Survived Music Theory!!!

[Gjornia X]

I never took theory formally so it's my 2nd year and I'm in theory 1. cry My prof is bad at teaching tho. I never understand what she's saying (I swear her english gets progressively worse as the year goes on). Now,she's out sick. I can't find a tutor and am confused by anything above 3rd species counterpoint. (It doesn't help that I myself have been sick and missed classes). Not to mention my aural skills suck when the intervals are played simultaneously. Oh, Why won't she just arpeggiate them?! gonk  

[thequietwriter]

All this talk of theory makes me nervous for the fall. I took AP theory this year and by the time we got to 4th marking period it was kind of overwhelming. I seem to forget everything I previously learned when I work on part writing exercises... haha  

[Kea of doom]

Gjornia X

I never took theory formally so it's my 2nd year and I'm in theory 1. cry My prof is bad at teaching tho. I never understand what she's saying (I swear her english gets progressively worse as the year goes on). Now,she's out sick. I can't find a tutor and am confused by anything above 3rd species counterpoint. (It doesn't help that I myself have been sick and missed classes). Not to mention my aural skills suck when the intervals are played simultaneously. Oh, Why won't she just arpeggiate them?! gonk

If it makes you feel any better, counterpoint remains to this day the hardest class I've ever taken. Never spent more time on homework than doing nine note species counterpoint exercises. Those things are crazy. And I'm so envious of my fiancé because he is a pianist (and a Bach specialist, at that) so counterpoint comes suuuuper naturally to him. It's hard for those of us who have single-melody instruments! Lol.

As far as simultaneous intervals, I often try to think of them in terms of their voice leading context (that is, if you're given context, which I hope you are because otherwise that is really hard). Where do the voices "go"? (or "want" to go, if they don't resolve). You know, like how tritones usually resolve in opposite directions. Even things like a minor sixth has that whole first inversion major chord feel that either makes it a tonic or maybe a predominant or dominant? And if you can kind of hear how the voices lead, you can generally hear what kind of interval it is.

Also, a general trick is that major intervals are ascending in a major scale, and minor intervals are descending. In other words, if the first note is "do" and the second note is another diatonic pitch, it's a major interval, and vice versa it's a minor interval. That can be helpful, too.