Music - Ricci Adams Music Theory

www.musictheory.net/

Here's a site that was introduced to to me by my Music Teacher buddy, Jeremy E.

Ricci Adams’ musictheory.net is an online resource available for learning and reinforcing basic music theory, it is probably the best single tool available for that purpose anywhere. And it’s free.

Lessons and drills are all Flash-based, so you must have Macromedia’s plugin for your browser. However, the benefits are many; the pages load quickly, the lessons are both clear and aesthetically pleasing, and it provides a web based platform to present the training modules.

Most of the lessons are pretty basic, but if you're a theory novice (or just looking for a bit of a refresher), this is a good place to start. Lessons cover such areas as key signatures, scales, chord theory, and basic composition.

Perhaps the site's most useful feature is its collection of exercises, or “Trainers.” At the time of this writing, there are ten different exercises available, broken up into three categories — Trainers, Ear Trainers, and Instrument Trainers. The first offers exercises dealing with notes, keys, intervals, and triads. The second consists of audio drills that help sharpen your skills in recognizing intervals, scales, and chords. The last provides practice on locating various notes on piano, guitar, and brass instruments.

The Trainers are well designed and make good use of audio. They can be downloaded, as well, if you'd rather use them offline. They're compatible with both Mac and Windows.

MusicTheory.net also offers a forum section, a chord calculator, and a Staff Paper Generator that lets you print your own blank music paper.

(Special thanks  to onstagemag.com & J.E. for this post)