Fundamentals, Function, and Form

Author: Andre Mount

Description: This text provides readers with a comprehensive study of the theory and analysis of tonal Western art music. Author Andre Mount begins by building a strong foundation in the understanding of rhythm, meter, and pitch as well as the notational conventions associated with each. From there, he guides the reader through an exploration of polyphony—the simultaneous sounding of multiple independent melodies—and an increasingly rich array of different sonorites that grow out of this practice. The book culminates with a discussion of musical form, engaging with artistic works in their entirety by considering the interaction of harmonic and thematic elements, but also such other musical dimensions as rhythm, meter, texture, and expression.

Music and the Child

Author: Natalie Sarrazin

Description: Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children’s identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children’s natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I’m working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children’s lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.

Music Appreciation

Author: Armin Harrison

Description: Welcome to MUSI 1306, Music Appreciation. I think you’ve made a smart choice to spend some weeks studying some of the greatest music ever written. Consider for a moment how quickly a hit pop song passes from fashionable to forgotten. Those of us that have been out of high school or college more years than we care to remember have certainly had the experience of hearing a favorite anthem of our youth and thinking, “Oh yeah, that song! I’d forgotten that one.” Think about that: the song was totally loved, then completely forgotten within a matter of just a few years. Then consider that many of the composers that we will study have been dead for over two hundred years, and yet their music has never been forgotten and never stopped being performed and loved. That, quite simply, is amazing.

Music Appreciation: A Thematic Approach (Complete Course)

Overview:

This course is designed to teach not only historical facts about music but also to encourage deeper listening to music from a variety of sources. The course is a guided journey of listening, reading, and discussion (oral and written) of music, with corresponding recommended listening and assignments for deeper understanding. An emphasis of this design is to place music within the framework of how music is experienced instead of in a chronological sequence. To that end, the modules include a unit on the music of the Civil Rights movement, with optional material on music for social justice in contemporary America, and the musical contributions of musicians from Alabama. Instructors are encouraged to modify the materials to serve the needs of the students or audience they are serving.

Music: Its Language, History and Culture 

The chapters in this book contain definitions and explanations of musical terms and concepts, short essays on subjects related to music as a creative performing art, biographical sketches of major figures in music, and historical and cultural background information on music from different periods and places.

Includes: instructor and student resources.

Open Music Theory

Open Music Theory is an open-source, interactive, online textbook for college-level music theory courses.

Includes: interactive, music-notation modules.

Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context

Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context offers a fresh curriculum for the college-level music appreciation course. The musical examples are drawn from classical, popular, and folk traditions from around the globe. These examples are organized into thematic chapters, each of which explores a particular way in which human beings use music. Topics include storytelling, political expression, spirituality, dance, domestic entertainment, and more. The chapters and examples can be taught in any order, making Resonances a flexible resource that can be adapted to your teaching or learning needs. This textbook is accompanied by a complete set of PowerPoint slides and learning objectives.

A Quick and Dirty Guide to Art, Music, and Culture

Author: Clayton Funk

Description: This is a guidebook to a web resource of Artist and Musician biographies (http://aaep1600.osu.edu). We discuss art and music in the context of popular culture, so chances are you will see relationships between art and music and what you are learning and the way you live, to connect them to your own experience.

Sight-Reading for Guitar: The Keep Going Method Book and Video Series

The textbook teaches guitar players from all musical backgrounds to understand, read and play modern staff notation in real time. The series contains 20 units that start at the beginner level and progress to the intermediate/advanced level.

Includes: videos, practice.

Understanding Basic Music Theory

This complements courses that cover the bare essentials of music theory.

Understanding Music: Past and Present

Understanding Music: Past and Present is a peer-reviewed open Music Appreciation textbook co-authored by music faculty across Georgia. The text covers the fundamentals of music and the physics of sound, an exploration of music from the Middle Ages to the present day, and a final chapter on popular music in the United States.

Includes: audio/video clips, glossary.

Voice Class

Author: Rollo Fisher, Monroe Community College