Investigate the qualities of Debussy's music that connect it to French art and poetry as well as to the sensuality of the French language. Learn how his landmark work, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, began musical modernism. Study the wealth of compositional innovations in his piano Prelude #10, and note how his impact on 20th-century music mirrors Beethoven's in the 19th century.

In this lesson, you will refine much of your existing repertoire. You'll then try your hand at Liszt's Liebestraum. While this piece can be quite challenging for students, Professor Pike has created a special arrangement designed for your current level of ability. Work on adding musical expression to these Romantic-era pieces.

Delve more deeply into the concept of chords and see how they can offer a richer harmony than single notes or two-note harmonic intervals. Examine one of the most popular chord progressions: I-IV-V-I (tonic to subdominant to dominant to tonic), one of the most common patterns in Western music.

So far, you've been practicing five-finger scales, but in Western music, a complete scale is an octave, or eight notes. Expand your abilities to play full eight-note scales, and practice with C major, G major and D major. In addition to working on your existing repertoire, you'll add the jazzy "Minor Romp" and "A Turkish Tune" to the mix.

The cultural environment of California produced some of the most original musical thinkers of the 20th century. First encounter Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, composers of astonishing eclecticism whose works incorporated non-Western musical forms. Also meet John Cage and Morton Feldman, whose "indeterminate" music introduced new conceptions of unpredictability and a non-directional sense of time.

After warming up with a waltz, you'll learn "Rameau's Minuet," a piece widely anthologized for music students. Then, go back to the Baroque to learn about Bach's fugues and Pachelbel's famous Canon in D. This lesson gives you a chance to refine your skills in harmonization.

Trace the career of violinist Malcolm Watson, as it illustrates principles of success for musicians, and consider seven habits of highly effective guitar players. Then learn the technique of artificial harmonics. Add half diminished and full diminished chords to your repertoire, play the Mixolydian scale, and finish the course with a jazz and flamenco inspired song.

Begin your study of musical rhythm by distinguishing periodic from non-periodic rhythmic patterns. Periodicity can be thought of as beat; non-periodicity involves expressive techniques such as timing variations and phrasing. Close by asking whether composers write music in the rhythmic patterns of their native language..

Clear diction and phrasing are fundamental to vocal artistry. In this episode, explore how we communicate meaning through pronunciation and syllabic stress. Begin to work with phrasing, how words are stressed relative to each other, and which words to emphasize as important. Consider how to place vowels and consonants in a sung phrase, and start to address intention and meaning in singing text.

In this lesson, you'll discover the final five-finger pattern - G flat - rounding out your knowledge of key signatures. You'll continue working to harmonize melodies with the accompaniment patterns you learned in Lesson 11, and you will begin a new technique - using the damper pedal.