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Education & Development
Do music lessons help with children's other classes?
There's been research which suggests picking up an instrument can improve children's educational performance across the board. But is there really any proof?
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History & The Arts
Why the bands played on: Live music in the shadow of the Paris attacks
The murderers who killed gig-goers during the Paris attacks challenged popular music's power to show defiance. They shouldn't win, says Adam Behr.
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History & The Arts
What makes a great Christmas number one?
What will be Christmas Number One this year? Explore the musical components that make up a great festive chart-topper here...
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level 1: introductory icon
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History & The Arts
A freelance career in the creative arts
A freelance career in the creative arts is a free badged course which lasts 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours’ study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week, there’s nothing to stop you pushing on and completing another week’s study. This course has a specific focus on the ...
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History & The Arts
The Great Fall: Berlin’s ‘Freedom’ concert
How did the Berlin 'Freedom' concert come about after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and what significance has music played in Germany's past?
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History & The Arts
Scoring the Shoreline
George Revill considers the synergy between sound waves and ocean waves - how the coast of Britain has inspired the nation's musical heritage.
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History & The Arts
Listen Up! Developing an appreciation of music
Nick Jones explains why knowing a little about what makes music, and listening carefully, can reveal much more in a simple tune
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level 2: intermediate icon
History & The Arts
Listening for form in popular music
This free course, Listening for form in popular music, explores form, or how music is organised in time. It looks at three strategies for communicating form – through the use of specialist terms (such as ‘chorus’ and ‘bridge’), alphabetic designations (for example AABA), and visual diagrams. It also considers how the form of a song works with ...
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level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Janis Joplin and the Sexual Revolution
This free course, Janis Joplin and the Sexual Revolution, will introduce you to issues around the sexual revolution and how this, and other contemporary social revolutions of the 1960s, impacted upon American rock musician Janis Joplin (1943-1970). You will investigate the extent to which the contemporary sexual revolution brought about ...
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level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Discovering music through listening
This free course, Discovering music through listening, will introduce you to the musical elements used by musicians to create a piece of music: pulse, tempo, metre, harmony, structure, texture, timbre and dynamics. You'll learn how to identify the different musical elements by taking a particular approach to listening to the music, known as ...
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level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Discovering music: the blues
This free course, Discovering music: the blues, will introduce you to a musical tradition with roots in the nineteenth century but which is still relevant to making music today. You will learn about how the lyrics of blues songs reflect the social environment in which they were created, and about the musical techniques that underpin the ...
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level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
An introduction to music theory
Gain an understanding of the basic building blocks of musical theory and notation. This free course, An introduction to music theory, will introduce you to music staves, clefs, rhythmic and pitch values, rhythmic metre and time signatures. This OpenLearn course provides an introduction to music theory pitched at a level equivalent to Grades 1–3 ...