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Back to Musicianship: Chord Charts, Diatonic Chords, and Minor Keys

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Musicianship: Chord Charts, Diatonic Chords, and Minor Keys by Berklee

4.9
stars
548 ratings

About the Course

After a tremendous response from learners on Coursera, Berklee Online has created a Developing Your Musicianship specialization, and this course is the second course in the series. If you have a basic knowledge of music theory or if you have completed Developing Your Musicianship I, this course will continue to help you understand key musical concepts, enabling you to create and perform contemporary music. Taught by Berklee College of Music professor George W. Russell, Jr., the course includes four lessons that delve into the next level of harmony and ear training. The course will introduce you to new key signatures, including minor tonalities, and how they are constructed. You will train your ear to hear minor intervals and 7th chords. You will learn how to build 7th chords, and how to build common chord progressions. You will also learn the major pentatonic scale and how to construct melodies using this scale. The course culminates with an assignment that asks you to compose and perform an 8-measure composition using popular chord progressions and the Major pentatonic scale. Just like Developing Your Musicianship I, the course is designed to impart the joy of creating music and sharing it with others....

Top reviews

RS

Jul 7, 2020

This is a helpful, top class programme. Do it at a flexible pace. The instructor is excellent and the assignments make sense. I learn about chord progressions, chord charts, and F and G major scales.

MA

Jul 28, 2019

Instructor is charming, didactic, and very fun to listen. Concepts are explained gradually and clearly. You definitely need some prior knowledge, so don't take this as your first music course.

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1 - 25 of 159 Reviews for Musicianship: Chord Charts, Diatonic Chords, and Minor Keys

By Jonathan C I

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Dec 24, 2018

This course is False and Deceptive Advertising from both coursera and berklee because it lists the level of experience as beginner and "takes 3-5 hr/week" of homework. This is absolutely false and deceptive. It takes far more experience and more hours of work per week than just "3-5". I sent feedback to coursera support about this and they directly admitted that the work was purposely listed that way to attract more students to sign up for the class even though they would not be able to finish properly, /and/ they said they would not change this to reflect the reality of the course. FALSE ADVERTISING. If you can get past that, the course content and structure is very good...but it is impossible to accomplish without experience and more anywhere from 10-25 hours per week (no exaggeration) of homework. 25 hours per week means: 1 hr practice per day, 1 hr study per day (that's 14 hrs per week) PLUS about 4-8 hours on average for the weekly project (more, for the final project).

By Xindi L

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Nov 11, 2019

A very well organized and very interesting course! It won't scare you away at the beginning. But you surprise yourself as you complete this course and realized how much you've learned.

By Hemant

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Feb 16, 2017

very cool professor ..feel so happy and good to see you smile while teaching sir.

it was great learning all the music concepts with you in musicianship 2

very well designed.thank you

By Costas R

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Oct 28, 2018

As always great job,and thanks a lot to Professor George Jr., he makes everything so simple. Of course, it`s a hard course, but it works.There were some minor mistake(in my opinion) in one of week 4 videos, where professors tell the progression, and says they are seventh chords, but in fact first chord is seventh, but other are usual triads with doubled roots.But it`s a credit to him, that he teached me to understand this.And in one of tests, when there was G-major 161 1451 progressin(it`s week 3 I believe or so), the in the third bar C7 chord doesn`t have E, but it has D. And Carolina Hengstenberg is a great teaching assitant,credit to her=)

By Deleted A

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Feb 7, 2019

This course was a lot of work, and at times I thought I was in over my head, but I stuck with it, and I am so glad that I did. I felt extremely accomplished when I finished composing my 8-Measure Song for the final. I was able to not only create the music, but I was also able to correctly notate it, which is something that I had been struggling with.

By Erik P

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Mar 31, 2018

I've grown so much musically thanks to this course and the professor.. I feel more confident reading sheet music and hearing musicians talk about music, chords, progressions, etc...

As someone getting into music writing and production I would recommend you use MuseScore to write your later note notation, to save time.

By Rob S

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Jul 8, 2020

This is a helpful, top class programme. Do it at a flexible pace. The instructor is excellent and the assignments make sense. I learn about chord progressions, chord charts, and F and G major scales.

By DOUGLAS E O C

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Feb 4, 2019

It´s an excellent course and the teacher is very good teacher.

By Enrico I

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Apr 22, 2019

clear and easy to follow

By Tylor A

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Apr 24, 2020

For people who are new to theory, this is a great place to start. And for those who need a little work, this course is a fabulous review, and in conjunction with the rest of the specialization courses, I actually think it has a lot of value.

For me, plenty of the music theory was a review, but I gained a lot through relating it back to the piano, and I benefited from extra ear training. The structures and methods Berklee uses is fabulous for both newcomers, and musicians who want more perspective on their craft.

By Mike L

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Aug 10, 2020

I really enjoyed this course. I do not play any instruments, but am trying to learn the piano. I did take piano lessons when I was a little kid, but that was like almost 50 years ago. This course was really great in giving me some guidance for playing around with notes on the piano without sounding horrible. A nice painless introduction to music and music theory. If I had music lessons like this when I was a kid I probably would have kept playing the piano.

By Kim W

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Aug 1, 2022

I loved this course (and the whole 4 course series). The way theory is explained makes it very easy to understand and the different sessions for ear training are incredibly helpful. I really feel that the way the topics built on each other made the material very understandable. The assessments and peer review activities were helpful for staying on track and the other students were wonderful. I highly recommend this series on Musicianship!

By Jair R J

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Mar 16, 2018

I am so grateful with the fantastic course offered by Berklee University. Thanks to Coursera platform for hosted such a great program. I really enjoyed learning with Professor George W. Russell, Jr. who can get the best out of his students, moreover, his actitud contagious the passion about music, and his way for communicate is clear and fresh, that make easy to understand the concepts. Ones again thanks all of you to made this possible.

By Bradley

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Mar 31, 2018

Great course. A little more work than the first course in this series, but still pretty comfortable in terms of time committed per week. The final project is fun, and really pulls together a lot of the concepts. Professor George Russell Jr. is fantastic. He's enthusiastic, and describes the material well. Plenty of repeating of material to make sure it sticks. Also, the onscreen visuals (scales, chords where appropriate) are well done.

By Marc S

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Sep 19, 2017

A good follow-up course to the first one in the specialization, building upon its contents in small, meaningful pieces. Students can expect to be exposed to a couple other scales (G and F) along with their relative minors. The course also goes into 7th chords and expands ear training to wider intervals and includes chords as well. George W. Russell Jr. is such a fun and knowledgeable instructor, a real pleasure to learn with!

By Robert B

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May 28, 2018

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structure of chords and now really understand the meaning of Diatonic Chords. I will not hesitate to recommend this course

By Harold W

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Jul 29, 2023

This was a very interesting and useful course. I am able to apply what I learned immediately. The teacher was very pleasant, knowledgeable and knows how to deliver in a way that is very comfortable and enjoyable to the learner. It is clear to me that he has mastered the art of facilitating learning.

Thank you Sir. In my country we (students) knight all our male teachers and call them Sir. All female teachers, we call Miss. Its our way of showing respect and appreciation for teachers.

By Peter M

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Oct 29, 2023

The learning journey continues. In this great course focus is set on minor intervals, major pentatonic scale, 7th chords and popular chord progressions, at the end of the course you are going to compose a 8-bar melody over one of the suggested popular progressions using the major pentatonic scale. Great focus on intervals. These courses are leading to something bigger. Thank you Berklee Music for sharing.

By Leo A

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Apr 20, 2017

George Russell is a blessing. He gave me so much hope for music. I didn't know ANYTHING about piano before his course, now, I have already written about 5 songs with a band.

Mr. Russell is so concise and makes it SO EASY to learn. I would fly to Berklee JUST to take a lesson with him.

Angels come in many forms. Mr. Russell is definitely one of them.

Thank you Mr. Russell.

Leo A.

By Paula P

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Mar 18, 2017

I've been trying to understand this for three years, and finally am making progress. None of it ever before made sense to me. Thanks so much for providing such a wonderful professor who understands both his material and his students well enough to prevent leaving even the most ignorant (Me!) behind! And it's a joy to listen to George's music!

By Francis

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Jul 31, 2019

I enjoyed taking this course. It expanded my understanding on scales and chords, and encouraged me to experiment and play around with the material I picked up. I'm sure that with more practice, and exploring new scales, I will become more and more comfortable with composition on my instrument of choice: the piano.

By Pascal P

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May 5, 2020

Finally an online course where I actually see progress and good guidance. Learnt through the ear training, the theory and applying it all in the end. I also like that you sometimes include things we haven't really learnt, but able to answer it correctly on the quizzed by putting things together. :) Thank you!

By Abhijit B

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Feb 23, 2017

I love the teaching style of Prof. George W. Russel (Jr.). It makes the overall learning even more enjoyable. Ear training and the final assignments are very good for developing foundation of musicianship. Assignments also help to learn how to write your own composition. Looking forward to the next course.

By Skyler G

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Oct 20, 2016

The professor for this course is amazing. You can tell he really enjoys what he does and he keeps all the material very interesting. This course also gave me a better understanding of chord progressions and the final video on identifying the progressions by ear was very useful.

By BURAK K

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Mar 11, 2021

The second step in a great introduction to music theory course. My understanding of music and harmony skills have developed steadily during this course. Thank you George, Berklee, Coursera and our great music community!