Developing Musical Intuitions: A Project-Based Introduction to Making and Understanding Music Complete Package

Developing Musical Intuitions is for all readers interested in discovering their own musical intuitions. Ideal for use in courses in introductory music, music fundamentals, and elements-based appreciation courses, it can also be used in departmental music labs as a supplement to courses in music theory and music education. This unique, project-based package helps readers become active and engaged music makers--listeners, performers, and creators--by paying attention to what they already know and how they come to know it.
Impromptu
Users can discover their own musical knowledge and build on it with the help of Impromptu, a groundbreaking software program packaged and integrated with the text. This interactive software package enables students to work with musical elements in a hands-on way, discovering for themselves the building blocks of musical structure, form, and design. Making music out of theory, this program helps users move from being musical hearers to becoming musical thinkers.
Featuring a user-friendly environment with engaging graphics, Impromptu enable students to:
BL Build on their own musical knowledge, using the basic elements they intuitively know
BL Learn strategies for creating music
BL Use building blocks of music that move them beyond the hurdle of music notation
BL Work on projects that develop their understanding of melodic structure and form, rhythm and meter, pitch, and harmony, and how they combine to make music
BL Learn firsthand how the basic elements of music work in real musical masterworks
The complete package for Developing Musical Intuitions includes the text, Impromptu software installer on CD-ROM for Macintosh, an Impromptu User's Guide, and an audio CD of brief listening examples coordinated with the text and software. A detailed Instructor's Manual is available upon adoption.
Advance praise for Impromptu: "The games and exercises provided by the Impromptu software are nothing more or less than exercises in self-knowledge....The program is built on musical 'simples,' Bamberger's term for the children's songs, common rhythms, etc., which are our musical common denominators and the building blocks of musical thought. The program is methodically organized around explorations of the ways in which music is organized: melodic structure, rhythm, and meter. Each set of tasks is designed to be of interest to any musical thinker, from the concertmaster to the grade-schooler. The reason for this is the essential lesson of Bamberger's work: that the depth of our musical thought is not related to the scope of our musical knowledge. We are all musical thinkers, although we use a variety of mental tools to do the work.

"You can verify this statement simply by attending to your own thought processes as you work through the book. As you do, questions will continually emerge: Why does this version of this song sound better than that one? Why does this one feel more regular? These questions lead to more questions, and suddenly one realizes that tunes one has known one's whole life--tunes that never seemed even remotely interesting--are endlessly fascinating and explorable." -From the Foreword by Evan Ziporyn

Jeanne Bamberger is at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.