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Dr. Chelsey Hamm, assistant professor of music, is part of a team of faculty from colleges in the U.S. and Canada that received a grant from the Virginia Academic Library Consortium to substantially overhaul the only existing open-source music theory textbook.
The team expanded and improved Open Music Theory, an open-source, interactive, online text for college music theory courses. Open source products are free to use, copy and modify. (the book is available at viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory)
"This grant aims to create a digital workbook, expand the existing chapters, and add several more chapters in the areas of form and popular music analysis," the team wrote in its proposal. "This addresses not only cost issues, but also persistent curricular problems of inclusivity and relevancy in a contemporary, 21st-century curriculum."
Hamm teaches music theory, aural skills and 20th-and 21st-century analytical techniques. She holds a PhD from Indiana University.