Detailed feature reference

Open music teaching resources

OPEN MUSIC TEACHING RESOURCES FOR CADENCE
Verified 16 October 2026 · focused research note

Scope: English-language resources for advanced Western tonal theory, jazz,
composition and the design of music practice. This is a practical shortlist for
Cadence, not a comprehensive review of music education. The recommendations and
proposed pathways below are design judgments. The linked sources establish
what the resources contain and the terms their publishers state.

RECOMMENDATION

Start with Open Music Theory for an openly adaptable curriculum. Use Hutchinson
as a complementary explanation and exercise source. Learn from the structure
of MIT's courses, and from the Texas emphasis on musical intention and
self-assessment. Keep the source, licence, authorship and adaptation history
visible for each lesson. No third-party textbook content has been bundled in
this release; its adaptive exercises are original Cadence material.

The significant opportunity is to make an advanced concept usable: hear a
contrast, identify what changed, try it at the keyboard, then make a phrase
with it. Each topic should end in a musical choice the learner can explain.
Short constrained tasks can check particular relationships. The composition
that follows them needs listening, reflection and room for different aims.

A curriculum also needs to name the style it is teaching. A restriction useful
for classical counterpoint is not automatically appropriate for jazz voicing.
Likewise, our current five-semitone movement limit is an exercise constraint,
not a universal definition of good music. Future lessons should state their
musical context, accept alternative solutions within it, and explain exceptions
when those exceptions serve the learner's intention.

We should use later, unprompted attempts and new examples to examine learning.
Immediate success after an answer is shown is useful practice, but weak evidence
of independent recall. Repetition, keyboard execution, listening, analysis and
composition are different observations. The current transparent review schedule
is a useful implementation policy, not a scientifically calibrated mastery model.

VERIFIED SHORTLIST

1. Open Music Theory, Version 2. Mark Gotham, Kyle Gullings, Chelsey Hamm,
Bryn Hughes, Brian Jarvis, Megan Lavengood and John Peterson; edited by Erin K.
Maher. VIVA/Pressbooks. Copyright 2023 as stated on the current book page. [V]
https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/

Broadest first candidate: chromatic harmony, counterpoint, jazz, popular music,
form and twentieth-century techniques, with a workbook. Jazz chapters include
voicings, ii–V–I, substitutions and chord-scale theory; the chromatic material
includes Neo-Riemannian progressions. The site states CC BY-SA 4.0 except where
otherwise noted. It currently offers web reading, Digital PDF and Pressbooks XML;
an EPUB download was not listed on the checked landing page.

Cadence use: start with a reviewed voice-leading or substitutions module,
then build original playable variations. Check individual examples and media
for exceptions before redistributing them. This is our first recommendation
based on coverage and stated reuse terms, not a claim about comparative
learning outcomes. No independent reception review was conducted.

Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

2. Robert Hutchinson. Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom.
University of Puget Sound, copyright 2017 on the colophon. [V]
https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/MusicTheory.html
https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/frontmatter-3.html

A complementary progression with practice exercises and answers. Later material
covers jazz theory, extended tonality, quartal/quintal harmony, polychords,
pitch-class set theory, serialism and minimalism. Its colophon permits copying,
distribution and modification under GFDL 1.2 or later, with no invariant
sections or cover texts. This is a different content licence from OMT's.

Cadence use: especially useful for an advanced theory reference and small
worked examples linked to composition. Keep GFDL adaptations and required
notices explicit. Web chapters preserve structure more directly than OCR.
No independent reception review was conducted.

3. Harmony and Counterpoint II, 21M.302. MIT OpenCourseWare, Spring 2005. [V]
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21m-302-harmony-and-counterpoint-ii-spring-2005/pages/syllabus/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21m-302-harmony-and-counterpoint-ii-spring-2005/download/

The syllabus connects harmonic analysis and voice leading with piano,
sight-singing and a theme-and-variations project. Chromatic harmony and modulation
are explicit topics. Assignments can be downloaded. Its value here is the
connection between theory work and making/performing music; availability of the
course does not mean every assigned textbook or external recording is open.

Cadence use: guide the shape of a substantial course with listening, keyboard
work and revision across several weeks. MIT's stated site licence is
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, with attribution, noncommercial and share-alike conditions.
Treat this as a separate content category rather than mixing it invisibly with
freely redistributable software. No independent reception review was conducted.
https://ocw.mit.edu/pages/privacy-and-terms-of-use/

4. Peter Child. Writing in Tonal Forms I, 21M.303.
MIT OpenCourseWare, Spring 2009. [V]
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21m-303-writing-in-tonal-forms-i-spring-2009/pages/syllabus/

Two composition projects are central: a classical minuet and trio and a
romantic-style Lied. Analysis supports writing, and hearing compositions in
performance is part of the course. The syllabus explicitly treats musical
choices as contextual, with revision central to the compositional process.

Cadence use: a model for a longer “write something worth keeping” pathway.
Offer staged drafts, audible comparisons and reflection on intention. Automated
constraint checks should support that process without pretending to assess
artistic quality. MIT's licence and external-material exceptions apply here too.
No independent reception review was conducted.

5. Robert A. Duke and James L. Byo. The Habits of Musicianship: A Radical
Approach to Beginning Band. University of Texas Center for Music Learning.
The current resource page identifies the authors and purpose; the Center's
Intelligent Music Practice bibliography dates the book to 2008. [V]
https://cml.music.utexas.edu/online-resources/habits-of-musicianship

This is beginning instrumental pedagogy, not an advanced theory text. It argues
for musical thinking from the earliest lessons. The authors retain copyright;
the stated blanket copying permission is for teachers and their own students.
That statement is not a general open-content licence for redistribution in an
app. Use it as a linked pedagogical reference unless broader permission is
established. No independent reception review was conducted.

6. Intelligent Music Practice. University of Texas Center for Music Learning.
Current web resource; publication date not stated. [V]
https://cml.music.utexas.edu/online-resources/intelligent-music-practice

Research-informed guidance and recorded examples of practice, emphasising
self-assessment, problem-solving and matching musical intentions to outcomes.
It also explicitly includes expressive inflection in music production.

Cadence use: ask what the learner wants to hear, let them listen back, help them
isolate a tractable problem and return to the musical phrase. Treat these as
principles informing our design; they do not establish that Cadence's particular
adaptation rules are effective. No general adaptation licence was verified for
this page. Link to it. No independent reception review was conducted.

PROPOSED ADVANCED PATHWAYS — OUR DESIGN, NOT IMPORTED COURSES

After smooth triad changes, the most coherent next route would be “Create and
resolve tension”: hear dominant function, try secondary dominants, compare a
tritone substitution, then reharmonise a short phrase. Its first release should
stay small enough to review carefully and accept several valid answers.

Next, “Make two voices sing” could connect contrary/oblique motion, suspensions
and an independently singable counterline. Use style-specific constraints and
have the learner sing or play each line, not just inspect vertical intervals.

“Change colour without losing the phrase” could connect modal mixture,
chromatic mediants and a choice of return to the original key. “Shape an idea
into a piece” could explore phrase structure, motif development and variation.

Finally, “Compose beyond functional harmony” could introduce quartal voicings,
pitch-class transformations and a small minimalist process. Hearing and making
examples would keep the formal vocabulary attached to sound.

For each module, retain an edition/URL, source section, licence and exceptions,
authors, adaptation note, original or licensed score assets, and the scope of
any automated check. EPUB remains a useful portable package for reviewed
material; structured web chapters and XML also deserve an import route. We
should not discard reliable structure by turning HTML into screenshots for OCR.

VERIFICATION AND GAPS

Six resources verified against their own institutional/publisher pages [V];
zero attested-only citations [A]. Relevant licence pages and the Hutchinson
colophon were retrieved. This note uses no unverified ISBNs or invented DOIs.
The precise OMT jazz-voicings chapter failed to open in the research tool, so
its description here relies on the current publisher's table of contents,
not a claim to have reviewed all chapter examples. The checked OMT landing
page does not establish EPUB availability elsewhere.

Coverage is deliberately Western tonal/jazz and English-language. It does not
yet provide adequate paths for other musical traditions, culturally specific
rhythm systems, microtonality, or a broad account of contemporary pedagogy.
No comparative teaching-effectiveness review, asset-by-asset rights audit, or
human learner trial was completed. The next content pilot should involve a
musician reviewing the lesson and a learner trying the complete sequence.