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Archive for the ‘Welcome’ Category

Exam 1 Extension

Posted in Welcome on February 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Hi everyone,

Several students have had trouble installing Examguard, and Exam 1 is due in less than three hours. We hoped everyone would install it several days ahead of time to give time to deal with this kind of problem, but since this is the first time through the course, we will make an exception.

Therefore we are extending the due date for the exam ONLY, for two days, to 11:59pm on Wednesday, Feb. 8.

Again, this is for the exam ONLY: All Unit 1 HWs are still due tonight at 11:59pm!!!

Until Thursday morning, you will be able to see your overall score on the exam, but not what you got on specific answers. After the exam closes on Wednesday night, you will then be able to see the specific answers.

Again, this is a one-time ONLY thing: we will not extend the due dates for future exams, and will continue to use Examguard from now on. So be sure that you are prepared before the next exam due date.

IMPORTANT!

If you call the Help Desk for help installing Examguard, please save your case number. If you can’t get it to work after calling them, and you later tell us that you could not take the exam as a result, we will need to be able to refer to that number in order to help you. If you don’t have that number, we will not be able to allow you to take the exam, and you will lose 8% off your course grade.

Please install Examguard TONIGHT!!

We don’t mean to sound grouchy, we just want to make sure all of you can take the exam and do well in the course!
Please let us know if you have any trouble — we’re here to help!

Dr. Wilcox & McClellan

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Analyze a song!

Posted in Welcome on January 13, 2012| 1 Comment »

Hey everyone and welcome to the course! Just to get your brain warmed up for the kinds of things we’ll be doing in this course, try the following brain game:

1. Pick a song you like. It should be a relatively simple one — if you like John Coltrane, don’t pick one of his solos (too complicated!). Maybe a really hummable pop song, or your favorite lullaby from childhood.

2. Figure out what the first line of the song is. For example, for the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the first line is “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.” Figure out what the equivalent chunk of music is for your song. If it has lyrics, it’s probably the end of the first sentence of the lyrics.

3. Figure out how many different notes or tones there are in that line of music. A note is one musical sound, as in the sound you sing on the word “star” in Twinkle Twinkle. This may be trickier than it sounds!

4. Figure out which notes are “higher” and which are “lower”. For example, the first “twinkle” (which is actually two notes….hint, hint) is lower than the second one. If you want to, use graph paper to plot how many there are and how high or low they are. Congrats, you just got introduced to Unit 1!

5. Bonus: if you can, figure out which notes are longer (take up more time) or shorter (take up less). You don’t have to figure out exactly HOW long or short — just relative to each other. You could plot that somehow too on the graph paper. And there we have Unit 2!

And you’re done! This kind of listening and thinking is what this course is all about.

IF this felt way too hard to do, that’s a GOOD thing – it means you’re going to get a lot out of this course!

If it was too easy for you, that’s also good — it just means the first couple of units will be easier for you, before it starts getting harder later on! There will be plenty to challenge you in this course no matter what.

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Welcome to the Music 133 Blog!

Posted in Welcome on January 11, 2012| 2 Comments »

Return often and you will find writings, audio podcasts and videos created by Profs. Wilcox & McClellan.

We will try to summarize lessons, breakdown homework, and give general observations. You’ll have a much easier time getting through the course content if you return here often and listen.

There is a lot to cover in each lesson, so this blog will take a lighter approach, trying to synthesize and simplify all the little bits and pieces.

Follow our blog using your iPhone or Android smartphone. Look for the “WordPress” app in the app store and add http://music133.org to the list of blogs you are following.  

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