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| Vol. 24, No. 13 | February 1, 1999 |
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| Vol. 24, No. 13 | February 1, 1999 |
BY LAUREN MARSHALL
For non-music majors, concepts such as "monophony" can be hard to grasp, but they just got easier for the hundreds of undergraduates in the Core Curriculum class, Music Humanities.
Music professors have created an online Sonic Glossary, a multimedia reference tool including animation, graphics, historical context and, of course, music recordings to provide expert explanations to students 24-hours a day, wherever a computer may be.
The musical terms in Sonic Glossary which provide the foundation of music theory, have for generations bewildered students and are almost impossible to learn through traditional study. How can a student pull a sensory experience out of a text book?
"With the Sonic Glossary, students can click on a musical example," explains Elizabeth Davis, librarian of the Gabe M. Wiener Music & Arts Library in Dodge Hall, "and while listening, study analytical diagrams, follow the text or a translation of the work being performed, view images of art or architectural works, and review definitions of musical terms. Music provides the focus for a wide variety of contextual information."
The brain child of Michael Von der Linn, a graduate student in musicology, the Sonic Glossary has been an ongoing project led by Ian Bent, the Anne Parsons Bender Professor of Music. With the help of Maurice Matiz, program manager at Columbia's technical support center, Academic Information Systems (AcIS), data provided by instructors was drawn, designed, and programmed to form the Sonic Glossary pages. The sound of Sonic Glossary was recorded and mixed at the Computer Music Center, the preeminent research facility dedicated to innovation in the field of computer music, with assistance from the Wiener Music & Arts Library.
Depending on its level of complexity, each term has a varied play time. For example, "frequency," a fairly simple concept, might take half a minute to review, while a subject of greater complexity such as the "lied" might take 10 minutes or more to explain.
Among featured concepts are three fundamental textures of music that routinely cause the most trouble for students: "monophony," "polyphony," and "homophony." These were the first terms defined in the Sonic Glossary. Acoustical concepts such as "harmonic" and "octave," and technical procedures such as "basso continuo," "cantus firmus," "isorhythm," and "twelve-tone composition" followed. Currently there are 22 terms authored by eight instructors. By next summer, the goal is to have 40 available to Music Hum students online.
According to Bent, designing these definitions is hugely time-consuming.
"Although the terms are targeted to the inexperienced student," says Bent, "we have to write the information so that it can stand up to scrutiny. Every fact must be verified." For music instructors, this self-imposed task is motivated by a general interest in the subject and an excitement for the new medium and is considered to be time well spent because it has the power to deepen students' understanding of music.
For certain professors and instructors of the Music Department, the use of online classroom materials is old hat. In addition to Sonic Glossary, other online projects include virtual tapes (electronic simulations of cassette tapes) and vocal music lyrics and translations in English. By the end of this year, AcIS expects to fine-tune the lyrics and translations features, to include the simultaneous scrolling of lyrics as music plays.
These tools can be linked to online syllabi, developed by individual music professors, which supply course information, class notes, images, diagrams, links to external web pages, and connections to a virtual tape and to entries of the Sonic Glossary relevant to specific Music Humanities classes.
As a result, the boundaries of the classroom can be greatly expanded to include New York City's music scene by incorporating particular performances at the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Columbia's own Miller Theatre and other venues into a syllabus in a given semester.
"Tools such as online syllabi offer possibilities for deepening and enriching teaching, and give instructors in all areas independence and flexibility," says Bent.
The instructors who find time to contribute to the Sonic Glossary and other online projects do so out of genuine interest in the subject and an excitement for the new medium. To them, it is time well spent because it has the power to deepen students' understanding of music.
According to Bent, the Sonic Glossary project is still in its early stages. "If it continues to flourish, then it will have a profound effect on the way we teach Music Humanities, and potentially other music courses as well."
The "Sonic Glossary" is located at http://www.colum-bia.edu/itc/music/sonic/ and is restricted to the Columbia community.