Music Theory Classes


About

Columbus Music and Art Academy offers courses in Music Theory, Harmony and Ear Training, and Sight Singing. Most students choose to participate in the Royal Conservatory Certificate Program by taking the theory exam following the class. Our Music Theory students have consistently performed exceptionally well on these exams. On average, we do 20% better than the national average as given by the Royal Conservatory website. For information about RCCP, please click here. Many high school students also decide to take the AP Music Theory exam. Although we do not offer an AP prep class, our students consistently receive 4s and 5s on this exam.


Schedule Trial Class See Schedule + Tuition Register

Groups

Beginner Level

This course is designed to develop basic written music-theory skills in preparation for the Royal American Conservatory Preliminary Level Exam. Topics include key signatures, intervals, major scales, minor scales in three types, primary triads, simple and compound meters, and performance terminology.

Intermediate Level

This next course continues the development of written skills in preparation for the Royal American Conservatory Intermediate Level Exam. Topics include cadence types, chromatic scales, non-primary triads, whole-tone and pentatonic scales, diminished and augmented intervals, assymetrical meters, and enhanced performance terminology.

Advanced Level

This third course in preparation for the RCM Advanced Level Exam continues the music-theory investigation into compound intervals, hybrid meters, antecedent-consequent phrase construction, transposition from various instruments to concert pitch, modes, diminished-seventh chords, notation in alto and tenor clefs, and seventh-chord inversions.

Harmony and Ear Training

This course corresponds to the RCM Harmony sequence, and also includes the combined subject of “ear training and sight singing.” Topics and skills covered include melodic and harmonic dictation, singing with solfège, figured bass, SATB four-part writing, modulation, 9th and 13th extensions, secondary-dominant and secondary-diminished functions, Baroque-period binary forms, and sonata-allegro form.

Sight Singing

This class is designed for students to develop and enhance their skills in sight singing and reading music. Topics include notation in treble and bass clefs, key signatures, aural identification of simple intervals, and singing with movable-do solfège.

Staff

David_Tomasacci

Dr. David Nelson Tomasacci Music Theory Instructor

Dr. David Nelson Tomasacci earned his PhD in Music Theory from The Ohio State University in 2013, under the advisement of Dr. David Clampitt. As an educator, Dr. Tomasacci has taught as a Lecturer at The Ohio State University, the Capital University Conservatory of Music, Kenyon College, and Columbus State Community College. As a composer, he holds a M.M. in Composition from The Ohio State University, where he studied with Donald Harris and Thomas Wells, and a B.M. in Composition from Bucknell University, where he studied with William Duckworth, Jackson Hill, and William Payne; his works have been performed across the United States and in Canada, Romania, Poland, the Czec Republic, Croatia, and Slovenia. As a conductor, Tomasacci has been serving as the Director of Music at University Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio since 2017. His dissertation, A Theory of Orthography and the Fundamental Bass for the Late Oeuvre of Scriabin, combined an extension of the orthographic theories of Cheong Wai-Ling, the set-theoretic analyses of James Baker, and the transformational machinery of Klumpenhouwer network isographies to unravel the seemingly baffling constructive principles behind the music from the final years of composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin.