| MUSIC THEORY |
 |
|
Fall semester 2009
Review of Sophomore Writing Skills (THEORY 334), 2 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Placement by Transfer Placement Exam.
Analysis of Modernist Music (THEORY 433/533), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Vojcic
Graduate students elect THEORY 533.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or equivalent.
Primary emphasis is on the development of analytical and aural skills in significant 20th-century musics, using varied repertoire and varied aural and analytical approaches.
Eighteenth-Century Counterpoint (THEORY 442/542), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Korsyn
Graduate students elect THEORY 542.
Prerequisite: THEORY 240 and either 250 or 259.
Involves analysis and practice of the craft of counterpoint based on 18th-century repertoire of Western music and scholarly treatises of both that period and the present. A diet of species counterpoint is emphasized in the first half, then varieties of contrapuntal craft of the difficulty of two- and three-part inventions of J. S. Bach.
Orchestration II (THEORY 455), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Schoenfield
Prerequisite: THEORY 454 or equivalent with permission of instructor.
Techniques used by composers of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries will be compared and
analyzed. Reading and listening assignments as well as attendance at School of Music, Theatre & Dance ensemble rehearsals. Final project involves composing or arranging an extended work
for wind ensemble or orchestra.
Proseminar in the Analysis of Music (THEORY 537), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Prerequiste: THEORY 430 or permission of instructor.
Each proseminar treats varied repertoire presenting different approaches for analysis. Each may
be repeated for credit.
Special Course:
Text and Music (THEORY 460.001/560.001), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Gosman
Graduate students elect THEORY 560.001.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or 259 or permission of the instructor.
This course will consider the relationship between text and music in a variety of tonal songs and
choral works. We will focus on how composers stretch harmonic, metric, and formal conventions
to express specific texts. In addition, we will consider performance decisions required by each
setting.
The Concertos: The Changing Relationship of Solo and Ensemble in Concertos over Time
(THEORY 460.002/560.002), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Graduate students elect THEORY 560.003.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or 259 or permission of the instructor.
This course looks at the concerto as an evolving locus of relationships between individuals and
groups of musicians, looking at works from the Baroque to the Modernist period. We will consider issues of form and orchestration, among other questions, to help clarify the kinds of
musical and social relationships enacted in a variety of concertos. Works to be considered will be
drawn from the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev,
Schoenberg, and Carter, as well as from suggestions from the class.
Analysis of Modernist Music— “Four Crazies” (THEORY 460.003/560.003), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Rush
Graduate students elect THEORY 560.003.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or 259 or permission of the instructor.
This course will attempt to integrate many streams of musical composition (beyond the notion of
genre) in the late 20th-century by examining four masters who sometimes are judged as
“peculiar, strange, or even crazy”: Sun Ra, Olivier Messiaen, Pauline Oliveros, and John Cage.
By performing the music and hearing in-class performances, the class will make an effort to
understand the music intellectually and experientially, as well as explore the deep spiritual/religious underpinnings of their music and lives. In addition, the class will devote roughly one
month to Carnatic (South Indian) Singing as a means to more fully understand deep trends in
Post-Modern Music.
Schenkerian Theory & Analysis I (THEORY 531), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Petty
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
The course teaches the basic techniques of Schenkerian analysis, a method for understanding musical works through analysis using musical notation to represent aural experience. The course emphasizes basic concepts of linear, contrapuntal, and harmonic structure in tonal music; these concepts guide analyses of short compositions and excerpts from longer works. Students learn to express their analytical insights through the preparation of analyses presented in Schenker's style of musical notation.
Teaching Tonal Theory (THEORY 590), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Gosman
Integration of practical teaching techniques with evaluation of texts and anthologies. Coverage includes fundamentals, harmony, ear training, sight-singing, keyboard harmony, counterpoint, tonal analysis, and various integrated approaches as well as some computer-assisted materials.
Seminar in Theory: Three Issues in Contemporary Music Theory: Rhythm, Form, and
Performance (THEORY 805), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Petty
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
This course examines theories of rhythm and form through readings historical and contemporary,
and considers how these influence the burgeoning field that brings music analysis into dialogue
with performance. Open to doctoral students in Music Theory and Composition-Theory and, by
permission, to students in other PhD programs.
Winter semester 2009
Advanced Analysis of Tonal Music (THEORY 430), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Wayne Petty
Undergraduate students only.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or 259.
In-depth analysis emphasizing elements of structures evident in various important examples, offering a variety of analytical problems; readings on tonal forms.
Analysis of 20th-Century Modernist Music (THEORY 433/533), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Graduate students elect THEORY 533.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or equivalent.
Primary emphasis is on the development of analytical and aural skills in significant 20th-century music using varied repertoire and varied aural and analytical approaches.
Analysis of Eighteenth-Century Contrapuntal Works (THEORY 443/543), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Wayne Petty
Graduate students elect THEORY 543.
Prerequisite: 542.
Moving ahead in analysis and practice of craft to sophisticated settings of 18th- century contrapuntal forms,
especially with the creation of fugues in the styles of representative composers. Pedagogical treaties of that era as well as contemporary scholarship are dealt with in analytical and creative tasks.
SPECIAL STUDIES: Critical Approaches to Punk Rock (THEORY 460/560), 3 cr. hrs.
Graduate students elect THEORY 560. Sec. 1 Prof. Fournier
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
This course focuses upon a repertoire of popular music that has remained relatively unexplored in scholarly literature, despite its enormous significance as a precursor to genres that have been the focus of greater scholarly attention: New Wave, 2-Tone, hardcore, Oi!, gothic rock, Riot Grrrl, and grunge. Punk rock, a genre that gained notoriety in the mid-1970s for its challenges to mainstream popular culture (and, in some cases, for the threats that it seemed to direct towards the reigning cultural and political establishments of the day), will be examined in this course from various philosophical angles. We will begin the course with a broad discussion of the term ―genre‖ as it has been used to categorize and pigeonhole musical works, and will develop various terms (both musical and extra-musical) to help us to understand what constitutes the genre known as ―punk.‖ Our discussion will then venture into the ontology of punk rock, and will examine the origins of punk in, and its indebtedness to, various musical works from the 1960s. Once ―punk‖ is defined, and its musical origins made clear, we will discuss and assess various analytical strategies that we might apply to the music – here, we will settle upon the parameters that might be used in our quest to understand the meanings that we might ascribe to punk, and will reach beyond the confines of musical text to consider how such things performance practice, staging, audience behaviours, dance, gender roles, dress, and appearance add to the messages projected in punk songs. Our course will conclude with a discussion of popular music in the aftermath of punk, and we will track punk‘s influence in some of the genres mentioned above.
SPECIAL STUDIES: Counterpoint in Composition (THEORY 460, Sec 2), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Schoenfield
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
Analysis of Tonal Music (THEORY 461), 2 cr. hrs. Prof. Everett
Remedial review course for graduate students.
Schenkerian Theory & Analysis II (THEORY 532), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Korsyn
Prerequisite: Permission of Instructor.
A continuation of 531, emphasizing analysis of complete compositions or movements from multi-movement works. Compositions chosen reflect a variety of formal types and a variety of styles, ranging from Bach to Chopin and Brahms.
20th-Century Music: Theory and Analysis I (THEORY 534), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Prerequisite: THEORY 433 or permission of instructor.
A systematic and critical study of theoretical systems treating music of the 20th century. Practice in applying these systems in analyses of significant repertoire.
Proseminar in the Analysis of Music (THEORY 537), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Gosman
Prerequisite: THEORY 430 or Permission of instructor.
Treats varied repertoire presenting different approaches for analysis. May be repeated for credit.
Advanced Aural Skills (THEORY 551), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Judith Petty
Graduate Students only.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
History of Music Theory I (THEORY 621/MUSICOL 621), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Borders
Graduate Students only.
This seminar will treat key issues that Western music theorists addressed from Antiquity through the late Renaissance. It will examine how certain theoretical topics weave like threads through the fabric of music history—here thickly, there thinly—and how and when new issues arise, in part due to changes in musical style. (Toward the end of the term, for example, we will see how the history of theory comes nearly full circle with concomitant rediscoveries of Greek texts.) We will note similarities and differences among different theorists‘ ideas and approaches, along with modern scholarly understandings of them. When feasible we shall also consider the relevance of theory to practice and composition by examining music from the same or earlier period. Grades will depend on participation, ten weekly in-class reports (each with a short writing component), and a fifteen- to twenty-five-page term paper (30% of the final grade)
Seminar in Music Theory: Musical Semiotics (THEORY 805), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Guck
Prerequisite: permission of instructor
Musical semiotics in the tradition of Charles Sanders Peirce examines the relation between music and the person who apprehends it. It suggests a theory of the processes of musical understanding and interpretation, which we will explore in this course. After a very brief introduction to general semiotics, in the first part of the term we will read from the literature that adapts Peirce‘s semiotic theory, beginning with explanatory texts by music scholars Thomas Turino, David Lidov, and Naomi Cummings and continuing with musical analyses in that tradition. More briefly, in the latter part of the term we will turn to the European semiotics tradition, reading explanatory and analytical texts by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Eero Tarasti, and others. Among the other authors to be studied are Kofi Agawu, Robert Hatten, Rebecca Leydon, and Raymond Monelle. The emphasis of the course will be less on questions of category (for example, topics) than on questions of musical process, understanding, and meaning creation.
Fall semester 2008
Review of Sophomore Writing Skills (THEORY 334), 2 cr. hrs. Prof. Everett
Placement by Transfer Placement Exam.
Advanced Analysis of Tonal Music (THEORY 430), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Guck
Prerequisite: THEORY 250. In-depth analysis emphasizing elements of structures evident in various important examples, offering a variety of analytical problems; readings on tonal forms.
Analysis of Modernist Music (THEORY 433/533), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Guck
Graduate students elect THEORY 533.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or equivalent.
Primary emphasis is on the development of analytical and aural skills in significant 20th-century musics, using varied repertoire and varied aural and analytical approaches.
Eighteenth-Century Counterpoint (THEORY 442/542), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Petty
Graduate students elect THEORY 542.
Prerequisite: THEORY 240 and either 250 or 259.
Involves analysis and practice of the craft of counterpoint based on 18th-century repertoire of Western music and scholarly treatises of both that period and the present. A diet of species counterpoint is emphasized in the first half, then varieties of contrapuntal craft of the difficulty of two- and three-part inventions of J. S. Bach.
Orchestration I (THEORY 454), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Prerequisite: THEORY 239 and 249, or equivalent (such as 238) with permission of instructor.
Emphasis on original compositions or arrangements for various instruments in string, wind, brass, and percussion families. Also reading and listening assignments. Final project is selecting and orchestrating a short piano composition for chamber orchestra. Undergraduate credit only.
Special Course: Freedom and Fantasy (THEORY 460/560), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Petty
Graduate students elect THEORY 533.
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or 259 or permission of the instructor.
This course is devoted to areas of tonal music where special freedom is encouraged in performance or in composition, including the cadenza, the slow introduction, the development section, and the free fantasy. Students will explore techniques for interpreting such passages while practicing the analysis of chromatic tonal music. Repertoire will be drawn from instrumental works of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Schenkerian Theory & Analysis I (THEORY 531), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Korsyn
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
The course teaches the basic techniques of Schenkerian analysis, a method for understanding musical works through analysis using musical notation to represent aural experience. The course emphasizes basic concepts of linear, contrapuntal, and harmonic structure in tonal music; these concepts guide analyses of short compositions and excerpts from longer works. Students learn to express their analytical insights through the preparation of analyses presented in Schenker's style of musical notation.
Teaching Tonal Theory (THEORY 590), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Fournier
Integration of practical teaching techniques with evaluation of texts and anthologies. Coverage includes fundamentals, harmony, ear training, sight-singing, keyboard harmony, counterpoint, tonal analysis, and various integrated approaches as well as some computer-assisted materials.
Seminar in Theory: New Thoughts about Schoenberg (THEORY 805), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
The course takes up the music of Arnold Schoenberg, in particular his post-tonal works including both the twelve-tone repertory and those quasi-tonal works such as the Variations on a Recitative for Organ and the Ode to Napoleon that show evidence of his preoccupation with motivic manipulation. Readings will be drawn from recent works on Schoenberg by Michael Cherlin, Brian Alegant and others, as well as the writings of Babbitt, Lewin, Samet, and Peles, to mention just a few.
Winter semester 2008
Advanced Analysis of Tonal Music (THEORY 430), 3 cr. hrs. Sec. 1 Prof. Guck
Undergraduate students only. Sec. 2 Prof. Wayne Petty
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or 259.
In-depth analysis emphasizing elements of structures evident in various important examples, offering a variety of analytical problems; readings on tonal forms.
Analysis of Modernist Music (THEORY 433/533), 3 cr. hrs. Sec. 1. Prof. Hubbs
Graduate students elect THEORY 533. Sec. 2. Prof. Satyendra
Prerequisite: THEORY 250 or equivalent.
Primary emphasis is on the development of analytical and aural skills in significant 20th-century music using varied repertoire and varied aural and analytical approaches.
Analytical History of Jazz (THEORY 436/536), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Dapogny
Graduate students elect THEORY 536.
Prerequisite: 250 or equivalent.
Treats the evolution of jazz in the United States through the 1940s. Aural tradition of music and the creation of musical scores for works available only on record; analysis
of sheet music, autographed scores, first editions, etc., in order to induce theory of the evolution of musical styles in jazz.
Analysis of Eighteenth-Century Contrapuntal Works (THEORY 443/543), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Korsyn
Graduate students elect THEORY 543.
Prerequisite: 542.
Moving ahead in analysis and practice of craft to sophisticated settings of 18th century contrapuntal forms, especially with the creation of fugues in the styles of
representative composers. Pedagogical treaties of that era as well as contemporary scholarship are dealt with in analytical and creative tasks.
SPECIAL STUDIES: (THEORY 460/560), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Satyendra
Graduate students elect THEORY 560.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
This interdisciplinary course will be of interest to students who enjoy music, mathematics, and good reading. It will be of special interest to students planning to pursue music theory research. During the semester we will consider the main ideas and analyses in David Lewin’s book, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations. This enormously influential book is regarded as a classic by scholars in music philosophy, theory, and analysis. Listening activities will include music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Wagner, Schoenberg, Bartôk, Webern, and Carter. We also will devote some attention to early music, rock, jazz, and world music. Assignments will involve book and article readings, brief music analyses, and the occasional problem set. At the end of the term each student will write and present an original music analysis that has a mathematical component. The mathematics prerequisites are high-school algebra and some experience in reading proofs.
Analysis of Tonal Music (THEORY 461), 2 cr. hrs. Sec. 1. Prof. Mead / Sec. 2. Prof. Fournier
Remedial review course for graduate students.
Proseminar in the Analysis of Music (THEORY 537), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Mead
Prerequisite: THEORY 430 or Permission of instructor.
Treats varied repertoire presenting different approaches for analysis. May be repeated for credit.
Advanced Aural Skills (THEORY 551), 3 cr. hrs. Prof. Judith Petty
Graduate Students only.
Prerequisite: permission of instructor
Project in Tonal Composition (THEORY 552), 2 cr. hrs. Prof. Chuck
THEORY MAJORS ONLY.
Creative work to model traditional composition forms, with careful attention to development processes attendant to the common practice period.
The Social Construction of Music Theory: Seminar in Music Theory (THEORY 805), 3 cr. hrs.
Prerequisite: permission of instructor Prof. Fournier
This course is designed to examine music scholarship as a sociological enterprise in which scholars engage with each other not only in their mutual search for the meaning of music works but, more broadly, to determine how those meanings might be attained and described to others in the field. We will proceed from the basic premise that the field, itself, is a social construct that arises from agreements made between scholars on what will constitute the focus of their research and how that research will be performed.
However, our study will not limit itself to the sociology of music theory. We will also examine the impact made upon our work from other social fields that we inhabit – that is, from our “everyday” experience of music as it might be shaped and influenced by listeners with whom we interact in other (i.e., “non-scholarly”) areas of our lives.
This type of study has rarely been undertaken in relation to music scholarship, and so we will draw the bulk of our readings from outside the field. Our quest to understand the “everyday” and “professional” conditions under which theoretical research is performed, and to evaluate how those conditions shape the research that we perform as theorists, will take us into such disciplines as philosophy, sociology, literary theory, and cultural studies. In the first half of the course, we will focus upon work drawn from some of the pioneers in the area of the sociology of knowledge (Max Scheler, Emile Durkheim, Karl Mannheim) and we will subsequently examine readings drawn from scholars who have built upon this earlier work (Peter Berger, Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Feyerabend, Michal Foucault, Ian Hacking, Thomas Kuhn, Bruno Latour, Thomas Luckmann, John Searle), These readings will help us to frame a sociological model through which to re-evaluate how scholarship is performed under the rubic of “music theory.” In the second portion of the course, students will turn a sociological eye towards a selection of representative writings drawn from across the field of music theory.
Having trouble printing...? |
