Open University lecturers Catherine Tackley and Naomi Barker outline how music is written down, what a musical score is and what it does. You will also learn how musicians use and interpret musical scores in their work.

Overcoming the challenge of writing down how sounds relate to the time they occupy was a major breakthrough in the history of Western music notation. Professor Susan Rankin talks to Open University Professor David Rowland about how difficult it was to convey both pitch and rhythm in a way that...