Hi there!
I'm Rob Whelan, the chief developer of
the eMusicTheory website and software.
About eMusicTheory
It started as "Java Music Theory", a few drills online for the Hamilton College music department back in 1997. Now, eMusicTheory (launched as an independent site in 2003) is used every day by thousands of teachers and students all over the world.
The online drills and interactive theory concepts are free to anyone who wants to hone their new skills.
Teachers who want to design customized assignments for their students and track scores and their students' progress can subscribe for a low fee — about 25 cents/month per student.
For anyone who wants to use the drills offline, use MIDI instruments to give answers and save their drill settings, I built the eMusicTheory Standalone software. You can get your copy for 12 bucks.
That's about it! Development continues.
About me
I studied music (and of course music theory) and computer science in college, then launched a career as a software engineer. I've worked on some big projects with lots of developers (even won a Beacon Award from IBM once!), but eMusicTheory is my personal favorite — a spare-time project that's grown gradually over the years to become my main job.
I go through life with my wife (novelist Preeta Samarasan), our lovely daughter Rumika (born in 2009), and Bella the dog. We've lived in a few different parts of the USA, and now we're in a former post office in central France, where we're sort of centrally located to our immediate family members scattered around the world: New York, Los Angeles and Boston in the US, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Eindhoven in the Netherlands....
Fortunately, I work entirely online, so all I need is an internet connection! eMusicTheory is also still an American venture, regardless of where I am in the world.
For those curious about my musical interests: my focus in college was voice performance (bass) and composition, plus a bit of classical guitar and electronic music. I also played viola for about 7 years through junior high and high school, though those skills are pretty rusty now! Nowadays, music is still a huge part of my everyday life — I always have a guitar nearby, I write little songs for my daughter by the dozen, and when we travel I often come home with a new instrument (oud, sitar, didgeridoo) — but I'm not currently performing or recording. Current favorite genre: Django Reinhardt-style jazz.
Any questions or comments? Feel free to get in touch.
