Institute of Art Design + Technology
Dún Laoghaire

Eoan O’Dea 

BSc [Hons] Creative Computing

An enthusiastic, open-minded and entrepreneurial individual who has a positive attitude to life and who is willing to work hard. Friendly, trustworthy and works well with people.

The teaching of Music Theory through mobile applications

This project explores the area of Music Theory, Improvisation and determines if it can be taught through the use of mobile applications, using gamified methods of education.

Since the subject of Music Theory is so dense, it attempts to determine the level of the user, and introduce new concepts to them in small consumable pieces, which they can learn from by using the mobile application consistently.

The mobile application is available to download on any iOS or Android device and offers interactive ways for the user to learn and resources and hints along the way.



Pedagogy of Music Theory and Improvisation through mobile applications

This document contains research in the area of Music Theory and Improvisation to determine if it can be taught through the use of mobile applications, using gamified methods of education.

The idea behind this project grew from interviewing various musicians and how they respected their instruments. Particularly comparing Pianists and Guitarists. A Pianist would often spend years learning music theory, including chords, scales, chord progressions etc. alongside learning pieces. After learning this, they usually can only play sheet music after a large amount of practice. This was noticed to be the opposite for many Guitar players, who would usually know very little about the subject of music theory, but can often improvise at a very strong level.

The project aims to bridge the gap between these two musicians, understand the gap within their knowledge and introduce the user to the dense subject of Music Theory in small, consumable pieces of information, which they can learn from by using the application consistently.