I’m part of a research group at NYU called the Music Experience Design Lab. One of our projects is called Play With Your Music, a series of online interactive music courses. We’re currently developing the latest iteration, called Play With Your Music: Theory. Each module presents a “musical simple,” a short and memorable loop of melody or rhythm. Each simple is a window into one or more music theory concepts. Users can learn and play with the simples using a new interface called the aQWERTYon, which maps scales and chords to the regular computer keyboard.
We’re presenting the simples in a variety of formats, including YouTube videos, standard music notation, MIDI, data visualization, and our custom aQWERTYon notation.
The goal is to teach theory through creative engagement with meaningful real-world music. We also want to put more emphasis on rhythm, which traditional music theory pedagogy tends to neglect. I’ve put some prototypes up, and I invite you to take a look and play around.
There’s a lot of work to do to make this vision a reality, and we’re looking for partners to help us do it. Specifically, here’s what we’d like to do in the coming year:
- Create more musical simple modules, music theory
concept pages, and instructional videos. - Implement a drum programming and rhythm pedagogy interface.
- Add guitar tabs.
- Create a database front end enabling us to offer multiple points
of entry. - Build a community platform, including a system for
crowdsourcing simples and concept pages. - Create course pathways for specific audiences: AP Music Theory students, lead guitarists, bedroom producers, and so on.
- Design more interactive functionality.
- Develop content and business partnerships.
- Profit!
If you’d like to get involved, or you want to offer some feedback, please let me know.