In this free course, you will learn how to identify musical form through close engagement with recorded music, and studying examples of folk, popular, and classical music from several world traditions. You will explore a number of methods of representing form, including alphabetical designations (e.g., AABA), genre-specific terminology (e.g., terms such as ‘verse’ and ‘chorus’) and visual representations (e.g., diagrams, tables).
This course is adapted from the Open University course A234 Understanding Music. It is the first in a planned sequence of courses that will each introduce different aspects of music theory.
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
understand musical form as constituted through musical repetition, variation, and contrast
perceive the unfolding of musical form in recordings of several styles of music
understand how form is represented using alphabetic designations, genre-specific terminology, and visual representations
use such representations to describe musical form.
Music is another "language" that I speak, I play piano, harmonium, xylophone and Tanpura and I have been trained in music since I was 4. So, its my great pleasure to take this course and enhance my knowledge. I have learnt hindusthani classical music for 15 years, which allowed me to perform on television and radio as a singer and also as a voice-over artist. Now I am gaining more knowledge in this course. I started piano and harmonium at the age of three, and xylophone and Tanpura both at the age of 9. I would say that I've learned valuable lessons from this course. Thank you very much!