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Unit of study_

OLET1801: Music Theory and Notation Essentials

2024 unit information

This Online Learning Environment unit (OLE) provides a grounding in music notation and music theory. It is aimed at students with no background in music, but also caters for students with some background in music who are looking to refresh their skills. Course material starts with the absolute basics and progresses quickly. An understanding of how music theory works is extremely useful to a range of diverse disciplines that engage with music: game and user interface designers, film and drama studies students, and those who have learnt musical practice from an aural rather than notated tradition, such as contemporary popular musicians and singers.

Unit details and rules

Managing faculty or University school:

Analysis, History and Cultural Studies

Code OLET1801
Academic unit Analysis, History and Cultural Studies
Credit points 2
Prerequisites:
? 
None
Corequisites:
? 
None
Prohibitions:
? 
MUSC1503 or MUSC1504 or MCGY1008
Assumed knowledge:
? 
None

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

  • LO1. understand how to read a score or score excerpt, and understand what the notation means
  • LO2. understand the underlying music theory behind this score excerpt, particularly in foundational concepts relating to pitch and rhythm
  • LO3. understand some reasons as to why the composer(s) of each excerpt made such choices of music notation and music theory.

Unit availability

This section lists the session, attendance modes and locations the unit is available in. There is a unit outline for each of the unit availabilities, which gives you information about the unit including assessment details and a schedule of weekly activities.

The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.

Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 1 2024
Online Sydney
Intensive March 2024
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 2 2024
Online Sydney
Outline unavailable
Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 1 2020
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 2 2020
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2021
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 2 2021
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2022
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 2 2022
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2023
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 2 2023
Online Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Modes of attendance (MoA)

This refers to the Mode of attendance (MoA) for the unit as it appears when you’re selecting your units in Sydney Student. Find more information about modes of attendance on our website.