Attention Music Educators: Unsure where to start? Let the librarians help.
Complete the OER Search Request form and we'll start searching for you!
This text contains overviews of various basic theories for Music Appreciation. It is recommended for music courses tailored for students pursuing music education.
Music Appreciation (Historical)
The course is designed to give the student an appreciation of music by exposing them to many musical styles, composers, historical trends, as well as increasing their aural, verbal and writing skills in describing music.
Music: Its Language, History, and Culture
This textbook serves as an introduction to Music History with clear but abbreviated information about musical vocabulary, instruments and ensembles, European music, American music, World music, and musicians. It is recommended as a basic introductory text.
Music Appreciation: Its Language, History and Culture (OpenStax)
Introduction to works representative of a variety of music traditions. These include the repertoires of Western Europe from the Middle Ages through the present; of the United States, including art music, jazz, folk, rock, musical theater; and from at least two non-Western world areas.
This textbook is presented in 5 modules: Universals; Instruments; Rhythm; Melody, Harmony, and Texture; and Form
Understanding Music: Past and Present (Galileo)
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.
The Basic Elements of Music (OrangeGrove)
A text compiled from simple article overviews of music history and its movements. overs the Medieval and Renaissance, Baroque, Classical Genres, Classical Forms, Classical Composers, Early Romantic Era, Romantic Opera, Late Romantic Era, 20th Century: Impressionism, Expressionism, and Twelve-Tone, 20th Century: Introduction to Primitivism, Nationalism, and Neoclassicism, 20th Century: Aleatoric, Electronic, and Minimalist Music.
The purpose of this text is to provide guidance for individuals or groups in designing and carrying out music-learning inquiries that are tailored to the educational goals, learning style, cultural background, musical knowledge, and interests of the individual learners.
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.
In “open-source, interactive, online book for college-level music theory courses.” The three original authors use this textbook in the context of “inverted” or “flipped” courses, often following an inquiry-based model.
This is a new edition of Open Music Theory, an open-source, interactive, online “text”book for college-level music theory courses. Currently in production with a projected completion date of Summer 2020.
The Music Theory Materials website was created to provide materials – musical examples, videos, and handouts – that could be useful in music theory classes. The specific goal is to provide examples of full pieces of music that can be used in the study of musical form and analysis. The musical examples are presented as downloadable PDFs and audio files or as links to other sites that contain this information.
Understanding Basic Music Theory
Published by Rice University, this text significantly expands upon "Introduction to Music Theory", but only covers the bare essentials. Music is a very large subject, and the advanced theory that students will want to pursue after mastering the basics will vary greatly.
An open-source, interactive, online “text”book for college-level music theory courses. Supports active student engagement with music in the theory classroom.
The main purpose of this book is to explain certain physical considerations useful not only to a beginner learning how to play a musical instrument, but also to an accomplished musician trying to gain full technical mastery of an instrument.
American Memory-Library of Congress
List of scores and books available online.
including historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, composition, and performance practice with links to archival collections, online scores and sound recordings and more.
Sharing the world’s public domain music. The contents include searchable scores and recordings.
Internet Archive - Open Library
Electronically available musical scores and more.
Free Sheet Music for Everyone. 2,097 pieces of music – free to download, modify, print, copy, distribute, perform, and record – all in the Public Domain or under Creative Commons licenses, in PDF, MIDI, and editable LilyPond file formats.
RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicales
These primary sources are manuscripts or printed music, writings on music theory, and libretti. They are housed in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections.
The Sheet Music Consortium provides tools and services that promote access to and use of online sheet music collections by scholars, students, and the general public.