What is Theory of Music?
Theory of Music is a non-commercial blog dedicated to providing free resources for the study of the history and theory of music. It began as a blog attached to barrymitchellmusic.com the website of the composer Barry Mitchell (me). Eventually I got rid of the website but kept the blog. I also feature my own music on the blog.
My more commercial activities can be found on www.theoryofmusic.co.uk which was launched in October 2010. This dot-co-dot-uk site has (or soon will have):
- free downloads of my album Labyrinth
- free downloads of my ambient music
- details of tuition in the history and theory of music, including tuition by email and skype
- details of Audio Transfers – turn your old tapes and vinyls into CDs or mp3 files
- details of tuition in history and in English as a Foreign Language
- also, free downloads of historic performances of classical music
I work as a composer and freelance music lecturer and this site started when I posted some of my lecture notes. I was surprised by the number of hits the posts received so I continued. As of October 2010 this site has had over 100,000 hits. There are also links to the site from Wikipedia and dolmetsch.com among others. I have tried to avoid duplicating what is available elsewhere on the internet, though there is so much available that this is difficult. I also try to keep within copyright law so copied resources are either out of copyright if they are primary sources or summarised if they are secondary sources. References are as complete as possible. With well over 190 posts on the site, ninety-nine percent of which needed to be word-processed from scratch, this site would not be as far advanced were it not for the help of Tony Trelease who has done a lot of the word-processing on a voluntary basis.
There are two main types of resources for the study of music posted:
- primary sources
- secondary sources
The posts are organised in the following main categories:
- music and philosophy
- topics in music techonolgy
- baroque music theory
- music theory in antiquity
- medieval music theory
- renaissance music theory
- music in the classical period
- topics in ethnomusicology
- twentieth-century music theory
- eighteenth-century music theory
- history of Romantic music
I would like to receive more comments so please feel free to leave a comment. I do monitor comments but only with the purpose of weeding out Spam.
I hope you find Theory of Music interesting and useful and if you do please don’t hesitate to send me a message.
Barry Mitchell
I’m very much interested in old classical music because I like instrumental music, I’m just getting into music because of some I heard on Turner Classica Movie. I can only indicate to you that Morzat is an interest of my I’v listen to it before. I sorry, I can not name anything because, I not great with remembering names. It is something I have to practice. But if there is any download on some I would be quiet interest in listening to it. Also, I Love to hear any African opera, and some unknown vocalist that are still not know today. I like to compare todays music verse earlier voices of lycrics.
What a goldmine of info here, thank you very much for all the effort!
A lot to get your teeth into, but well worth it!
its good..it help with me with your articles
Excellent site.
Great blog!
I opened a blog teaching music theory. Go and check it if you want, and tell me what you think: http://beamusician.wordpress.com . Hope it helps. Thanks!
A great idea, good luck with it. I look forward to seeing how the site develops!
Thank you for such a great public service. I especially appreciate original texts/libretti with accompanying English translation. Please keep up the good work and may God bless you.
Great blog! Thank you for sharing your hard work!
I love very much your work. Always a great pleasure to read it. I manage this site of Mozart’s letters: http://letters.mozartways.com/. Maybe you’d like sometimes to dig some letter there. Congratulations!
Thanks for your comment. I’ve had a look at your Mozart letters site and it is great – keep up the good work!