472 ratings
Music Theory nerd
Anthony B.
I help music theory click by hearing it first.
Education
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Bachelor of Music in Music Theory
Hometown
New Orleans, Louisiana
A note from Anthony
“I teach theory backward from sound: you hum the chord before you name it, so the Roman numerals end up describing something your ear already believes. Notation is just a map of a place you can already hear, and my job is to hand you the legend. The day you start humming the next chord before it arrives, you've stopped analyzing music and started thinking in it.”
Anthony’s story
Anthony learned the blues by ear on his grandfather's upright in Tremé before he could read a note, then failed his first Oberlin counterpoint exam because he couldn't explain why the chords he'd played his whole life actually worked. He spent that semester transcribing Bill Evans voicings into his species-counterpoint notebook until the two languages matched up, and turned the wreckage into a senior thesis on tritone substitution in Crescent City stride piano. He still gigs Thursday nights at a Frenchmen Street club, where transposing a horn player's chart up a fourth mid-tune taught him more about functional harmony than any worksheet.
What students say
4.9 ★ · 472 ratings
“My AP Music Theory aural-skills score went from a 2 to a 5. Anthony drilled ii-V-I by ear over actual jazz tunes instead of textbook robot-voices, and by April I could take melodic dictation without my hands shaking.”
“Devon went into his college harmony final at 58% and on academic warning. He came out of the semester with a 91% and can now spot his own parallel fifths instead of waiting for the professor to circle them. The Thursday gigs sometimes pushed our lesson to 9pm, which is my one gripe, but he showed up every time.”
“I'd been writing songs for six years and couldn't name one chord I used. Anthony pointed at the V/V buried in my own chorus and the circle of fifths finally made sense. I tested out of intro theory at my conservatory placement and skipped straight to the 200-level.”