ABOUT G MAJOR MUSIC THEORY

This site consolidates my work in Music Theory. Each set of pages grew out of a need in my own teaching. When I first started at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Perfoming Arts (CAPA), I could not find a workbook appropriate for my high school students. My idea, which developed into a series of workbooks which I call, "Pathways to Harmony, was to write a transition, in small step by step increments, from music fundamentals to first year, Schenkerian-influenced, college theory. Then, when I started teaching my AP course, I had a hard time with two areas: I had never taught and could not find materials to teach harmonic dictation or contextual listening. Although there were a few computer programs to help with harmonic dictation, I could not find a text or anything which reflected my idea of systematically expanding phrases from 3 to 10 chords. Worse, I could find nothing at all on contextual listening, which is a significant portion of the AP test. This analysis of "real music," as I called it, inspired me to find and organize short excerpts from commercial CD's which isolate various theoretical concepts. A copyright attorney has advised me that these excerpts are legal to post. They are short enough--usually shorter than the 30-second previews in iTunes--to not discourage the purchase of original recordings; they are purely for educational purposes; and I make no money from them, hence the .org domain for this site. Furthermore, I have decided to restrict my excerpts to well known compositions in the public domain and to credit the artists in solo performances. Teachers, in fact, should feel free to download this music. I have been careful about these copyright issues because I am not interested in pushing the envelope of what is and what is not legal; I just want to help students learn music theory in the most musical context available. My CAPA pages are obviously for the convenience of my students. I look in horror at the messes in their backpacks and binders, mourning silently for the mutilated and lost syllabi and assignments which I worked so hard to produce. With this page, there is always a neat copy available.

ABOUT GILBERT DEBENEDETTI

Home Page My email address is deben "at" pitt "dot" edu (the quotes are to fool spammers) I teach Music Theory at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), and at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. As a result of my Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory course at CAPA, I have been chosen to be a Reader and a Member of the Development Committee for the AP exam. I am indebted to Janet Waanders and Brent Sandene at ETS for nominating me for this committee, and their faith in my abilities has inspired much of my work in music theory pedagogy. My workshops in AP Music Theory grant continuing education credit to teachers. Contact the College Board Regional Office in your area to see where the workshops are offered or to schedule one. I also teach piano privately. I have published numerous compositions for beginning pianists and have presented several papers on teaching piano. My website, Free Piano Music, contains downloads of original arrangements for piano, and attracts nearly 6,000 visitors daily. Sometimes these visitors ask why I am so generous to offer these arrangements for free. I usually answer that arranging pieces for beginning pianists is a hobby of mine which I enjoy doing anyway. But the reason for the free pages on this site is a little different. I consider these pages to be like a professional publication. Scholars do not publish articles, or even books usually, for the money. After all, scholarly publications hardly pay anything at all. Instead, they publish because they enjoy doing the research, they are in a publish-or-perish obsessed institution, and because they like to see their name out there in front of their colleagues--they like the fame. Well, fortunately I have been spared the publish or perish culture of universities, but I do very much enjoy doing the research, and, I confess, the fame is good for my ego as well. Anyhow, to wrap up I should mention that I earned a Master of Arts Degree in Composition and Music Theory at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to this I earned two Bachelor of Fine Arts Degrees at Carnegie-Mellon University, one in Composition and one in Music Education, and a Master's degree in Psychology. See my resume for details.