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Music Blog Posts- Page 2 of 9 - The Open College of the Arts

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Music and Maths 2: Back to Basics thumb

Music and Maths 2: Back to Basics

While modernism and contemporary music are often thought of as very mathematical, numbers and ratios are in fact central to all western music. In this post I’m going to take a look at the roots of western music theory and explore the mathematical origins of our notions of consonance and dissonance.

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Music and maths 1: ___flow___ thumb

Music and maths 1: ___flow___

In this series of blog posts I’m going to be looking at some of the ways composers throughout history have explored music through numbers, and sharing some of my own approaches to composition.

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rarescale Summer School: Bursaries thumb

rarescale Summer School: Bursaries

OCASA has generously agreed to make two bursaries of £200 available for OCA students to attend the 2019 rarescale Summer School.

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Visual music thumb

Visual music

Music is, of course, a sonic art form but it need not deal only with sound. Music is kinetic; certain pieces might feel different to play or sing when compared to others (as a pianist, I have always preferred playing a B Major scale to a C Major scale, for example, because of how the […]

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Hildegard von Bingen: 12th-Century Ecstasy thumb

Hildegard von Bingen: 12th-Century Ecstasy

After writing about one of the most important living composers, Unsuk Chin, for International Women’s Day, I’m continuing with a post about one of the very earliest composers we know of: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), and her utterly unique contribution to the early history of western music.

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In Conversation with: Joanna Ward thumb

In Conversation with: Joanna Ward

International Women’s Day 2019. Friday, 8 March. Joanna Ward is a composer, performer, and curator. She has written a short opera, ‘hunger’, which was written and premiered at ENO Lilian Baylis House, and later taken to the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

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Listen to Unsuk Chin – Now! thumb

Listen to Unsuk Chin – Now!

Two things prompted me to write this blog post: the news that composer Unsuk Chin has been awarded the Hamburg Bach Prize and the approach of International Women’s Day- Friday 8 March 2019.

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OCA collaboration project 2019 thumb

OCA collaboration project 2019

Are you interested in the potential for creative disciplines to come together in exciting new ways?  Have you ever considered using sound or music in your work, or perhaps created visual pieces that resonate with music in some way? Or perhaps you are a composer, who has thought about how your compositions might be informed and extended through other approaches.

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Without music, life would B flat thumb

Without music, life would B flat

As a youngster who liked to make as much noise as possible, the violin was a natural choice for me… What I enjoyed most though was playing my own harmonies alongside someone else’s tune… Perhaps composition is your thing too, and with a distance learning Music degree centred upon practical work, you should definitely take a look at our courses if so.

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October was Black History Month… thumb

October was Black History Month…

…and as part of this we asked OCA programme leaders to share some important practitioners to point students towards and remember artists and events in the history of the African diaspora. This is list is just the beginning of a longer one we hope, please add to it in the comments below.

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