688a, topic 9-CONTEMPORARY STYLES & TECHNIQUES Fall 2002
unique days time room
20990 MWF 100 - 200P MRH M3.114
Instructor: Dr. David Neumeyer
Office: MRH 3.748
Office hours: MWF 10:00-10:45 or by appointment
Phone: 471-7346 (you can leave voicemail)
Email: neumeyer@mail.utexas.edu
Course website: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~neumeyer/688A_homef02.html
Object:
A course called "contemporary styles and techniques" resides somewhere between a music history course (styles, genres, repertoires), a music theory class (analysis methods and practices), and composition forum (presentation, vocabulary, discussion).
Therefore, it is important that we study compositions from throughout the past century (even though we will favor the more recent half), read in the scholarly literature, and draw out of that literature vocabularies for analysis, interpretation, and presentation. The first half of the semester will focus on three topics in turn: pitch design; rhythm, meter, and form; texture, instrumentation, and style. The second half of the semester will be a series of studies of individual pieces. In the first half, you will concentrate on reading and short assignments; in the second half, you will concentrate on analysis projects and presentations.
Your responsibilities:
1. Class attendance. I expect regular class attendance but I never grade attendance for graduate students.
2. Reading. Journal, book chapter, or periodical readings will be assigned during the three "topic" units. I will try to put as many of these items as possible on electronic reserves. Additional reading may be necessary to complete your projects.
3. Assignments. Short assignments will be due on Mondays during the first half of the semester. The assignments will be graded by your peers before they are graded by me. Seven assignments @ 5% = 35% of the final grade.
4. Presentation (1). During the three "topic" units, each of you will be assigned one concept or term to research and present to the class. Examples: complementation, time-point system. One presentation @ 5% = 5% of the final grade.
5. Presentation (2). This is a group project/presentation. You will work in groups of three. Each group will be assigned a composition (alternatively, your group can request to do a particular work). Each person will take one of the three topics (pitch design; rhythm, meter, and form; texture, instrumentation, and style) and prepare a presentation on it; the group will be given a 50-minute class period. Each person will be graded on the text material I receive after the class (2/3) and on the clarity and adequacy of the presentation itself (1/3).
The presentation is worth 30% of the final grade.
6. Project. This is a more traditional analysis paper.
Choose a composition to study, then:
(1) assemble as exhaustive a bibliography as possible (the bibliography may range across all types of literature -- CD liner notes and reviews may be included; and you should include urls for useful web sites -- but the bibliography must include the scholarly literature;
(2) provide a 2-3 paragraph summary and assessment of the arguments in at least two of the items in your bibliography;
(3) provide your analysis of the piece (the options are broad: this may be descriptive, evaluative, anchored in a particular analytic method, hermeneutic, etc.)
(4) relate the work to your own interests (would you teach this piece to students -- and why? would you use ideas or techniques from this piece as the basis for a composition of your own -- and why? would you find it worthwhile to expand your study of this work to others like it -- and why?)
This project is worth 30% of the final grade.
Other information related to grading and my policies:
1. I will accept late work without docking points only during the week in which the work was due. After that the grade is "F" -- only exception is for documented medical emergency.
2. I do not offer extra credit options to raise the final grade or to avert failing the course.
3. I do not give incompletes except for documented medical emergency that prevents you from completing the second presentation and final project.
Schedule:
Unit 1: "topics"
W August 28- F 30: Preliminaries (syllabus, schedule); pitch design (tonality); examples from Debussy, Ellington, Barber, Gorecki, and others
----->readings TBA
M September 2: Labor Day: no class
W September 4 - F 6: continued
M September 9 - F 13: pitch design (pc sets); examples from Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Webern, Schwantner, Crumb, and others
M September 16 - F 20: continued
M September 23 - F 27: pitch design (transformation); examples from Crumb, Varese, Prokofiev, and others
M September 30 - 1 - F October 4: rhythm/meter/form (meter/hypermeter); examples from Stravinsky, Volans, and others
M October 7 - F 11: rhythm/meter/form (proportion); examples from Debussy, Pärt, and others
M October 14 - F 18: rhythm/meter/form (time-point system; non-reversible rhythms, non-linear time, metric modulation, etc.)
M October 21 - F 25: texture/instrumentation/style
Unit 2: "pieces"
M October 28 - W 30: Hindemith, Symphony in Bb for Band
F November 1: no class
M November 4 - F 8: presentations
M November 11 - F 15: Corigliano, Symphony no. 1 for orchestra
M November 18 - F 22: presentations
M November 25: Barber, Knoxville Summer of 1915
W November 27: no class
M December 2 - F 6: Volans, White Man Sleeping
W December 11 - T December 17, exact date/time TBA: final project due at the time of the official final exam. There is no final exam in this course.
Reserves:
CALL NO. AUTHOR TITLE
SCORES
M 1001 C796 NO.1 1990 Corigliano, John, Symphony no. 1 for orchestra. / 1938- / New York / 1990
M 1010 P765 OP.26 Prokofiev, Sergey, Piano concerto no. 3 in C major, op. 26. /New York /
M 1011 P95 OP.26 19-- Prokofiev, Sergey, Kontsert nomer tri = Concerto no. 3, for pianoforte and orchestra, op. 26. /New York / 19??
M 1203 H66 S9 1951 Hindemith, Paul, Symphony in B flat : for concert band, (1951). / Mainz / 1951
M 1245 S398 A5 Schwantner, Joseph And the mountains rising nowhere. / 1977
M 1613 G66 OP.36 1992 Gorecki, Henryk Symphony no. 3 : Symfonia piesni zalosnych = (Symphony of sorrowful songs) : opus 36, for soprano solo and orchestra./ London / 1992,c1977
M 454 V64 W5 1995 Volans, Kevin, String quartet no. 1 : White man sleeps. / London / 1995
M 922 W4 OP.24 Webern, Anton, Konzert, op. 24. /Wien / 1948
BOOKS
ML 410 D28 H65 Howat, Roy Debussy in proportion : a musical analysis. / Cambridge / 1983
ML 3850 K72 1988 Kramer, Jonathan The time of music : new meanings, new temporalities, new listening strategies. / New York / 1988
MT 42 L48 1986 Lester, Joel. The rhythms of tonal music. / Carbondale / 1986
MT 6 L365 A5 1989 Lester, Joel. Analytic approaches to twentieth- century music. / 1st ed. / New York / 1989
MT 40 S96 2000 Straus, Joseph Introduction to post-tonal theory. / 2nd ed. / Upper Saddle River, / 2000
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