Multimedia Music Theory Teaching Project
 

Welcome!

The Multimedia Music Theory Teaching (MMTT) Project is part of "Creating the Digital Music Library," a larger project funded by a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Digital Libraries Initiative Phase II.

Follow the links at the left of the screen for information on the project.  Please note that all of this information should be considered to be incomplete and/or in draft form and subject to change.  Items shown in RED are known to be incomplete, though not all incomplete items are yet shown in red.

Background

The Multimedia Music Theory Teaching Project was conceived in the Summer of 1995 in anticipation of the opportunities new technologies would offer to enhance both the ways students learn and how teachers teach music theory.  These opportunities surrounded the opening in January 1996 of the Bess Meshulam Simon Music Library and Recital Center at Indiana University.  The key elements of this facility with respect to this project include:

  • The William and Gayle Cook Music Library, including
    • The VARIATIONS Project.  A central feature of the Music Library, the Variations Project delivers CD-quality digital audio over a computer network to computers in the music library and classrooms, initially within the Simon Center.
    • Three Student Technology Centers operated by University Information Technology Services and located within the Cook Music Library:  M373: a 30-station (15 PCs, 15 Macs) classroom/cluster , M160: a 37-station Windows cluster located on the main floor, and M360, a 73-station (52 Windows, 21 Mac) cluster located on the third floor.  All computers in both facilities include a full complement of standard and music-specific software, and serve as the primary listening stations for School of Music students through the Variations Project.
  • Sweeney Lecture Hall, a 200-seat auditorium equipped with Macintosh and Windows computers and three high-resolution, ceiling-mounted projectors.  This room is used to teach many music theory and aural skills courses in the School of Music. 
  • Three seminar rooms in the Cook Music Library, which are equipped with computer workstations.  Other classrooms in the Simon Building, will be equipped with computer workstations at a later time.

This technology provides the opportunity for innovative teaching and learning.  The MMTT project is aimed at faculty who wish to:

  • Teach in technology-equipped classrooms using discipline-aware software.   A typical music theory class involves a presentation that includes text, sound, annotated music notation, and other graphical representations of music.  Commercially available software can handle one, two, or even three of these, but not all four, and even then not always very gracefully.  Furthermore, these components need to be accessible in real-time--for example, the instructor may need to be able to edit the music notation during a presentation, or to link the elements of a formal diagram to an associated audio stream so that clicking on one section plays it.
  • Create new types of interactive, literature-based, aural analysis activities for students. Existing aural skills software (including our own ETDrill) drills students on isolated musical elements--intervals, chords, short melodies, or harmonic progressions, and doesn't develop their ability to deal with "real" music.   We often spend, for very practical reasons, far less time than we would like developing in our students the ability to listen critically to musical elements in their full context.

The goal of the MMTT Project is to create an authoring environment which will allow the faculty to do these things.

 

URL: http://theory.music.indiana.edu/mmtt/index.html
File Last Updated: December 09, 2003
Comments: isaacso@indiana.edu
Copyright 1998-2001, Eric J. Isaacson