META24 WORKFORCE LAB · GRADED TO THE CORE · PROJECT-BASED · A COURSE IN MUSIC THEORY & MUSIC ENGINEERING · MIDDLE SCHOOL · UPPER SCHOOL · GRADE 6–12 · 0.5 CREDIT · META24 LAB COMPETENCIES
Music Theory
Music Theory · sound to song · in Make the Track · Music
12 weeks of Make the Track · Music: Sound Itself · Rhythm · Melody & Pitch · Harmony · Song Form …
The weeks are the course’s own, read from the lab; the catalog pads the last weeks with the capstone and the floor so the course fills a whole term.
THE MIX · HOW MUCH OF EACH CORE SUBJECT THIS COURSE CARRIES · IN ORDER
ART & DESIGNMATHHISTORY, GEOGRAPHY & HUMANITIESREADING & WRITINGSCIENCETECHNOLOGY & TRADESCODING & AIBUSINESS & ENTERPRISE
The squares are a picture of a course — how much of each core subject its own rooms carry, read from the rooms’ text — never a score of a student. Every course in a lab is graded to the core across the board; the squares say which columns it feeds most.
WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
- Before music, physics
- The foundation everything else stands on
- Intervals are feelings with names
- Chords are how notes stack — and a shockingly small handful of chord progressions run the entire world of popular music
AT A GLANCE · 18 WEEKS
Q1 Sound Itself → The Gear — The assignments · weeks 1–9
Q2 Recording & Mixing → The capstone, then the floor — The capstone · Music Theory
ALSO IN MUSIC THEORY & MUSIC ENGINEERING · MAKE THE TRACK · MUSIC
A semester
18 WEEKS · TWO QUARTERSQuarter 1 · Sound Itself → The Gear
WEEKS 1–9 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 1Sound ItselfMUSIC THEORY · SOUND TO SONG
Before music, physics. Everything you’ll ever do — every EQ move, every mix decision — starts with three facts about what sound actually IS.
WK 2Rhythm
The foundation everything else stands on. You already feel it — this week you learn to hear, place, and control it, down to the millisecond.
WK 3Melody & Pitch
Intervals are feelings with names. You already know every one of them by ear — this week you learn to name them, and it’s the single highest-ROI skill in music.
WK 4Harmony
Chords are how notes stack — and a shockingly small handful of chord progressions run the entire world of popular music. This is the week the curtain gets pulled back.
WK 5Song Form
A song is architecture. The notes matter, but where you put the walls, doors, and empty rooms is what makes a listener feel something.
WK 6The Instruments
A band is not a pile of instruments — it’s a set of JOBS. Somebody keeps time, somebody holds the bottom, somebody paints the chords, somebody sings the story.
WK 7History & The Family Tree
This is the best story in American culture: one family tree, from work songs in a cotton field to trap on the radio today.
WK 8Genre Anatomy
Every genre is a recipe — a specific set of ingredients you can name, take apart, and reassemble. Once you can list the six ingredients of any style, you can reproduce it, teach it, or fuse two into something new.
WK 9The Gear
The most hireable knowledge in this whole course: how sound actually travels from a voice to a speaker, what every piece of gear in the chain does, and how to FIND THE FAULT when the sound dies.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The assignments · weeks 1–9
The question. What does Music Theory ask you to be able to do by week 9?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: Sound Itself · Rhythm · Melody & Pitch · Harmony …
The evidence. Handed in through Music Theory inside Make the Track · Music, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
Quarter 2 · Recording & Mixing → The capstone, then the floor
WEEKS 10–18 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 10Recording & MixingMUSIC THEORY · SOUND TO SONG
Where a pile of recorded tracks becomes a song. The secret pros wish beginners knew: most of a mix is just VOLUME, done in a specific order — and you can’t mix your way out of a bad recording.
WK 11The Voice & Performance
The voice is the oldest instrument and the one every listener judges first. This week covers how it actually works, how to stack and layer it like the pros, the honest truth about auto-tune, and how to command a mic and…
WK 12The Business
The difference between a career and a story about one. Talent gets you into the room; understanding rights, money, and the real jobs keeps you there.
WK 13–18The capstone, then the floor
The capstone the track ends in, then the floor: the work is done in the room, logged in the room, kept in My Work.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The capstone · Music Theory
The question. What does Music Theory ask you to be able to do by week 12?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: Recording & Mixing · The Voice & Performance · The Business · The capstone, then the floor
The evidence. Handed in through Music Theory inside Make the Track · Music, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
A course is a quarter, a semester or a year — nine, eighteen or thirty-six weeks — a project a quarter. Offered as the year, a semester or a quarter, it is the same course seen through a window. A lab is a family: its year, each of its tracks as a course, and its rooms. The evidence is what a student hands in through the room; the Report reads it from there. Nothing in the catalog is a grade.
THE PASS · THIS COURSE AND EVERY OTHER ONE
One pass includes Music Theory and every course in the catalog. Pick a pass, or enter a school code; checkout stays on this page.