carylee / music-history-helper

A program to help study for drop the needle style music exams. This is especially for music 214-216 at Northwestern University.

I worked on this program largely on winter break of 2009, frustrated by the lack of effective tools for studying for my drop-the-needle music history exam. Knowing that I would have two more such exams for the same class series, I developed this application.

I intended to launch for the class by a few weeks into winter quarter, but I got swamped with work. I made progress, but wasn't able to meet my goals. I do use the program for my own studying and it helped for winter quarter (and will hopefully be helpful this quarter as well).

Here's a description from an email I sent to beta testers:

The application allows you to

• Take structured notes on listening assignments (from the NAWM)
• Keep notes and recordings all in one place, accessible from any computer
• Sort pieces by name, NAWM number, genre, language, texture, instrumentation, and period
• Filter pieces by any of the above criteria

At a conceptual level, the application helps you take useful notes, then study by applying your notes to understand relationships between the pieces.