If you feel inspired to discover music in a whole new way, why not explore our other features on music: from the science behind our emotional responses to the strange genius of Beethoven. You'll find food for thought on the food of love with music on Open2.net.

Or why not see if there's an Open University course which is right for you? We've got some examples selected by our team to give you a start:

Start Listening to Music - Have you ever heard a piece of music and wanted to know more? How is it constructed? Which instruments are playing? How does it relate to the society in which it was created? This 12-week course offers a foundation for understanding a wide range of music taken from different historical periods and drawn from an exciting variety of styles and genres, including classical, jazz, popular and world music. The course assumes no knowledge of musical notation. This is a twelve-week course.

Understanding Music - This course, which teaches the basic techniques and styles of western music of the ‘tonal era’ (c.1600–1900), is both practical and theoretical and will help you gain the necessary skills for studying music at Level 3. After an introduction to the musical elements, keyboard work, aural training and practice in writing, you study score-reading and simple formal principles. Work on harmonisation is followed by formal analysis, score-reading and associated skills such as transposition and score-reduction, which are applied to the analysis of musical styles.

From Composition to Performance - This theme-based course draws on a wide variety of musical traditions and periods, including western art music of the last 500 years, jazz, popular and film music, and music of non-western traditions. It examines the processes by which music is formed and transmitted – composition, improvisation, performance, editing, and publication – and social and historical factors that influenced those processes. You need appropriate knowledge of harmony, form and score-reading before you start the course (perhaps by completing Understanding Music); these will enable you to develop technical skills in tasks such as transcribing and editing music. The assessed essays require evaluation of historical and contemporary sources, listening to music and engaging with musical controversies and debates.

Studies in Music 1750-2000 - This course introduces analytical and interpretative methods of studying music from the period 1750–2000. You will develop an understanding of important topics in contemporary music scholarship, such as gender studies, and produce analyses and essays on musicological topics. The course is not a comprehensive chronological survey, but presents a diversity of musical material and approaches: The creation of the classical style, c. 1750–1800; Beethoven’s eighth symphony, 1812; Nineteenth-century genres from 1830; Gender, motive and large-scale form, c. 1840–1900; English musical identity, c. 1880–1939; Early twentieth-century issues, c. 1900–1954; Developments in popular music, c. 1950–2000.