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Gradus — School of Music Composition is an interactive composition curriculum rooted in the classical tradition of counterpoint and composition, following the path of Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum. Rather than teaching you to analyze other people's music, Gradus teaches you to write music of your own — from the very first lesson.
The curriculum spans twelve stages, beginning with single-note melodies and advancing through counterpoint, harmony, fugue, full orchestration, and an original capstone. Along the way you have access to:
All lessons are available to members. Sign in to access the full curriculum.
The curriculum is organized into twelve stages of study. Each lesson builds directly on the previous one, so it is best to work through them in order.
Twelve Stages of Study (Steps 1–49):
Inside any lesson, a sidebar panel shows all lessons organized by stage. Completed lessons are marked with a checkmark. Your current lesson is highlighted.
Gradus automatically records each lesson you complete. Visit My Progress in the nav to see a full overview of your journey through the curriculum.
Maestro is your personal composition tutor, available inside every lesson. You can ask Maestro any theory question, request feedback on a melody or exercise, or get help understanding a concept before moving on.
You can describe a melody or exercise you wrote and ask Maestro to evaluate it. For example:
Some lessons include an auto-feedback toggle that lets Maestro respond automatically when you submit a composition exercise. This is enabled by default. You can turn it off by clicking the toggle in the Maestro panel if you prefer to work independently.
The interactive guide below walks through what Maestro can do and how to get the most out of him. Press Play or click through the panels.
Three colorful, age-appropriate composition tools designed for the youngest musicians (kid age mode). All three use real staff notation and VexFlow rendering to build musical associations early.
Build rhythms by placing color-coded notes on a real treble clef staff.
Write your own melodies with guided step-by-step prompts and a rainbow piano keyboard.
Write a second voice beneath a given melody and learn about consonance.
The Beginner Sketchbook is a free-form composition workspace for writing simple single-voice melodies. It is the ideal place to practice the skills from Lessons 1–7 outside the structured exercises.
The Counterpoint Workshop is designed for the exercises introduced in Stage II of the curriculum. You write a counterpoint melody against a given cantus firmus (fixed melody), following the rules for each species. Cantus firmi from Fux, Jeppesen, Mozart–Attwood, and the broader tradition are available.
The Daily Routine tab generates a structured counterpoint session based on your curriculum step — one exercise per species, in sequence. Many students treat it like scales: one routine per day builds the instinct that written composition requires.
The Master Sketchbook is the most advanced composition studio. It supports multi-voice writing with up to four independent staves, and is intended for students working through Stage III and beyond.
The Master Sketchbook includes a MusicXML import feature that lets you load scores from external notation software (Finale, Sibelius, MuseScore, Dorico) for study and analysis.
The Critique page lets you submit any composition — written in Gradus or exported from any notation software — and receive a structured, 32-point evaluation from Maestro. It is the primary composition feedback tool in Gradus.
Maestro evaluates your work across eight dimensions: Intent & Style, Melody, Rhythm, Harmony & Tonality, Voice Leading & Texture, Contrapuntal Craft, Unity & Variety, and Expression & Performance. Each dimension is scored 1–5 by a deterministic analyzer from the note data itself. Maestro then writes a narrative critique interpreting those scores.
The scorecard shows all 32 dimensions grouped by family. Each dimension has a 1–5 bar score (or N/A when the dimension does not apply to your composition). Below the score grid, Maestro identifies your three strongest dimensions, three areas for growth, and one concrete next step for your next practice session.
Gradus includes a suite of practice tools for building fundamental musicianship skills alongside your composition work.
Four interactive modules: an interval library with famous song associations, an interval quiz with four difficulty levels, a chord quality quiz (major, minor, diminished, augmented), and a scale identification quiz (six scale types). Supports MIDI keyboard input for answers.
A 10-level progressive sight-reading trainer. Three practice modes: pitch identification, timed flashcard, and interval recognition. Levels 9–10 include real Bach chorale excerpts. A Historical (Fétis) mode offers 22 progressive solfege exercises from Fétis's Solfèges Progressifs.
Test your knowledge of musical notation terms with four quiz modes: selection, flashcard, multiple-choice, and matching. Filter by grade level (I–V) and category (tempo, dynamics, articulation, expression, ornaments, and more). Pairs with the full Notation Reference.
Take the Notation Quiz →Practice thoroughbass realization — reading figured bass symbols and constructing chords above a given bass line. Six historical collections of increasing difficulty are available:
Harmonize soprano melodies from Bach-Schiorring chorales in four voices (SATB). Write alto, tenor, and bass parts, then check your harmonization against Bach's own solution. Each voice is color-coded for clarity. This develops voice-leading instincts and harmonic vocabulary.
Partimento takes figured bass further: instead of realizing predetermined chords, you compose a complete piece from a bass line. Four progressive levels take you from fully figured realization to unfigured composition to imitative counterpoint over a bass — the method that trained the entire Baroque generation.
Open Figured Bass →Nadia Boulanger's systematic approach to harmony, codified by Philip Lasser, lives in two places — one for reference, one for practice.
Boulanger's Harmonic Standards (in the Library) — the read-only reference:
Boulanger's Exercises (in the Practice dropdown) — the interactive practice:
Two advanced practice disciplines that build the deepest musical fluency — the kind where theory becomes instinct.
Following Nadia Boulanger's method, keyboard harmony exercises progress through five levels: chord voicing in all keys, figured bass realization at the keyboard, transposition around the circle of fifths, melody harmonization, and the ultimate challenge — singing one voice while playing the other three. These exercises require a keyboard (MIDI or acoustic).
Open Keyboard Harmony →Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven were legendary improvisers. These structured exercises restore the lost art: melody over a given bass, figured bass improvisation, melody continuation, theme and variations, and fugal improvisation. Start simple — even five minutes of daily improvisation builds fluency that written exercises alone cannot.
Open Improvisation Exercises →In-depth annotated analyses of major orchestral works from the Baroque through the 20th century. Each study pairs a piece with measure-by-measure commentary explaining harmony, orchestration, melody, form, voicing, rhythm, texture, and dynamics.
Works available (selection):
A complete reference to every instrument family in the Western orchestra. Each of the 20 instrument pages covers range, technique, transposition, notation conventions, and characteristic uses in the repertoire.
20 instrument pages across 5 families:
A catalog of 519 orchestration pairings and ensemble groupings across six categories: strings, woodwinds, brass, cross-family, special effects, and tutti. Each entry includes a timbre description, best registers, balance notes, famous repertoire examples, and common pitfalls.
In-depth profiles of 55 composers spanning six centuries — from Palestrina and Monteverdi through John Williams. Each profile covers biographical background, compositional style, orchestration approach, key works, and historical influence. Composers are organized by era.
The Library dropdown in the navigation brings together all reference materials. Beyond the major sections covered above, these references round out the collection:
Cadences, Rules of the Octave, sequences, and galant schemata from a scholarly edition of the thoroughbass Compendium. Filter by category, mode (major/minor), and voice count (2–4 voices). Each pattern includes notation and audio playback.
Open Voice-Leading Patterns →The complete Marpurg Treatise on Fugue (1753–54), both volumes — organized by chapter. Covers imitation, fugue subjects, answer, countersubject, exposition, episode, stretto, double/triple/quadruple counterpoint, inversion, retrograde, augmentation, and canon. Kirchhoff's 16 Preludes & Fugues serve as companion works. Integrated into curriculum Steps 14–16 and 32.
Open Fugue Reference →A scholarly thread comparing Fux's pedagogical counterpoint rules (1725) with Palestrina's actual Renaissance practice. Based on Jeppesen's research, it shows where the species method diverges from real Renaissance polyphony — and why both matter.
Open Palestrina Practice →Seven principles of the beautiful line — contour, stepwise motion, rhythmic variety, phrase rhythm, implied harmony, memorability, and character. Grounded in the aesthetic foundations of proportion, radiance, contrast, and balance.
Open Melody Writing →The four fundamental textures — monophony, homophony, polyphony, and heterophony — and how texture change functions as a compositional event.
Open Musical Texture →Dynamics as structure, articulation as character, tempo as emotional landscape. Includes a complete table of standard markings.
Open Dynamics & Expression →Over 150 musical terms across 11 categories — tempo, dynamics, articulation, expression, ornaments, repeats, note values, clefs, time signatures, symbols, and techniques. Each entry includes the Italian original, pronunciation, and definition. Searchable and filterable by grade level (I–V).
Open Notation Reference →Ten progressive orchestration assignments from “Your First Orchestration” (Bach chorale arrangement) through full orchestration projects. Each includes a piano sketch, master orchestration example, detailed notes, and teaching hints.
View Assignments →Ready to begin? Start with Lesson 1 — no setup, no prerequisites.
Begin Lesson 1 →