Webpages of Merit
(in no particular order)
Practical Music Theory-Teoría práctica de la música (http://www.teoria.com/)
This web page is devoted to Music Theory
and Ear Training. It's resources are vast and extremely useful.
Download a trial
version of 'teoría' and test yourself on scales, intervals,
melodic dictation, triads, seventh chords, augmented sixths, and
functional analysis.
Relisoft.com (http://www.relisoft.com)
This page is primarily devoted to
computer programming, but they have designed a spectrum analysis
program (requiring a
sound-card and microphone). This program is free and extremely small
(only 69 KB) and can be extremely useful to vocal
pedagogues and students in showing the acoustic properties of vowels
and consonants (esp. vowel formant regions).
CERL Sound Group (http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org)
Go here and click on "Lime" to download
a trial version of "Lime," one of the greatest Music Notation software
ever
produced. If you've been using 'Cakewalk' and 'Finale' and have been
frustrated by all the windows and complex
instructions, then this program is for you. It will do anything, and I
mean anything! The program is only US$65, and it's
well worth it! Tired of patching MIDI just to record a notation
context? Lime does it automatically! Tired of 'trucking'
measures, cleaning up pages to keep accidentals from overlapping? Lime
does it automatically! Tired of that
"one-measure-on-one-page-by-itself"-syndrome? With a click, it's fixed
in Lime. And the best thing: what you see on the
screen is what you get in print - clear notation, nice round noteheads,
and a publishable hard copy! It even comes with its
own 150+ page manual that you can open with Adobe Acrobat and print
out. This is what notation software should be!
10,000 Volkslieder (http://www.ingeb.org/)
Interested in expanding your
Ethnomusicology knowledge? This is the place for you. Published mostly
in German, this
page is extremely well organized (though a little 'buzy'), regardless
of your native tongue. Lyrics are given for each
folksong (many with translations) and many of them have a MIDI file
available to hear or import to your notation software
(Lime does this too!). The folksongs are arranged by ethnicity, or you
can browse a complete Alpha-by-title listing.
Mind/Brain/Memory (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-1.4/mbmmusic.html)
Does Mozart really make you smarter? How
does the Mind tell the Hand what to do when the Heart gets in the way?
What
is 'perfect pitch?' Find out what the researchers at Columbia
University are finding out about what makes a musician tick,
from the inside, out.
Dancing Dots Home Page (http://www.dancingdots.com)
Dancing Dots has designed a program
called GoodFeel which converts Lime
Notation files into braille-embossed
hard-copies of music for the blind. This is a great resource to have if
you are teaching and have students who may need the
assistance. You can design all of your exercises and transfer your
music in Lime , and have
GoodFeel print them in braille.
The software fees are modest and well worth the student's investment.
Consultation and transcription services are available
- email me .
Classical-net (http://www.classical.net/)
This is a wonderful site with a bounty
of information on composers and their works, repertoire lists, articles
and essays, and
reviews of CDs and books. This site also serves as a jumping point into
other internet resources for musicians. The
contemporary composers (esp. 20th-C) are not represented well, but it
is still a wonderful site!
Studio J - Experiments in Just Intonation (http://www.adaptune.com)
John Delaubenfels is a programmer and
musician who has developed wonderful programs to retune existing MIDI
files
with X-limit Just-Intonation (similar to the techniques employed by the
legendary Lamonte Young). Check out his site and
be prepared to hear things in a whole new "temperamental light." Bach's
Wolltempierte will never be the same!
