Music Appreciation & Theory

Sketching short pieces that portray a mood, a place or a story, using rhythm, contour, tempo and dynamics. Also program music, word painting and the forms: one-part, ostinato, binary, ternary and rondo. Ends with a notated sketch.

• 1 · Welcome to Music Appreciation & Theory: Imagining Music on Paper
• 2 · Sound as Meaning: How Music Represents Moods and Experiences
• 3 · Rhythm Notation Refresher: Note and Rest Values as Your Toolkit
• 4 · Melodic Contour: Sketching a Melody's Shape on the Staff
• 5 · Composing Sketch #1: A Four-Measure Mood Portrait
• 6 · Program Music: When Composers Paint Pictures with Sound
• 7 · Word Painting and Musical Symbols: Matching Sound to Meaning
• 8 · Composing Sketch #2: A Musical Postcard of a Place
• 9 · Case Study: Beethoven's Famous Four-Note Idea
• 10 · Checkpoint Quiz: Imagining Musical Ideas
• 11 · Why Composers Need a Plan: Introducing Musical Form
• 12 · One-Part Form: The Simplest Musical Container
• 13 · Cyclical Form: Ostinatos, Rounds, and Repeating Patterns
• 14 · Composing Sketch #3: A One-Part Piece Built on an Ostinato
• 15 · Binary Form, Part 1: Building an A Section
• 16 · Binary Form, Part 2: Contrasting with a B Section
• 17 · Composing Sketch #4: Your First Binary-Form Composition
• 18 · Ternary Form: Coming Back Home (ABA)
• 19 · Rondo Form: A Refrain That Keeps Returning
• 20 · Checkpoint Quiz: Musical Forms
• 21 · Storylines in Music: Telling a Tale Without Words
• 22 · Composing Sketch #5: A Storyline Told in Binary Form
• 23 · From Sketch to Draft: Assembling Multiple Musical Ideas
• 24 · Tracking Development: How a Musical Idea Grows Within a Draft
• 25 · Level Up Spotlight: Representing Abstract Ideas in Sound
• 26 · Level Up Spotlight: Moderately Complex Forms — Mixing Binary and Rondo Elements
• 27 · Composing Sketch #6: Your Most Ambitious Draft Yet
• 28 · Reading the Score: Analyzing Form in Beethoven's Fifth
• 29 · Reviewing Your Composer's Toolkit: Ideas, Forms, and Drafts
• 30 · Unit Capstone: Compose and Notate an Original Musical Sketch

Checking a draft against technical criteria (beat counts, playable range, form) and expressive ones, marking and making revisions over two rounds, and deciding when a piece is finished. They prepare a final score, a composer's statement and a presentation packet.

• 31 · Welcome Back, Composer: Why We Revise
• 32 · Two Kinds of Criteria: Technical and Expressive
• 33 · Reading Your Draft Like a Stranger
• 34 · Checking Rhythmic Notation for Accuracy
• 35 · Checking Melodic Range and Playability
• 36 · Does Your Form Hold Together?
• 37 · Does It Sound Like What You Meant? Evaluating Expressive Intent
• 38 · Marking Up Your Draft: The Composer's Revision Symbols
• 39 · Level Up: Building Your Own Evaluation Criteria
• 40 · Revision Round One: Making the Fixes
• 41 · Documenting Your Revision: What Changed and Why
• 42 · Instrumentation Check: Is It Playable?
• 43 · Level Up: How Real Composers Set Their Own Standards
• 44 · Getting Outside Feedback Without a Classroom
• 45 · Revision Round Two: Raising the Bar
• 46 · Before and After: Comparing Your Two Drafts
• 47 · Knowing When a Piece Is Finished
• 48 · Cleaning Up Your Notation for a Final Copy
• 49 · Titling and Labeling Your Final Score
• 50 · Level Up: Studying a Real, Finished Score
• 51 · Where Would This Piece Live? Thinking About Context and Medium
• 52 · Solo, Ensemble, or Soundtrack? Matching Composition to Context
• 53 · Level Up: Comparing Multiple Contexts for the Same Piece
• 54 · How Context Shapes the Choices You Already Made
• 55 · Presenting Without Sound: Sharing Through Notation
• 56 · Writing Your Composer's Statement, Part 1: The Elements of Music
• 57 · Level Up: Explaining Your Techniques and Process
• 58 · Assembling Your Final Presentation Packet
• 59 · Self-Critique Using Your Own Rubric One Last Time
• 60 · Unit Capstone: Reflecting on Your Composer's Journey

Choosing excerpts to fit a mood, image or story, then analyzing melody, rhythm, dynamics, timbre, texture and form in a score. Adds style, function and historical context (Vienna, 1808), then writes an interpretation of what a passage means.

• 61 · Meet the Performing Process: Select, Analyze, Interpret
• 62 · Reading a Real Score: Beethoven's Famous Four Notes
• 63 · Selecting an Excerpt to Match a Mood
• 64 · Simple Forms: One-Part, Cyclical, and Binary
• 65 · Selecting for a Visual Image or a Storyline
• 66 · Practice Day: Selecting Three Excerpts for Three Moods
• 67 · The Elements of Music: Your Analysis Toolkit
• 68 · Analyzing Melody and Rhythm in a Score
• 69 · Dynamics and Timbre: Reading Loudness and Color on the Page
• 70 · Texture: How Many Layers Are You Hearing (By Reading)?
• 71 · Form as a Map: Diagramming a Passage's Structure
• 72 · Putting It Together: Elements + Form = A Full Analysis
• 73 · From Elements to Mood: Why Minor Keys Feel the Way They Do
• 74 · Style Families: Classical Balance vs. Romantic Drama
• 75 · Case Study: Style and Mood in Beethoven's Fifth
• 76 · What “Implications for Performance” Actually Means
• 77 · Practice Day: Analyzing a New Excerpt Start to Finish
• 78 · What Was This Music FOR? Introducing Function
• 79 · Concert Hall, Dance Floor, or Sanctuary: Comparing Functions
• 80 · Context: The World a Piece of Music Was Born Into
• 81 · Case Study: Vienna, 1808 — The Night Beethoven's Fifth Premiered
• 82 · Function and Context Change the Analysis
• 83 · Practice Day: Re-Analyzing With Function and Context Added
• 84 · What Is a Musical Interpretation?
• 85 · Case Study: “Fate Knocking at the Door”?
• 86 · Building Your Interpretation: Elements, Style, and Mood
• 87 · Whose Interpretation Is Right? Comparing Two Readings
• 88 · Level Up Day: Interpreting With Compositional Technique
• 89 · Practice Day: Select, Analyze, Interpret — Full Cycle
• 90 · Unit Capstone: Your Repertoire Analysis Portfolio

Written rehearsal plans for Beethoven's Fifth and a folk or pop song, and a checklist for evaluating performances. Also strategies for improving accuracy and expression, and an interpretive performance plan for different audiences.

• 91 · Why Rehearsal Needs a Plan, Not Just Practice
• 92 · Mapping Form: Finding the Repeats and Variations
• 93 · Writing Your First Rehearsal Plan (Beethoven's Fifth, Movement I)
• 94 · Rehearsal Plans for a Second Work: Comparing Forms
• 95 · Level Up: Style and Historical Context in a Rehearsal Plan
• 96 · Workshop: Revising Your Rehearsal Plan
• 97 · What Counts as 'Repetition' vs. 'Variation'? A Closer Look
• 98 · The Classical Style: What a 1808 Audience Expected
• 99 · Level Up: Placing a Work in Its Historical-Cultural Moment
• 100 · Rehearsal Plan for a Contrasting Work (a Folk Song or Pop Song)
• 101 · Comparing Two Rehearsal Plans Side by Side
• 102 · Checkpoint: Rehearsal-Planning Skills Review
• 103 · Building a Performance-Evaluation Criteria Checklist
• 104 · What Do the Elements of Music Sound Like When They 'Work'?
• 105 · Style and Mood: Adding Them to Your Checklist
• 106 · Analyzing a Historic Performance in Writing (No Audio Needed)
• 107 · Level Up: Weighing Criteria — Not All Criteria Matter Equally
• 108 · Using Your Checklist on Your Own Interpretive Choices
• 109 · Strategies for Improving Technical Accuracy
• 110 · Strategies for Improving Expressive Playing
• 111 · Applying Strategies to a Second, Contrasting Work
• 112 · Level Up: Comparing Strategies Across Contrasting Works
• 113 · Workshop: Your Personal Strategy Toolkit
• 114 · Checkpoint: Strategy-Building Review
• 115 · Interpretation Is a Choice: Planning How You Would Perform a Piece
• 116 · Writing an Interpretive Performance Plan
• 117 · Level Up: Compositional Technique and Conveying Intent
• 118 · Audience and Context: Same Piece, Different Rooms
• 119 · Level Up: Comparing a Piece Across Multiple Audiences
• 120 · Capstone: Your Full Interpretive Performance Plan and Portfolio

Picking music with criteria, then analyzing Beethoven's Fifth in depth (motif, mode, sonata form, dynamics) and a contrasting work. They interpret with evidence, judge effectiveness using theory, and revisit their own piece through critique.

• 121 · Welcome to Responding: Why Music Selection Needs Criteria
• 122 · Selecting by Mood and Personal Experience
• 123 · Selecting by Visual Image and Storyline
• 124 · Level Up: Personally-Developed and Researched Selection Criteria
• 125 · Form as a Selection Lens: One-Part, Cyclical, and Binary
• 126 · Level Up: Moderately Complex Forms — Ternary and Rondo
• 127 · Selection Capstone: Build and Defend Your Own Criteria Set
• 128 · Reading a Score as a Listening Tool
• 129 · Meet Beethoven's Fifth: First Encounter with the Score
• 130 · Analyzing Rhythm and Motif in Movement I
• 131 · Analyzing Harmony and Mode: C Minor to C Major
• 132 · Analyzing Form: Sonata-Allegro Form in Movement I
• 133 · Level Up: Compositional Techniques in Beethoven's Motivic Development
• 134 · Analyzing Dynamics and Timbre: How Beethoven Builds Tension
• 135 · A Second Work for Contrast: Applying Your Analysis Skills
• 136 · From Analysis to Growth: What This Teaches You as a Musician
• 137 · From Analysis to Interpretation: What Does This Music Mean?
• 138 · Interpreting Beethoven's Fifth: Composer's Intent and the 'Fate' Story
• 139 · Building an Interpretive Argument: Citing Evidence from the Score
• 140 · Level Up: Citing Compositional Technique, Style, Genre, and Context
• 141 · Interpreting a Contrasting Work: Applying the Skill to New Music
• 142 · Level Up: Defending Your Interpretation Against a Counter-Reading
• 143 · Interpretation Workshop: Write, Cite, Defend
• 144 · Evaluating Musical Effectiveness Using Music Theory Fundamentals
• 145 · Evaluating Beethoven's Fifth: Does the Music Achieve Its Goal?
• 146 · Level Up: Evaluating with Deeper Theoretical Sophistication
• 147 · The Value of Critique: How Feedback Shapes a Creative Process
• 148 · Tie-Back: Revisiting Your Own Composition Through Critique and Feedback
• 149 · Level Up: Evaluating How Feedback Has Been Specifically Applied
• 150 · Unit Capstone: Select, Analyze, Interpret, Evaluate — Putting It All Together

Reflecting on why they composed and listened as they did, their skills and how their ear has changed, creator versus critic, and Beethoven's deafness. They draft an artist's statement.

• 151 · Welcome to Your Capstone: Connecting Your Music to You
• 152 · Why You Composed What You Composed
• 153 · What You Chose to Listen For
• 154 · Your Musical Fingerprint
• 155 · A Year of Skills: Taking Inventory
• 156 · Intent Revisited: What Were You Really Saying?
• 157 · Creator and Critic: Comparing Your Two Selves
• 158 · How Your Ear Has Changed
• 159 · Beethoven's Deafness and the Music It Shaped
• 160 · Writing Your Artist's Statement, Part 1
• 161 · What Feedback Taught You
• 162 · Passion vs. Practice: Balancing What You Love and What You're Good At
• 163 · Checkpoint: Your Creative Identity
• 164 · Draft Your Artist's Statement
• 165 · Closing the First Half: A Reflection Milestone

Music's links to visual art, math (rhythm as fractions, tuning ratios), physics (frequency, strings, air columns), literature, film scoring, daily life, dance and theater, and music as a record of history.

• 166 · Music and Visual Art: Painting with Sound
• 167 · Music and Math: The Fractions Hiding in Every Rhythm
• 168 · Music and Physics: Why Strings and Air Columns Sing
• 169 · Music and Literature: When Music Tells a Story
• 170 · Music and Film: The Score You Don't Notice
• 171 · Music in Your Daily Life: The Soundtrack You Choose
• 172 · Music and Math, Deeper: Tuning Systems and Ratios
• 173 · Music and Dance/Theater: Moving to a Score
• 174 · Music as History: Songs That Recorded Their Time
• 175 · Checkpoint: Music's Web of Connections

A final project with two parts: composing or revising a piece, and a written reflection that links it to the student's own life and to another field. Ends with a look back at the year.

• 176 · Capstone Project: Instructions and Planning
• 177 · Capstone Workday: Composing or Revising
• 178 · Capstone Workday: Writing Your Reflection
• 179 · Capstone Workday: Making the Outside Connection
• 180 · Capstone Complete: Your Year in Music