Music, No Theory Review

Presented by Bill Gordon, who has worked with many big-name artists including Madonna, Quincy Jones and James Brown, this series includes 39 videos of well presented and naturally delivered tuition content for those who want to understand how music theory without having to work with score sheets and so on.

Manufacturer: FaderPro
Price: £24.99
Contact: via Website
Web: www.soundtosample.com





Part one (which costs the same as this instalment) delivers content to give you an understanding of the building blocks to write music. We haven’t seen it ourselves, but if it’s anything like part two, Bill’s obvious experience in explaining music theory will make it easy to understand. Part two assumes you already have an understanding of scales, chords and progressions. And it’s important that you do, as Bill extends on this foundation.

The large range of bite-size videos have titles such as Inversions, Solfege, Seventh chords and Song Analysis, so this should give you an understanding of the type of content on offer here. They are all explained with some great analogies. These firstly help you to understand the concepts, then you also have enough of a unique visual picture through the analogy to help you remember it.

You follow Bill as he plays on his piano, but he’s quick to note that the musical side of things isn’t aimed at piano parts. They are merely a means for going through the content. A four-octave piano, keyboard or MIDI controller is recommended for getting the most out of the video series.

Camera angles change when necessary to clearly give a bird’s-eye view of the piano. This makes it very easy to see the relationships of notes, scales and chords that he’s constantly referring to.

Bill’s delivery is very real and it feels like you’re in class with him – especially because the odd fluff-ups that can happen from time to time in a real class are left in. He’ll then briefly laugh, before taking a moment to correct himself, and then carries on as normal. We’d much rather have this human aspect in tuition of this nature over a wooden 50th take to a script which serves only to send you to sleep. If you want to improve or learn some great writing techniques, we recommend giving this a viewing.

Verdict

Bill is a very likeable teacher who uses great analogies to help you understand and absorb new skills.

10/10