Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
External
Fundamentals, Function, and Form: Theory and Analysis of Tonal Western Art Music
Andre Mount · Milne Open Textbooks · 2020
Fundamentals, Function, and Form by Andre Mount—with editorial and pedagogical input from Lee Rothfarb—provides its readers with a comprehensive study of the theory and analysis of tonal Western art music. 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. Along the way, Mount supplements the text 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. The reader is also given the opportunity to check their understanding of the text with interactive exercises at every step of the way. Fundamentals, Function, and Form was written with the undergraduate music student in mind, but self-guided readers would also be rewarded with a deep understanding of this musical tradition.
External
Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom
Robert Hutchinson · Robert Hutchinson · 2017
Music Theory for the 21st–Century Classroom is an openly–licensed online four–semester college music theory textbook. This text differs from other music theory textbooks by focusing less on four–part (SATB) voiceleading and more on relating harmony to the phrase. Also, in traditional music theory textbooks, there is little emphasis on motivic analysis and analysis of melodic units smaller than the phrase. In my opinion, this led to students having difficulty with creating melodies, since the training they are given is typically to write a “melody” in quarter notes in the soprano voice of part writing exercises. When the assignments in those texts ask students to do more than this, the majority of the students struggle to create a melody with continuity and with appropriate placement of harmonies within a phrase because the text had not prepared them to do so. In Music Theory for the 21st–Century Classroom, students learn about motive, fragment, phrase, and subphrase, as well as types of melodic alteration like inversion, intervallic change, augmentation, diminution, rhythmic change, ornamentation, extension, and retrograde. By understanding motive and subphrase (also known as “phrase segment” or “phrase member”), I believe students will better understand the logic and construction of melodies, which will aid them in creating their own music. This text is meant to take the student from the basics of reading and writing pitches and rhythms through twelve–tone technique and minimalism over the course of four semesters. Whenever possible, examples from popular music and music from film and musical theater are included to illustrate melodic and harmonic concepts, usually within the context of the phrase.
External
Guide to Italian art in the 1400s
Ruth Ezra; Beth Harris; Steven Zucker · Smarthistory · 2020
This book contains all of Smarthistory’s content for Italian art in the 1400s.
External
Guide to Italian art in the 1300s
Ruth Ezra; Beth Harris; Steve Zucker · Smarthistory · 2020
This book contains all of Smarthistory’s content for Italian art in the 1300s.
External
Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar!
Jeannette Okur · COERLL · 2021
Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! was developed for intermediate level Turkish language courses at the University of Texas at Austin. Intermediate learners and their instructors may use it for different purposes: self-study, classroom instruction, tutoring, or as a pastime. The lessons in Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! integrate reading, listening and viewing comprehension, writing and speaking practice, grammar, vocabulary, and cultural activities. Dozens of audio and video clips of Turkish speakers describing their lives, their culture, and their country support and enhance these activities. The Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! textbook, interactive H5P exercises, and YouTube channel comprise a media-rich open educational resource (OER) developed by Dr. Jeannette Okur at the University of Texas at Austin and published by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning under the U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant #P229A180003, with additional support from the UT Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services and the UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
External
Brass Techniques and Pedagogy
Brian Weidner · Palni Press · 2020
Textbook for undergraduate brass methods course focusing on brass instrument techniques and pedagogy.
External
A Guide to Good Reasoning: Cultivating Intellectual Virtues
David Wilson · University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 1999
A Guide to Good Reasoning has been described by reviewers as “far superior to any other critical reasoning text.” It shows with both wit and philosophical care how students can become good at everyday reasoning. It starts with attitude—with alertness to judgmental heuristics and with the cultivation of intellectual virtues. From there it develops a system for skillfully clarifying and evaluating arguments, according to four standards—whether the premises fit the world, whether the conclusion fits the premises, whether the argument fits the conversation, and whether it is possible to tell.
External
Elementary New Testament Greek
Joseph Dongell · First Fruits Press · 2014
The need for this particular grammar arises from the peculiar shape of the MDiv curriculum at Asbury Theological Seminary. Several years ago the faculty adopted a curriculum that required one semester of Greek and one semester of Hebrew, each as preparatory for a basic exegesis course in each discipline. It became clear after several years of trial and error that a “lexical” or “tools” approach to learning Greek and Hebrew was inadequate, no matter how skilled the instructors or how motivated the students. In today's general vacuum of grammatical training in public education across the United States, students typically enter seminary training with no knowledge of how languages work. Any training we might give them in accessing grammatical information through the use of Bible software programs will, we learned, come to naught in the absence of an understanding of just what such information actually means. We agreed that we actually needed to “teach the language itself,” at least in some rudimentary fashion, if we hoped students would make sense of grammatical and linguistic issues involved biblical interpretation. The first 12 chapters of this grammar are designed to correspond to the first semester's instructional agenda. In these chapters we introduce all the parts of speech, explain and drill the basic elements of grammar, set forth the larger verb system (excluding the perfect system), teach the tenses of the Indicative Mood only (again, excluding the perfect system), and help students build a vocabulary of all NT words occurring 100 times or more. We also lead students into the NT itself with carefully chosen examples, while at the same time guiding them in each lesson to learn the use of the standard NT lexicon [BDAG] and an exegetical grammar [Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics]. We are well aware of the limitations of this approach, but genuinely believe that some instruction along these lines is better than none, and that such an approach provide a fo
External
Intermediate Biblical Greek Reader: Galatians and Related Texts
Nijay Gupta; Jonah Sandford · George Fox University Library · 2018
After completing basic biblical Greek, students are often eager to continue to learn and strengthen their skills of translation and interpretation. This intermediate graded reader is designed to meet those needs. The reader is “intermediate” in the sense that it presumes the user will have already learned the basics of Greek grammar and syntax and has memorized Greek vocabulary words that appear frequently in the New Testament. The reader is “graded” in the sense that it moves from simpler translation work (Galatians) towards more advanced readings from the book of James, the Septuagint, and from one of the Church Fathers. In each reading lesson, the Greek text is given, followed by supplemental notes that offer help with vocabulary, challenging word forms, and syntax. Discussion questions are also included to foster group conversation and engagement. There are many good Greek readers in existence, but this reader differs from most others in a few important ways. Most readers offer text selections from different parts of the Bible, but in this reader the user works through one entire book (Galatians). All subsequent lessons, then, build off of this interaction with Galatians through short readings that are in some way related to Galatians. The Septuagint passages in the reader offer some broader context for texts that Paul quotes explicitly from the Septuagint. The Patristic reading from John Chrysystom comes from one of his homilies on Galatians. This approach to a Greek reader allows for both variety and coherence in the learning process. This reader is a collaborative project that developed out of an advanced Greek course at Portland Seminary (2017-2018). The following students contributed equally to the content of the textbook. Alexander Finkelson (MATS, Portland Seminary, 2018) Bryn Pliska Girard (MATS, Portland Seminary, 2018) Charles E. R. Jesch (MDIV, Portland Seminary, current student) Paul C. Moldovan (MDIV, Portland Seminary, current student) Jenny E. Sie
External
Music Fundamentals 2: Rhythm and Meter
Terry Ewell; Catherine Schmidt-Jones · OpenStax CNX · 2013
This collection is the second of five dealing with the rudiments of music.
External
Music Fundamentals 1: Pitch and Major Scales and Keys
Terry Ewell; Catherine Schmidt-Jones · OpenStax CNX · 2013
This collection is the first of five dealing with the rudiments of music.
External
Keys to Understanding the Middle East
Alam Payind; Melinda McClimans · The Ohio State University Pressbooks · 2017
This book is intended for readers who have never studied the Middle East, or experts who may wish to fill gaps in their knowledge of the region from other disciplines. Whether for establishing or deepening one's knowledge of the region, these fundamentals are important to know. The languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the region, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region. It isbased on introductoryand graduatecourseson thecontemporaryMiddle East, which the Center's director, Dr. Alam Payind, has been teaching for the past 30 years. The book's co-author,Melinda McClimans,hastaught these and other courses with him, as well as her own,for the past 15years. The material isintendedengage with diverse – even conflicting – culturaland historicalperspectives,andways of perceivingboth Middle Easternandworld historyfrom perspectives within the region. It is not intended to reinforce a monolithic or matter-of-fact perception of the region.For this and many other reasons, images are an important aspect of the knowledge presented. Each chapter starts with links to its image galleries, along with other visual aids and key elements.
External
College ESL Writers: Applied Grammar and Composing Strategies for Success
Barbara Hall; Elizabeth Wallace · University System of Georgia · 2018
College ESL Writers: Applied Grammar and Composing Strategies for Success is designed as a comprehensive grammar and writing etext for high intermediate and advanced level non-native speakers of English. We open the text with a discussion on the sentence and then break it down into its elemental components, before reconstructing them into effective sentences with paragraphs and larger academic assignments. Following that, we provide instruction in paragraph and essay writing with several opportunities to both review the fundamentals as well as to demonstrate mastery and move on to more challenging assignments.We have structured the etext into three basic parts. Part I, Composing Strategies and Techniques, includes a sequenced discussion from composing effective sentences through paragraph and essay writing. This includes the prewriting and planning stages of writing as well as the revising and editing stage in the first five chapters. Part II, Language Use, Grammar, and Mechanics, is meant to be used as a grammar and mechanics handbook as well as the practice and review of idiomatic wording. Part III, All About Writing: Samples, Topics, and Rubrics, has chapters with additional writing topics for practice, sample student papers, and rubrics for evaluating writing.
External
Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary
Mathew Owen; Ingo Gildenhard · Open Book Publishers · 2013
The emperor Nero is etched into the Western imagination as one of ancient Rome's most infamous villains, and Tacitus' Annals have played a central role in shaping the mainstream historiographical understanding of this flamboyant autocrat. This section of the text plunges us straight into the moral cesspool that Rome had apparently become in the later years of Nero's reign, chronicling the emperor's fledgling stage career including his plans for a grand tour of Greece; his participation in a city-wide orgy climaxing in his publicly consummated ‘marriage' to his toy boy Pythagoras; the great fire of AD 64, during which large parts of central Rome went up in flames; and the rising of Nero's ‘grotesque' new palace, the so-called ‘Golden House', from the ashes of the city. This building project stoked the rumours that the emperor himself was behind the conflagration, and Tacitus goes on to present us with Nero's gruesome efforts to quell these mutterings by scapegoating and executing members of an unpopular new cult then starting to spread through the Roman empire: Christianity. All this contrasts starkly with four chapters focusing on one of Nero's most principled opponents, the Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus, an audacious figure of moral fibre, who courageously refuses to bend to the forces of imperial corruption and hypocrisy. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study aids with vocabulary, and a commentary. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Owen's and Gildenhard's incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis and historical background to encourage critical engagement with Tacitus' prose and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.
External
Exploring Movie Construction & Production: What’s so exciting about movies?
John Reich · Open SUNY · 2017
Exploring Movie Construction & Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students' learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.
External
Music: Its Language, History, and Culture
Douglas Cohen · CUNY Academic Works · 2015
Welcome to Music 1300, Music: Its Language History, and Culture. The course has a numberof interrelated objectives:1. To introduce you to works representative of a variety of music traditions.These include the repertoires of Western Europe from the Middle Agesthrough the present; of the United States, including art music, jazz, folk, rock, musical theater; and from at least two non-Western world areas (Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Indian subcontinent).2. To enable you to speak and write about the features of the music you study,employing vocabulary and concepts of melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, timbre,and form used by musicians.3. To explore with you the historic, social, and cultural contexts and the role of class, ethnicity, and gender in the creation and performance of music,including practices of improvisation and the implications of oral andnotated transmission.4. To acquaint you with the sources of musical sounds—instruments and voices fromdifferent cultures, found sounds, electronically generated sounds; basic principlesthat determine pitch and timbre.5. To examine the influence of technology, mass media, globalization, and transnationalcurrents on the music of today.The chapters in this reader contain definitions and explanations of musical terms and concepts,short essays on subjects related to music as a creative performing art, biographical sketchesof major figures in music, and historical and cultural background information on music fromdifferent periods and places.
External
Compact Anthology of World Literature
Laura Getty; Kyounghye Kwon · University of North Georgia Press · 2016
A world literature class may be the first place that some students have encountered European works, let alone non-Western texts. The emphasis in this anthology, therefore, is on non-Western and European works, with only the British authors who were the most influential to European and non-Western authors (such as Shakespeare, whose works have influenced authors around the world to the present day). In a world literature class, there is no way that a student can be equally familiar with all of the societies, contexts, time periods, cultures, religions, and languages that they will encounter; even though the works presented here are translated, students will face issues such as unfamiliar names and parts of the story (such as puns) that may not translate well or at all. Since these stories are rooted in their cultures and time periods, it is necessary to know the basic context of each work to understand the expectations of the original audience. The introductions in this anthology are meant to be just that: a basic overview of what students need to know before they begin reading, with topics that students can research further. An open access literature textbook cannot be a history book at the same time, but history is the great companion of literature: The more history students know, the easier it is for them to interpret literature. These works can help students understand the present, as well. In an electronic age, with this text available to anyone with computer access around the world, it has never been more necessary to recognize and understand differences among nationalities and cultures. The literature in this anthology is foundational, in the sense that these works influenced the authors who followed them. A word to the instructor: The texts have been chosen with the idea that they can be compared and contrasted, using common themes. Rather than numerous (and therefore often random) choices of texts from various periods, these selected works are meant to make
External
World Literature I: Beginnings to 1650
Laura Getty; Kyounghye Kwon · University of North Georgia Press · 2015
This peer-reviewedWorld Literature Ianthology includes introductory text and images before each series of readings. Sections of the text are divided bytimeperiod in three parts: the Ancient World, Middle Ages, and Renaissance, and then divided into chapters by location.
External
Understanding Music: Past and Present
Alan Clark; Thomas Heflin; Jeffery Kluball; Elizabeth Kramer · University of North Georgia Press · 2015
Understanding Music: Past and Present is an 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.
External
Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning
Pamela Sachant; Peggy Blood; Jeffery LeMieux · University of North Georgia Press · 2016
Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a comprehensive introduction to the world of Art. Authored by four USG faculty members with advance degrees in the arts, this textbooks offers up-to-date original scholarship. It includes over 400 high-quality images illustrating the history of art, its technical applications, and its many uses.Combining the best elements of both a traditional textbook and a reader, it introduces such issues in art as its meaning and purpose; its meaning and purpose; its structure, material, and form; and its diverse effects on our lives. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding the students' educational experiences beyond the textbook. Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making it an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.