Musical Explorations: Fundamentals through Experience

Musical Explorations: Fundamentals through Experience is a music fundamentals text with a fundamental difference; it offers an innovative approach to the rudiments of music theory from an experiential and interactive perspective. This text is written for both general survey courses and rudimentary music theory classes. It presents fundamental terms and concepts with suggestions for engaging and interactive classroom activities, designed to have students learn the fundamentals of music through experience. Containing over one hundred explorations as interactive activities, guided listening experiences, exercises, and assignments, this text offers ample opportunities for students to participate in exploring music. Students also study the fundamental concepts of music theory and traditional Western notation, which could precede more in-depth study of music theory and history. In addition, this text makes historical and global connections to the traditional elements of music, fostering interdisciplinary and international education. Each chapter contains examples, exercises, activities, and assignments, as well as learning objectives, a summary, and an indexed list of key terms and concepts. For classroom discussion or homework, review questions provide engaging opportunities for students to think critically about the questions and, more importantly, about music itself. Although the rudiments of music theory are explained in many print and online resources, the experience of music is not. For the first time, this book offers interactive, interdisciplinary, and international pathways to explore the fundamentals of music in one concise text using applied learning as an active, hands-on approach. Musical Explorations: Includes a four-month access to Rhapsody, an online music listening service, which accompanies textbook playlists and gives the ability for students or instructors to create their own from over ten million titles Can be used in general survey courses for non-music majors and traditional rudiments courses for beginning music majors Begins with an overview of the study of music, followed by dedicated chapters to the seven elements of music (rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, dynamics, form, and texture) Contains explanations of important terms/concepts and activities to guide student experiences with the musical element discussed Provides additional online resources including video reviews and web-based music theory trainer