Music

   Open Textbooks and Concordia Courses

   Description and Access

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

May suit: MHIS 204 Music History from 1800 to the Present

Fundamentals of Music Theory

This open e-book is the result of a project funded by a University of Edinburgh Student Experience Grant. It presents materials that deal with the building blocks of musical stave (sometimes known as staff) notation, a language designed to communicate about musical ideas which is in use around the world. The resources in this e-book include video lectures and their transcripts, as well as supporting text explanations, examples and illustrations. The materials introduce topics such as the organization of discrete pitches into scales and intervals, and temporal organization of musical sounds as duration, in rhythm and metre. These rudiments are presented through an introduction to the elements of five-line stave notation, and through critical discussion of the advantages and limitations served by notational systems in the representation and analysis of musical sounds. This serves as the basis of further explanations, to illustrate musical concepts including key, time signature, harmonisation, cadence and modulation.

May suit: MUSI 201 Introduction to Music Fundamentals

Open Music Theory – Version 2

Open Music Theory is an open-source, interactive, online textbook  intended to serve as the primary text and workbook for undergraduate music theory curricula. OMT2 has been designed inclusively. Topics range beyond the standard harmony and atonal theory to include fundamentals, musical form, jazz, pop, and orchestration. And within those traditional sections of harmony and atonal theory, the authors have deliberately chosen composers who represent diverse genders and races.

Includes: interactive music-notation modules

May suit: MUSI 201 Introduction to Music Fundamentals

A Practical Approach to Understanding Music Theory

A Practical Approach to Understanding Music Theory is an open textbook designed for the non-music performance major or music business/audio engineer who needs to professionally interface with musicians without needing to write or compose music. The material is designed around a spiral learning model in which a very simple straightforward concept is introduced, defined, and explained. From this point and forward the book adds one element of music theory after another until a broad base of musical understanding and application is achieved.

May suit: MUSI 201 Introduction to Music Fundamentals

Understanding Basic Music Theory

This open textbook covers all areas of basic music theory and is geared towards the beginner who has had experience in reading music on some level, but desires more comprehensive instruction.

May suit: MUSI 201 Introduction to Music Fundamentals

Fundamentals, Function, and Form: Theory and Analysis of Tonal Western Art Music

Fundamentals, Function, and Form is an interactive open textbook that provides its readers with a comprehensive study of the theory and analysis of tonal Western art music.

The text is supplemented with over eight hundred musical examples which, in the online version of the text, include embedded audio files for immediate aural reinforcement of theoretical concepts. Most of these examples are drawn from the literature, including nearly 200 excerpts by women and other underrepresented groups.

May suit: MUSI 223 Understanding Music

Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context

This open textbook is intended primarily for use in the college music appreciation classroom, but was designed with consideration for independent learners, advanced high school students, and experienced musicians.

Includes: instructor and student resources, including listening guides

May suit: MUSI 223 Understanding Music

Sound Reasoning

Sound Reasoning is a web-based, introductory music appreciation course. It offers a new approach to music appreciation for adults, focusing on style-independent concepts. While the course concentrates primarily on Western classical and modern music, the concepts that are introduced apply to music of any style or era. The goal of Sound Reasoning is to equip you with questions that you may ask of any piece of music, thereby creating a richer and more comprehensive understanding of music both familiar and unfamiliar. No ability to read music is required: the course assumes little or no musical background and a minimum of terminology is invoked. The course is interactive and musical examples are interpolated directly into the text. A “listening gallery” with exercises follows each module, and the modules may be studied in sequence or individually. Sound Reasoning is designed as both a stand-alone, self-paced course as well as a supplement to existing university classes.

Includes: instructor and student resources, including “listening galleries”

May suit: MUSI 223 Understanding Music

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

May suit: MUSI 223 Understanding Music

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