Mus 304E Advanced Musicianship IIE, Fall 2005 (3 credits)
Dr.
Paul Seitz, Instructor. Email: ptseitz@pasty.com
Tusdays and Thursdays, 10:00 - 11:15 a.m., Room
HFA 224
Mus 304E Calendar:
The following is a tentative outline of the topics we will study week by week through this semester.
Week 1:
Syllabus. Assessing a starting point for study. Harmonic Sequences (TH, Chap 27). Concepts of "goal directed motion" and "stasis." Handout: Liszt, Nuages gris ; listen to recording. Discuss with respect to terms intro'd last time: (goal-directed) motion (how achieved?) and use of harmonic sequences. Discuss nature of a musical "motive" and "motivic elements," the use of "strata," the idea of "cadential process," and the role of "stasis" and "change." Handout: Liszt Nuages gris ; listen to recording. Discuss with respect to terms intro'd last time: (goal-directed) motion (how achieved?) and use of harmonic sequences. Read text, Chapter 28 through "Synthetic Scales." Handout: Debussy Preludes I No. 2, "Voiles."
Week 2:
Church Modes, and relation to the "circle of fifths." Pentatonic scales, Synthetic Scales, including especially whole-tone and octatonic scales. Discuss Preludes I, No. 2, "Voiles" -- use of whole-tone and pentatonic scales, creating of musical goals in absence of "progressive" harmony, identification of musical motivic elements and discussion of their role in unifying the piece, use of musical "strata," "stasis," and "change" in the perception of phrases, musical goals. Review for Quiz in Week 3.
Week 3:
QUIZ -- modes, synthetic scales. Class activity from TH workbook, Chap. 28-1-J (p. 287), composing pentatonic melodies to emphasize different pitch centers. Concept of "planing" (diatonic and chromatic) [see WB 28-2-E, p. 295]. Role of voicing versus pitch-class content in identification of "Quintal/quartal," "Secundal," and "Tertian" (or "extended Tertian) Chords and Polychords. Compose examples using these concepts.
Week 4:
Harmonic Theory of Paul Hindemith. Begin analysis in-class of Hindemith's "A Swan," from Six Chansons. Assignment: Complete this analysis.
Week 5:
Polyharmony (TH, p. 485...) Bitonality, Bimodality, Polytonality. (TH, p. 486) Bartok 44 Violin Duets, "Song of the Harvest." Listen to this MIDI version of Bartok Duet No. 33.
Assignment:
Week 6:
"Pandiatonicism" in John Adams' Shaker Loops. Some special issues related to Meter and Rhythm: Concepts of "metric modulation" and "non-retrogradable" rhythms. Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time, (TH, p. 509). Review for Mid-term Exam.
Week 7:
Mid-term Exam. Atonal Theory (TH, p 511) – Introduction. Pitch Class. Intervals, Inversions, Intervals Classes, PC Sets.
Week 8:
Review fundamentals of 12-tone Theory. Assignment: Compose piece using three-note row with Prime = 0,2,7. Listen to the pieces and discuss the implications of this row, and the resulting row forms, on the relatively "tonal sounding" compositions. Complete matrix for a given 12-tone row. Assignment: Write a short piece using the completed matrix from the previous assignment.
Week 9:
Combinatoriality (TH, p. 526). Atonal Theory, continued – PC-set networks "in action." Pre-Serial Webern & Schoenberg analyses TBA. Harmonic Implications of the Hexachord.
Week 10: Atonal Theory in "Tonal Music" (TH, p. 551), including Jazz.
Assignment:
Week 11:
Readings on Josef Matthias Hauer: In Groves Dictionary on line: "Josef Matthias Hauer", by Monika Lichtenfeld, and the following web pages: Hauer and the twelve-note music, follow all the links under the heading Explanations in detail and relating to the analysis of the short piano piece Deine Wellen umspielten mich (Your waves were playing around me), including the audio of a performance. On the basis of these reasdings/listenings, consider the handout score for Hauer's untitled piano piece (1952), and write a 1 page proposal describing a strategy for undertaking an analysis of the piece, i.e., what are the first two or three things you would try, and why? (Use complete sentences.)
Week 12: Total Serialization
Assignment:
Week 13:
Aleatoric and "Non-Intentional" Music
Assignment: For Thursday, April 18, read (and write a one page abstract for) either of the following: The Sounds of the Sounds Themselves: Analyzing the Early Music of Morton Feldman Author(s): Catherine Costello Hirata Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 34, No. 1. (Winter, 1996), pp. 6-27., in JSTOR database through UNLV Music Library; OR: A website article, "Freedom in Experimental Music: the New York School," by Peter Gena.
Week 14:
Graphic Notation, Improvisation and Music Calling for Creative choices by performers.
Assignment:
Week 15:
Review
Assignment:
Final Exam, Tuesday, May 9, at 10:10 a.m.
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