The Mannheim school of composers, led by Stamitz, steered significant musical developments during the second half of the eighteenth century. This music history lesson explains some of their most significant innovations and explains the...

The history of musical pitch. Many of us assume that musical pitch has always been gauged at the same level but this is not the case. Concert pitch is the pitch reference to which a group of musical instruments are tuned for a...

In this episode of Music History Crash Course we look at one of the most well known composers for piano, Frederic Chopin. Specifically, his Nocturne in E-flat major Opus 9 Number 2. We look at the structure of the composition as well as...

ANNOUNCEMENT: As of May 14, 2019, there is a NEW Music History series starting on this channel called "Music In History: The Story of Music". NOTE: This video was created as a bit of a joke on how music history classes and how little...

Learn about the great music composers in our music history with this short animated video.

One of the great mysteries of classical music. We explore the death of Bach and try to piece together where his remains actually ended up after all these years.

Rachmaninoff's piano concerto No. 2 is one of his most well known pieces, but did you know that Rachmaninoff struggled with depression and writer's block before being able to write this lovely piece of music? We look at the history...

Today we take a look at a piece of music that you have probably heard many times - Beethoven's 5th symphony. Why is it so recognizable and how did it become so popular?

Clair de Lune is one of Claude Debussy's most popular piano works. Today we take a closer look at the music and the composer. Here are some more awesome videos about Clair de Lune.

Today we take a closer look at the life of Clara Schumann, one of the most well known piano performers of the Romantic era.

On a trip to Rome, Mozart and his father go see the Tenebrae service at the Sistine chapel to hear the Miserere. Then things get complicated.

We look at the ways the Mahler hammer is played, and how it fits in to the rest of Gustav Mahler's sixth symphony.

Antonio Vivaldi was an Italian composer of the Baroque era and was very well known during his time as a performer and a teacher. One of the types of music that he like to compose was called “concerto”. A concerto is a type of composition...

Overview of the history of German music, from Classical composers Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms to contemporary pop musicians.

The standard orchestra did not become established until the Classical period but the Baroque orchestra was well under development and this video explores how the orchestra got underway during the Baroque period in Italy, France and...

Pomp and Circumstance by Edward Elgar. Why do we play Pomp and Circumstance at graduations? That's a good question! It all started in 1901...

Is older music better? Is current music worse? Are we as composers and songwriters devolving? I discuss these topics on my first ever music theory vlog.

Learn about the musical prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Discover how Josquin des Prez developed compositional style during the High Renaissance period. Josquin des Prez followed composers like Du Fay and Ockeghem, and prepared the ground for Palestrina and his contemporaries. As a singer,...

A brief history of the music clefs we use today. From the medieval period up through the modern era the music clefs we use in sheet music have gone though many different changes.

Salzburg, Austria:"We will go to the birthplace of Mozart, one of the most famous and influential classical music composers in the world ... in Salzburg, Austria."

Fanny Mendelssohn was a german composer and pianist of the early romantic era. Born in 1805, she was the eldest of four children of Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn. Her father was a very successful banker which meant that the family was...

In this epic overview, Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of classical music through the development of written notation, the record, and the re-mix.

We trace the origins of Opera from the Camerata in Italy in the late 1500’s through the early efforts of Peri and Caccini, through to Monteverdi and onwards to Caccini, to Lully in France, to Handel in England, and back to Pergolesi in...