Fundamentals of Music Theory

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Fundamentals of Music Theory by Nikki Moran, Michael Edwards, John Kitchen, Zack Moir and Richard Worth, is a Creative Commons licensed open textbook, co-created by staff and students from the Reid School of Music with support from the OER Service at the University of Edinburgh.  

Fundamentals of Music Theory introduces the building blocks of musical stave (sometimes known as staff) notation, a language designed to communicate musical ideas, which is in use around the world. 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 organisation of discrete pitches into scales and intervals, and temporal organisation 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.

This open textbook has been produced from content originally created for the popular Coursera MOOC Fundamentals of Music Theory and adapted for an on campus course.  These resources have been repurposed into a convenient and reusable open textbook suitable for use by staff and students worldwide. Fundamentals of Music Theory is published on Edinburgh Diamond, the University of Edinburgh's open access book and journal service. 

University of Edinburgh

United Kingdom, Edinburgh

Twitter: @OpenEdEdinburgh

Contributed by: Lorna Campbell (Twitter: @lornamcampbell)

Language: English

License: CC-NC-SA

https://books.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-diamond/catalog/book/ed-9781912669226