This article focuses on three “hacks” to the traditional model of music theory instruction:standards-based grading(SBG),just-in-time teaching(JiTT), andthe inverted classroom. In SBG, students receive multiple grades in reference to clearly defined learning objectives rather than a single grade that may mask weaknesses by averaging them with strengths. JiTT assesses students’ understanding before class so that the instructor can adjust the lesson plan according to their needs. In the inverted classroom, students acquire a basic understanding of the material outside of class so that class time may be used for active engagement rather than lecture. These tools and the technologies that support them have the potential to help strengthen curricula, increase the impact that an instructor can have on undergraduate theory students, and in some cases reduce the amount of time an instructor must devote to achieving that impact. Any one of these hacks can be incorporated within an otherwise traditional music theory course and can work together synergistically. Both their modularity and their compatibility give them potential to increase instructor efficiency and effectiveness in a wide range of class settings. After describing the scholarly literature surrounding the three hacks as they have been incorporated in a variety of academic disciplines, the authors present four testimonials describing how the three hacks have been incorporated into four diverse music programs: a traditional school of music within a large state university, a large private institution with a focus on jazz and commercial music, a department of music in a mid-sized university, and a small, private university with music classes that combine theory and aural skills.

The English concertina, invented by the physicist Charles Wheatstone, enjoyed a modest popularity as a parlor and concert instrument in Victorian Britain. Wheatstone designed several button layouts for the concertina consisting of pitch lattices of interlaced fifths and thirds, which he described in patents of 1829 and 1844. Like the later tonal spaces of the German dualist theorists, the concertina's button layouts were inspired by the work of eighteenth-century mathematician Leonhard Euler, who used a lattice to show relationships among pitches in just intonation. Wheatstone originally tuned the concertina according to Euler's diatonic-chromatic genus before switching to meantone and ultimately equal temperament for his commercial instruments. Among members of the Royal Society, the concertina became an instrument for research on acoustics and temperament. Alexander Ellis, translator of Hermann von Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone, used the concertina as a demonstration tool in public lectures intended to popularize Helmholtz's acoustic theories. The English concertina's history reveals the peculiar fissures and overlaps between scientific and popular cultures, speculative harmonics and empirical acoustics, and music theory and musical practice in the mid-nineteenth century.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract