Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Open Course Ware: Music Composition
A complete, undergraduate level online course on music composition. Includes all course material, projects, assignments, and exams with solutions.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Open Course Ware: Composing With Computers
A complete, undergraduate level online course on music composition with computers. Includes all course material, projects, assignments, and exams with solutions.
Other
Finale Music: Finale Note Pad for Windows
A free music notation software program! From the makers of Finale, the industry standard for this type of software, Finale NotePad can be downloaded from Coda for free. Although it is an entry level version of Finale, it is quite useful.
Music Theory
Music theory.net: Key Signature Calculation
An explanation of key signature calculation for advanced music students. Discusses the use of sharps and flats in music composition, with illustrated examples. (You may need to download Flash player to view this site.)
Music Theory
Music theory.net: The Major Scale
A terrific reference for music students and teachers! Explains the fundamentals of the major scale, provides diagrams, and audio clips to help children recognize this piece of music theory.
McMaster University
Mc Master University: Music Composition for Beginners
A brief site on the advent of technology changing how music is written (and by whom) forever. One bad point is that for most of the links to work, you have to figure out for yourself where they go and type it in.
Other
Creating Music
This online, interactive environment for music creation and exploration includes games and puzzles and interesting activities that teach about music in a visual way.
PBS
Pbs: Elements of Music: Exploring the Composer's Tools
This online lesson will help learners understand how composers write music by engaging in a project which culminates in their own compositions.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Open Course Ware: Symphony and Concerto
A complete, undergraduate level online class on the topic of modern music in the 1900s. Includes exams.
Other
Musink: Beautiful Sheet Music, Fast
Musink Lite is a 'free' music-composition software package for Windows, that lets you write music at unprecedented speeds. Musink lets you create anything from orchestral scores to short-musical-snippets, to exercise books. Musink will...
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Arts Edge: Composing With Solfege
Through solfege, learners will create their own musical compositions as Maria did in the musical The Sound of Music.
ArtsNow
Arts Now Learning: Exploring Habitats Through Music Composition [Pdf]
For this lesson, students will learn about rondo form and practice a chant. After learning about the structure of the chant, they will work in small groups to create a chant about a habitat. The chants will then be combined with the...
Music Theory
Music theory.net: Key Trainer
A terrific tool for music teachers and students! Test students' knowledge of key signatures with this online quiz. Click "toggle" to check answers along the way, or click "setting" to customize the quiz.
San Diego State University
Sd State: Elements of Music: Media, Genre, Form Texture
One of the elements of music is "Texture." This site gives the definition, which basically is the relationship between melodic and harmonic.
Music Theory
Music theory.net: Interval Trainer
This online quiz is a fantastic tool to check your knowledge of intervals. Keeps score, and can be customized to fit specific lessons (augmented intervals, diminished intervals, double accidentals.)
Music Theory
Music theory.net: Generic Intervals
A thorough description of generic intervals with a printable chart at the end of the lesson. MusicTheory.net provides illustrated examples, and highlighted vocabulary terms. (You may need to download Flash Player to view this site.)
Music Theory
Music theory.net: The Minor Scales
Listen and learn with this explanation of minor scales. Each description of harmonic, melodic, and minor scales provides an illustrated example, and audio clips.
University of California
Ucla: Popular American Music
See images and find out about the original sheet music from the early 1900's. Famous songs such as "Dapper Dan", "Down the River", and more. You can search for music by title or author.
OpenStax
Open Stax: Catherine Schmidt Jones: Scoring Music: Write for Specific Instruments
If you are interested in arranging your own music, you should check out the tips offered at this website. Including a history of how music was arranged, this site also gives several good ideas of how to make your arrangements interesting.
Other
The Stoa Consortium:johannes Tinctoris Theoretical Works
This site is an overview of the life and work of Johannes Tinctoris. It explains several important details on his work in notation and musical composition. Also makes reference to his musical dictionary (the first musical dictionary in...
Teachnology
Teachnology: Music Lesson Plans
Great lesson plans covering a wide-range of music-related subjects. A wonderful resource for wonderful teachers!
Other
Chord Studio
Have fun composing your own music with this easy to use online tool. Select the chords you want your song to have and choose the various instrument styles. You can sign up for a free account so you can save your songs and edit them later.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Sti Lesson 44: Compositional Techniques
Young music students rarely see or, better still, hear a connection between the different types of scales, modes, intervals and other compositional techniques such as meter, tonality, and form used in both traditional 'Art' music and...
Other
Morton Subotnick's Creating Music
This site is an effective and fun way to help children understand music better. There are several online interactive games to play to better understand rhythm, pitch, scales and much more.