Acknowledgements
The preliminary texts for this book were written as part of the Instructional Improvement Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) with funding from the UC Regents. In their original form, these texts were designed to function as an online remedial program for use by incoming transfer students to the UCSB Music Department. Dr. Andre Mount wrote the preliminary texts with extensive guidance from Dr. Lee Rothfarb. Dr. John Hajda provided editorial input and administrative support.
The project was never deployed for its original purpose and Dr. Mount began revising, reformatting, and supplementing the texts in 2016, transforming the material into an OER music theory textbook with Open SUNY Textbooks. In developing this book for publication, Allison Brown (Digital Publishing Services Manager at the Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo) was instrumental. Her expertise in digital publishing and her patience in accommodating all of this book’s idiosyncratic requirements were indispensable. This process was also facilitated by its inclusion in a pilot program through Rebus Community, and we are likewise grateful to Zoe Wake Hyde and Apurva Ashok for their generosity and ongoing input on every step of the digital publishing process. We are also deeply indebted to Dr. Benjamin Graf, Dr. William Pfaff, Dr. Toby Rush, and Dr. Rachel Short, peer reviewers whose tireless attention to detail and extensive feedback helped strengthen this book in every regard.
Much of the labor involved in producing a book such as this lies in finding suitable examples to demonstrate the various topics at hand. In this regard, we are indebted to the work of Dr. Timothy Cutler (Cleveland Institute of Music) whose Internet Music Theory Database was most helpful. In revising the initial texts for publication as a textbook, we have endeavored to help rebalance the canon of composers represented in traditional discussions of tonal Western art music and theory. Around half of the examples included in this book are by women or composers of color. Molly Murdock and Ben Parsell have made great progress on this front and we are grateful for the inspirational groundwork they have provided through their site Music Theory Examples by Women.
