As learning and information sharing become more and more digital, the challenge is how to ensure quality and value in a subjective and personal area like music.
Any investment of your time (and money) is worthy of due diligence, so here are a few options to help you connect to the right resources for learning music:
Soundfly
With courses ranging from “Unleashing the Emotional Power of Chords” to “Modern and Advanced Mixing Techniques,” this platform stands out for the depth and quality of its learning materials, as well as its unique mentoring model.
While they offer free access to a number of online courses, investing in one of their mentored courses will help you get a friendly, experienced musician coach to guide you through the content, share feedback on your work, and create a goal-oriented learning plan customized to your personal needs. Their Headliners program may be their most unique offering, allowing students to customize their own learning experience to meet their creative goals.
edX Berkeley
You no longer need to travel to Boston’s esteemed music school to take Berklee lessons! In collaboration with edX, Berklee College of Music offers free online courses in several languages and subject areas, including creativity and entrepreneurship, vocal recording technology, and music for health.
Learn music (beta) – Ableton
Ableton Learning Music, a free web-based platform from the company best known for Push Controller and Live Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), is perhaps the most comprehensive beginner’s guide to empirical music learning.
While many platforms offer more advanced or specialized knowledge, the basic elements of music are often assumed to be understood before a user finds a resource. From identifying sounds, recognizing patterns, and grouping notes that the user finds compelling to arranging chords, bass lines, and melodies, users can now make musical choices from the start.
LessonFace
What I like most about LessonFace is the ability to meet virtually and in real time with experienced music teachers from around the world. Students can choose from a number of instructor profiles or be matched with LessonFace staff, and the areas of study cover a variety of genre traditions and instruments.
Busy Works Beats
My favorite aspect of Busy Work Beats is their unusual (for a formally trained musician), accessible approach to fundamental music theory using numbers to represent semitones.
By breaking with Eurocentric traditions so that today’s producers can quickly gain an informed, in-depth understanding of music theory that they can use in creating their own music, Busy Work Beats is the best choice for students of non-traditional music to learn what they need to know and skip what they don’t want to.
MusEDLab
The Music Experience Design Lab has created a set of tools designed to help newcomers interact with their favorite music in a more playful way. They’ve partnered with the New York Philharmonic to allow fans to step inside Mahler, designed widgets for PBS’s Soundbreaking series, and mapped a QWERTY keyboard to play like a natural musical instrument with any mode or tonal center.