Studying Music Online

Hi everyone! I’m Julia Polanco, Student Advisor at Berkleemusic. Our online school has students located in many countries throughout the world, and as you could imagine, musical vocabulary varies between many of these countries. Some of our students already know all the terms in theory, solfege, and harmony in their own language, but they are missing key terms in American English.

Being an international student of Berklee College of Music, I remember wasting a lot of time translating note values, and accidentals while in class or speaking to other musicians. As I believe this to be a common issue, I decided to put together a few guides to help international students learn musical terms used in the United States.

I wanted the guides to be as user friendly and as professional looking as possible, I went to fellow staff member Jonathan Feist for his advice. Jonathan is not only the managing editor of Berklee Press, but he is also a composer, writer, author, and instructor. He authored and continues to teach our Music Notation Using Finale course, so I was thrilled when he offered his help in assisting me with this project.

Feel free to click on the guides below if you want to print them out!

Accidentals and notes.

Measure, staff, key signatures etc.

Note duration, quarter note, half note, whole rest etc.