​Five Things I Want My Incoming Music Theory to Students Know

For the past 10 years I've had the privilege of teaching, among other things, first semester music theory. Each fall semester I greet a new group of first-year music majors to my classroom with the assumption that they have very little background in music theory and fundamentals. As a result, the bulk of the fall semester is spent teaching the fundamentals of music before proceeding into two voice counterpoint and the heart of the undergraduate theory curriculum.

However, there are a few theory skills that I find to be extremely useful for incoming students. Some of these are pretty basic, which is precisely why they are on this list.

1. THE NOTES ON THE PIANO: The first item is perhaps the most obvious. Arriving with an understanding that each key on the piano keyboard represents one half step and the names of at least the white keys. While there are other instruments where theory can be easily understood (guitar, for example), the piano remains the basic musical instrument.
2. MAJOR SCALES: The ability to perform major scales in more than one key and a basic understanding that scales are patterns. This concept is necessary to understand transposition, a key skill for understanding the structural relationships that we will explore throughout the sequence.
3. SOLMIZATION: Aural skills begins with material slightly ahead of music theory, so it is really useful if students arrive with knowledge of a solmization system. I personally favor fixed-do solfege syllables but again I'm more concerned with the conceptual understanding of solmization than I am the actual system. 
4. INTERVALS: While vital to understanding all manner of musical structures, intervals are my least favorite music fundamental to teach because they have very little value out of context, especially early in the theory curriculum. Interval identification is a skill that begins with the simple counting of half steps and can be readily learned and practiced online.
5. COMPOUND METER: Few students arrive as music majors without a basic knowledge of simple meters, particularly those with a quarter note beat unit. However, the ability to hear and internalize the difference between a beat division in two (simple) and a beat division in three (compound) is often lacking. This leads to a misunderstanding of how compound meter works and some of the more spirited class discussions of the fall semester. 

Of course this not an exhaustive list. In an ideal world, each music major would arrive fully knowledgeable about music fundamentals and ready to dive right into counterpoint and harmony on the first day of classes. Then again, I'm  happy that they don't because there are good habits and practices to be taught through fundamentals that will benefit the student later in the theory sequence.