eMusic for Western Music

Abstract

Western music is one of the main aesthetic subjects commonly taught at schools and can be considered as a rather difficult subject to learn due to the different requirement of instruments and sometimes due to the language barrier. The main concern focused in this project is to address the learning of western music subject for learners who are new to it and are unable to learn it from a teacher or have difficulties in grasping the content and need an extra help. The main audience is O/L students as the content is based on the O/L syllabus, and also other learners who have interest in the subject as the secondary audience. Although there are a number of resources already available in the web on learning western music, the most noticeable aspect is that almost all of those resources address only either one or two areas of western music required for learning the subject. Most sites have lessons on either theory of music or the practical aspect of it or history of classical music and cannot access all information from one place. Hence, eMusic will provide a one stop learning center for all aspects in learning western music in school context. The key areas in Western Music O/L syllabus are covered in eMusic; namely Theory of Music, History of Music, Instrumental Music, Practical Music & Singing. eMusic aims to provide a better leaning in each one of these areas and to provide the extra helping hand for students. For the delivery of eMusic lessons Moodle is used which is a tool rich in features for creating diversified learning content. A variety of interactive content including audio, video media is used to deliver lessons. The other most important feature in eMusic is the re-use of existing content available and among them, the use of virtual piano for learning the practical side of western music. Further, software tool such as Windows Media Player, Macromedia Flash, Photoshop & other online tools such as Moovly, Dipity & Google features were used.