Week 15 — Readings & Resources · Charts, Keys, and the Real World

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 15 of 16 (Week 15) · two sessions per week
Your primary reading is the Week 15 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 shrug at the written-vs-sounding vocabulary, or number charts a little differently), the course convention in the Week 15 chapter wins — dialects again, and this course speaks one dialect consistently.

① Transposition and transposing instruments

Maps to the chapter's transposition sections and Session 1's Segments 2–4.

• Transposing Instruments — Music Theory Academy — the B♭ / E♭ / F families laid out with the written-vs-sounding direction stated both ways, including the exact facts this unit drills: trumpet's written C sounds B♭ (a M2 lower), alto's sounds E♭ (a M6 lower), horn's sounds F (a P5 lower). (reading, ~10 min)
• Transposing instruments, explained — How I Met The Opera — why the instruments are built this way in the first place, with the history that makes the "beautiful, consistent lie" make sense. Watch it after the chapter and the arithmetic will feel inevitable rather than arbitrary. (video — turn captions on with the CC button)

② Lead sheets and chord-symbol realization

Maps to the chapter's lead-sheet section and Session 1's Segment 5.

• Chord Symbols — Open Music Theory — the grammar of lead-sheet symbols (root, quality, extensions, slash basses) from the jazz side of the street; the notation dialect differs slightly from Nashville's but the logic is identical to unit 10's. (reading, ~12 min)
• Voicing Chords — musictheory.net — a click-through lesson on turning a chord's letter names into an actual arrangement of notes under your hands — which is realization, the skill the studio's handoff round grades. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)

③ Nashville numbers and the roadmap

Maps to the chapter's last two sections and Session 1's Segment 6.

• The Nashville Number System Explained — Stringjoy — a working guide with charted examples: numbers from the song's key, minor markings, and the key-change payoff (the same chart in C and in E). You'll recognize every idea from unit 11 wearing work clothes. (reading, ~10 min)
• Musical Roadmaps: Navigation Symbols and Definitions — Classical Guitar Shed — repeats, first/second endings, D.C., D.S., Fine, and Coda in one illustrated reference, with the play-order traced for each. Keep it open while you do the practice set's roadmap rep. (reading, ~8 min)

Pick-one quick path (≈15 min total)

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

1. Read the B♭/E♭/F tables in Transposing Instruments in group ①.
2. Skim the two-key example in The Nashville Number System Explained in group ③ — the moment the letters change and the numbers don't is this unit in one image.

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.