A cyber school ...
About the name. It was about ten years ago on a bus to Boston, that I was lucky to get a seat next to a very smart lass from the West Coast named Audrey. And after a bit of introductions we asked each other about our respective work. After a brief description of what I was doing Audrey quipped ... "why your building a cyber school Joe." And when I asked Audrey what a cyber school was, she replied after a pause, "well ... just what you are creating right now." And with a firm look and a smile from Audrey, we left it at that. I never really got an answer from Audrey as to whether the West Coast already had cyber schools ... but I figured they must.
The goal of this home based educational program. The goal of this study guide is to simply create within each learner a personalized framework of understanding of the broad aspects of the theory and history of our music. And that through creating this framework of knowledge, to encourage a lifelong curiosity, understanding and enhanced enjoyment of all of our music.
The learning dynamic of a cyber school. So, what I was creating then and now share with you, is my cyber school for learning about the theories and history of the American and European traditions of music. After writing a series of two dimensional print texts, I was simply captivated by the idea of writing in the html. hypertext format, that allowed my discussions to include links to other discussions, create links to further research on the web, allow my musical examples to have a sound file to play back the music notation and to encourage readers ask questions and create discussions via email and other web page communication features. Of course today, all of these components are very commonplace, but their effectiveness for the inquisitive learner remains just as powerful today as when they were first conceived. And from an authors standpoint, our books now take on a three dimensional structure that can present a topic with a clear bird's eye view for the emerging learner, thus allowing them to form a complete framework for their picture of the topic, which over the lifetime of musical enjoyment allows them to paint their own pictures of the music they love.
Course title: Introduction to music theory.
Course description: Discover the hidden theoretical, structural and historical secrets found within our music.
Course outline: This introductory music theory course is designed to create a lifelong intellectual framework for gaining and retaining musical knowledge within the learner. We achieve this by creating a combined theoretical and historical overview of our American and European music. Moving through ten sequenced chapters, this course starts with the origins of our present day, tuned musical pitch from natural sound as discovered by the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras. Upon this Pythagorean system, each succeeding chapter gradually reshapes this pitch resource into the essential musical components of scales, arpeggios, chords and rhythms we have used to create all of the combined American and European music we enjoy. With separate chapters for composing and practice techniques, this combined curriculum provides the fundamental music theory elements with practical performance and creative applications, all within a historical context. Each chapter contains a printable list of ten vocabulary terms and a ten question knowledge measure of chapter concepts. Musical examples include sound playback. A second semester, advanced course to continue this study of music theory is available.
The 2008 fall semester for this course runs for twelve weeks beginning the third Monday in September and concludes on the third Friday in December. Spring semester is from the third Monday of January 2009, to May 1, 2009. Course materials and email are available on line 24 / 7. The author and administrator of this program Joe Craig, is on line during each semester on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., Alaska Standard Time, to answer questions via email. A chat room for registered students can be arranged. An additional on line music theory text at the same site, Tonal Resources for the Creative Musician©, can be used to further individualize instruction for each learner. Both texts are available in complete form from the web site as well as in CD format for registered learners. This course is limited to 50 students per semester. Cost is $160 plus a $15 registration fee. A matching 50% tuition arts grant is available for currently enrolled, high school level home school students. Please visit www.jacmuse.com to view the music theory curriculum.
Please contact the author Joe Craig by email through the web site or by writing or calling. Thank you for your interest in this course and may God bless you and yours.
Joe Craig
P.O. Box 202254
Anchorage, Alaska 99520
907 274 8317