Art Appreciation and Techniques

This course explores visual art forms and their cultural connections across historical periods, designed for students with little experience in the visual arts. It includes brief studies in art history and in-depth inquiry into the elements, media, and methods used in a range of creative processes. At the beginning of this course, we will study a five-step system for developing an understanding of visual art in all forms, based on:

• Description: A work of art from an objective point of view – its physical attributes and formal construction.

• Analysis: A detailed look at a work of art that combines physical attributes with subjective statements based on the viewer's reaction to the work.

• Context: Historical, religious, or environmental information that surrounds a particular work of art and which helps to understand the work's meaning.

• Meaning: A statement of the work's content. A message or narrative to express the subject matter.

• Judgment: A critical point of view about a work of art concerning its aesthetic or cultural value.

After completing this course, you will be able to interpret works of art based on this five-step system, explain the processes involved in artistic production, identify the many kinds of issues that artists examine in their work, and explain the role and effect of the visual arts in different social, historical and cultural contexts.

Art History I
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Art History II

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Art History 

Guide to Public Domain Images 

Introduction to Art - 

Art Appreciation

Music 101
Welcome to Music 101. I think you’ve made a smart choice to spend some weeks studying some of the greatest music ever written. Consider for a moment how quickly a hit pop song passes from fashionable to forgotten. Those of us that have been out of high school or college more years than we care to remember have certainly had the experience of hearing a favorite anthem of our youth and thinking, “Oh yeah, that song! I’d forgotten that one.” Think about that: the song was totally loved, then completely forgotten within a matter of just a few years. Then consider that many of the composers that we will study have been dead for over two hundred years, and yet their music has never been forgotten and never stopped being performed and loved. That, quite simply, is amazing.

Music Appreciation (Georgia Gwinnett College)
"The author of this text has intentionally kept it general in nature in order to create a platform for those who want to expand content into more in depth studies of the mentioned concepts and traditions. I believe that appreciation of any subject comes from open-minded exposure to that topic. With the arts this generally must happen at a moment when the message and meaning of the work resonates naturally with the appreciator.

Each instructor of music appreciation brings a unique expertise in differing genres. I encourage you to utilize this text along with musical examples of your choice. The music appreciation specific goals (found in the syllabus) vary between individual classes as the instructors see fit. These goals will be achieved by those who have competently met all of the requirements of the course. For the course that this text accompanies the goals for each student are:

To gain basic exposure to the elements of music and their treatment in music
To learn historical and cultural signifiers in a diverse body of music • To approach listening to music actively/analytically and to reflect on the experience
To understand the factors that contribute to musical style in their own music and music presented in the course
To gain knowledge about differing musical aesthetics and trends
To become more knowledgeable and sensitive to varied human expression through music

Open Music Theory
Open Music Theory is an open-source, interactive, online “text”book for college-level music theory courses. OMT was built on resources authored by Kris Shaffer, Bryn Hughes, and Brian Moseley. It is edited by Kris Shaffer and Robin Wharton, and is published by Hybrid Pedagogy Publishing.

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Music Theory