the lines and spaces. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)
• Key Signature Calculation — musictheory.net — a method for deriving any signature from scratch; compare it with the circle-of-fifths generation you learned in session 1 and keep whichever runs faster in your head. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)
• Key Signature Identification — musictheory.net — a drill machine: it flashes a signature, you name the key. This is the studio's speed round, available all week; five minutes a day here makes the studio feel slow. (practice tool, unlimited)
• Key Signature Construction — musictheory.net — the reverse drill: it names a key, you build the signature accidental by accidental, in order. The order is graded — exactly as it is in this course. (practice tool, unlimited)

Pick-one quick path (≈15 min total)

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

1. Work the The Major Scale lesson in group ① to lock the recipe.
2. Run Key Signature Identification in group ③ until you've named ten signatures in a row without counting on your fingers.

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, including the full fifteen-key table.