Week #1 9.3 Introductions and a bit of Messiaen

MONDAY:
Chopin: Nocturne in Eb Op.9 No. 2 (Required)
Tonic, Nocturne, Paris in the 1830s, Delacroix, Key, Modulation, Tonic, Modulation, Rubato, Ornamentation, pedal in piano playing, Mozart (1756-1791), ,

18th C. Age of Enlightenment – Rationality: Mozart, Rousseau, Voltaire
19th c. Age of Romanticism – Emotions, passions, interest in the unknown

Paintings: William Turner, Moonlight 1840; Sohlberg, Harald Night 1904; William Turner (1775-1851), Shade and Darkness 1843; John Sloan Night 1907; Emily Carr (1871-1945) Old Tree at Dusk (1936); James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge (1872-77); Whistler (1834-1903) Nocturne: Blue and Gold - St Mark's, Venice (1879); Whistler (1834-1903) Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea (1871); Edvard Munch Vampire;

Ondes martenot
atonal music
Quartet for the End of Time (historical context)
Ornthology
major and minor vs. modes
Book of the Revelation
teleological time vs static time

WEDNESDAY:
To Do:
- Steve go over next week's activities (Messiaen Reflection, Final Draft of Music Essay, Abstracts; Messiaen events)

Peer Review:
- "In what ways can the writer make the piece more effective?"
Good first-draft questions for the reader: "Are there sections that you find interesting and would like to see developed?" "Are there sections which detract and could be eliminated?" "Are there areas which you'd like the writer to make clearer?"
After addressing the above (which may/or may not apply), raise any additional relevant questions.

BE A HELPFUL REVIEWER "Great, looks good " doesn't help. Don't be shy, you are NOT determining the course of the paper: the writer can choose whether or not to follow particular advice.
Some good language: "I'd like to see you talk more about . . . " "I wonder if you could make this section clearer, tell me what you are trying to say." Etc.

DUE:
1) You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings below;

2) Via email, with RTF or PDF attachment, you have sent your DW by 8:00 am. The DW includes abstracts for the readings below in BOLD; new terms in the glossary taken from class, readings, and curiosity; and new songs/works added to your playlist.

3) Two hard copies copy of your essay on something about you and music.

Readings: I. Music and Its Others: Noise, Sound, Silence; Quotes & Intro; 2. Luigi Russolo, “The Art of Noises”; 4. Varese, "The Liberation of Sound";   (Write an abstract for those readings in BOLD.)


FRIDAY:
Announcements:
- Already juggling: Messiaen, Garage Band, Night, writing, Discussion on Audio Culture,
- Sign-up sheet for Italy, Jam Night, Big music announcements, Ministry
- Updates on Course Central
- Messiaen: In an interesting read (for you and me), write about your understanding of Messiaen from three sources: 1. Class notes (use terms); 2. Something of interest to you that is part of Messiaen's Discourse; 3) A listening response (we'll start this in class on Monday)

SETH'S VERY BIG GARAGE BAND PRESENTATION!
- Last five minutes (11:30 - 11:35) Messiaen movement

MONDAY:
Messiaen Mind Map (Emailed)

TO DO:
Ways of Listening
- Soundtrack (background);
- emotion (having the music amplify or modify what we're feeling at the moment);
- analytical;
- Images (free floating Usually combination of personal and related to the work
- Story construction (images that have plot)
- contextual (Messiaen: birdsong, time, etc.);
- ascribing personal meaning (usually an association with a past experience);
- historical (hearing music differently than it likely is experienced in the present--radical music that now sounds tame);
- finite listening (searching for--and hearing--something new on that Pink Floyd album that you've listened to 395 times)
- virtuosity (keying into a player/singers mastery of his/her instrument. [See Art Tatum, Bjork, Hendrix, Bela Fleck, Horowitz])
- free association (mind goes where it likes)
- meta-listening (thinking about how we are thinking about the music)
- drug induced listening (I am NOT advocating this my fine friends, but we need to discuss historical precedent--and not just in the 60s [see Berlioz])
- parallel play (dancing, writing, drawing while listening--more involvement with music than 'soundtrack')
- like/don't like
- Body
- Mood
- Discourse:

A few ways listeners can construct music during listening
- melody
- color
- texture
- rhythm
- relationship between instruments, singers, sounds
- Form or structure
- intertextuality (when music references another work through appropriation of style, lyrics, cover, a motive,
- harmony
- amplification, electronic effects
- relationship between traditional sound

Chopin: Nocturne in Eb Op.9 No. 2 (Required)
Tonic, Nocturne, Paris in the 1830s, Delacroix, Key, Modulation, Tonic, Modulation, Rubato, Ornamentation, pedal in piano playing, Mozart (1756-1791).


WEDNESDAY:

I. Listening Reflection
- Review Ways of Listening
- Writing style--up to you, just be clear
- For focused listening, stay with descriptions and/or metaphors that help the reader hear what you are hearing through your writing. Pitfalls: Judgement: "It was boring, I didn't like it" or getting too into the images: "I think this is about an episode of 'Lost'--you know, the one with the polar bear."


- Messiaen
Listening 1: "Intermede: " Don't write
Listening 2: "How do the instruments relate to each other?"
Listening 3: Your Choice. Anything but like/don't like. (Save it for after you've gotten familiar with the genre.)

- Chopin
Listening 1: "How does Chopin evoke night?"
Listening 2: Your Choice

Announcements:


DUE:
2) Via email, with RTF or PDF attachment, you have sent your DW by 8:00 am. The DW includes:

- Final draft of Music Essay (no hard copies needed)
- Messiaen Reflection (no hard copies needed)

Listening Response to Messiaen (for Wed 9.26).

THURSDAY 9.20

Commonground Presentation:

Maine Mountain Chamber Series: Messiaen

Quartet for the End of Time (prep for the concert)

FRIDAY:

DUE: LISTENING ASSIGNMENT:
For today: Part 1 and 2 single hard copy (don't send it to me) for class discussion.
For DW next week (9.26) P1& 2 (revised if you like) and 3.

Part 1: Intermede
1. The Intermede movement of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of time is like/unlike the other movements in that it . . .
2. The instruments relate to each other . . .
3. Plus . . . (your observation)
- Avoid: like/unlike, or getting too personal that pull away from how the sounds relate to each other. Metaphor is fine.
- Style: up to the writer (but don't detract from the analysis)
- Audience: class

Part 2: Last Movement: To the Immortality of Jesus
Listen with good headphones if possible, quiet place. Set aside 10 minutes.
1. How does Messiaen depict “the ascension of man toward his God, of the child of God toward his Father, of the being made divine toward Paradise . . .”
2. Plus . . . (your observation)

Part 3: Concert Reaction
We will discuss what I'd like you to do/write about the concert on Saturday.

Week #4 9.24 Discourse 1: Night Music

STEVE STARTS MEETING INDIVIDUALLY WITH STUDENTS TO DISCUSS ASSESSMENT!

MONDAY:
Schubert: Erlkönig
Robert Schumann: Mondnacht
Clara Schumann: Der Mond kommt still gegangen
(*Download one of the three songs--your choice)
Optional download: Nadia Boulanger: Nocturne for Violin and Piano (really beautiful work)

WEDNESDAY:
DUE: Via email, with RTF or PDF attachment, you have sent your DW by 8:00 am. The DW includes the Messiaen review.

Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique (Required download Movement 4 (March to the Scaffold) or Movement 5 (Witch's Sabbath). Or you have the option of downloading the entire work for $9.99.)

FRIDAY:

Plan
1. Plunge into Music
2. Groups plunge into readings and exchange abstracts
3. Last five minutes: Go through what's coming/questions on logistics?

Announcements:
- Mayhem
- Hit reload
- Portland Trip
- Review assignment
- Night Reflection
- Meetings after Night Reflection is turned in.
- See Rubrics off of website
- Seth remind everyone on EA presentations (Next wed first grp)

DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings and have brought TWO hard copies of the Russo and Warner abstract (below).
5. Cowell, "The Joys of Noise;  6. Cage “The Future of Music: Credo” 9. Russo and Warner, "Rough music, Futurism, and Postpunk Industrial Noise Bands".

Impressionism, French, static harmonies (don't drive as much as major/minor), interest in capturing a moment than evoking an emotion (romanticism), Debussy, La cathedrale engloutie

Expressionsim, German, Arnold Schoenberg, atonal, Comedia dell Arte, importance of the moon, different perspective on night than the romantics, sprechstimme, Pierrot Lunaire (suite of 21 movements for voice and small instrumental ensemble).

Optional download: Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire "Der Monfleck"

Required Download either: Debussy Prelude Bk 1: "Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir" (about night) or "La cathedrale engloutie" (played in class)

Week #5: 10.1 Catch-up Week

MONDAY:
Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire
Class Notes:
Expressionism, Sprechstimme, Comedia dell Arte,
atonality vs. tonality, Freud and the subconscious, Retrograde,
Diatonic, Chormatic, Violin (pizzicato and harmonics)

WEDNESDAY:
DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings (below and due today) AND you have sent your DW via email by 8:00 am. Make sure last week's abstract, "9. Russo and Warner" is included.
7. R. Murray Schafer, "The Music of the Environment." 10. Simon Reynolds, "Noise";   11. "The Beauty of Noise: Interview with Merzbow"

DUE: Also in your DW is your "Night" Reflection. No hard copy needed.

FRIDAY: NO CLASS
OK Computer groups can use this time to meet

Thur 10.11, 7:30 pm

Francesc de Paula Soler, classical guitarist from Barcelona.
A program of Spanish and Spanish American music

at Old South Church
(across the street from Merrill and to the left.)

Week #6: 10.8 Discourse 2: Socio-Political Sounds

MONDAY:
NO CLASS

WEDNESDAY:
DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings (below and due today) AND you have sent your DW via email with RTF or PDF attachment by 8:00 am.
II. Modes of Listening (45);   Quotes & Intro;   12. McLuhan, "Visual and Acoustic Space";   14. Schaeffer, "Acousmatics"; 16. Ola Stockfelt, "Adequate Modes of Listening";   17. Brain Eno, "Ambient Music";

DUE: EA pieces (for those assigned to this week) Seth keep everyone up-to-date

DUE: Also included is draft 1 of your Review in your DW:
- Bring two copies of your review
- Bring two reviews (of songs/albums different than yours) that you read in preparation for the assignment
See Pitchfork, Spin, The Wire (hard copies in the music office), Rolling Stone, The Phoenix,
- Bring an iPod or CD of the music you reviewed.
- Make sure that your review, at some point, in some way, talks about the sounds themselves.

DUE: AND . . . A hard copy of your Discourse Workbook to-date. (Include your review and abstracts for today).

WED, THUR afternoons and FRIDAY morning
Assessment Meetings: you will sign up for a time in the Wed 8/10 class.

Week #7: 10.15 - Discourse 2: Socio-Political Sounds

MONDAY:
Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro) Required:
"Overture "
"Se Vuol Ballare "
"Non so Più Cosa Son, Cosa Faccio "
"Non Più Andrai "
Matthew Herbert: Plat du Jour " Sugar

FOCUS: Recitative, Aria, Ensemble, Chorus, Number Opera, Beaumarchais, French Revolution (1789), Enlightenment, Classical Period, Rise of middle class.

Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro):
FOCUS: End of 2nd act: Mozart ceases the number-opera format with a continual scene marked by modulation and charcter entrances. Wagner would develop this further in the 19th century.Lennon: Imagine
Perfect Circle: Imagine ( Mp4 ) ( Video )
WEDNESDAY:
DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings (below and due today) AND you have sent your DW via email with RTF or PDF attachment by 8:00 am.
III. Music in the Age of Electronic (Re)production;   Quotes & Intro;   21. Glenn Gould, "The Prospects of Recording";   22. Brain Eno, "The Studio as Compositional Tool";   23. John Oswald, 'Bettered by the Borrower: The Ethics of Musical Debt";   24. Chris Cutler, "Plunderphonia"


FRIDAY:
Billie Holliday: Strange Fruit
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 ($8.46 for entire work. optional)
Jimi Hendrix Star Spangled Banner "M.I.A. " Bucky Done Gun"

Week #8: 10.22 Discourse 2: Socio Political Sounds

MONDAY:
OK Computer Presentations

WEDNESDAY:
DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings (below and due today) AND you have sent your DW via email with RTF or PDF attachment by 8:00 am.
V. Experimental Musics (30);   Quotes & Intro;   32. Michael Nyman, "Towards (a Definition of) Experimental Music";   33. John Cage, "Introduction to Themes & Variations";   VI. Improvised Musics (20);   Quotes & Intro;   37. Ornett Coleman, "Change of the Century";   39. Frederic Rzewski, "Little Bangs: A Nihilist Theory of Improvisations"

Henry Cowell The Banshee (Required)

FRIDAY:
YES THERE IS CLASS!
Discuss Argument Paper
Second Draft of Review

Week #9: 10.29- Catch-up Week

TBA

MONDAY:

WEDNESDAY:
Second Draft of Review:
- Name the magazine, journal, etc. that you are writing for (include one article--you can use one of your original choices or find a new source)
- Short paragraph defining voice, expected length, knowedge of the readership
- Your second draft

FRIDAY: NO CLASS

Week #10: 11.5 Discourse 3: Cultural Sounds

MONDAY:
Shostakovich

WEDNESDAY:
DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings (below and due today) AND you have sent your DW via email with RTF or PDF attachment by 8:00 am.
VII. Minimalisms (30);   Quotes & Intro;   41. Susan McClary, "Rap, Minimalism, and Structures of Time in Late 20 th Century Culture.";   42. Kyle Gann, "Thankless Attempts at a Definition of Minimalism";   43. Steve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process"

DUE: Academic Reflection on Sociopolitical Sounds (Discourse 2)
FRIDAY:
The Chosen
Introduction to Judaism

Sat. 11.10 Time TBA
Young Republic Concert 7:30 pm

Week #11: 11.12 Discourse 3: Cultural Sounds

MONDAY:
EA PIECES!
Eli, Eli Sung by Cantor Solomon Gordon (REQUIRED DOWNLOAD)
Jewish Art Music (Classical)
Ernest Bloch: Baal Shem Three Pictures from Chassidic Life: 1. Vidui (Contrition), 2. Nigun (Improvisation), 3. Simchas Torah (Rejoicing) (2. NIGUN IS REQUIRED DOWNLOAD)

FINAL DISCOURSE PRESENTATION EXPLAINED
INTRODUCE ABSTRACT ASSIGNMENT FOR FINAL WEEK

WEDNESDAY:
DUE: You are prepared to comment and/or answer quesitons about all the readings (below and due today) AND you have sent your DW via email with RTF or PDF attachment by 8:00 am.
44. Wilm Mertens, "Basic Concepts of Minimal Music";   45. Tony Conrad, "LYssophobia: On Four Violins";   46. Philip Sherburne, "Digital Discipline: Minimalism in House and Techno"

Abstract one of the readings above.

FINAL DISCOURSE PRESENTATIONS DETERMINED

FRIDAY:
Introduction to Klezmer
Klezmatics: Clarinet Yontev (Required)
Odess Bulgar (1924) Not available on iTunes
Russian dance (Trepak) from the Nutcracker (regular)
Russian dance (Kozatsky 'til You Dropsky) from the Nutcracker (Klezmer)
John Zorn: Kristallnacht Shtetl ( Ghetto Life ) ( entire Album )

Week #13: 11.26

MONDAY:
DUE:
1.Abstract of one article of your choosing below.
2. Your group presents a 1-2 page abstract and background on your assigned reading. Make a copy for eveyone in the class and feel free to bring in music, links to video, etc.
3. You do not have to read the remaining articles.
4. You do not have to send an electronic version of your DW this week. But be careful, the best time to write the Academic Reflection on Cultural Sounds would be during this week. Since I am not collecting a digital DW, the Reflection is technically not due until you hand in the final copy next week.

Readings:
Group 1: DJ Culture (329) Intro and quotes: 48. William S. Burroughs, "The Invisible Generation";   49. Christain Marcley & Yasunao Tone, "Record, CD, Analog, Digital"*;   50. Paul D. Miller, "Algorithms: Erasures and the Art of memory." 51. David Toop, "Replicant: On Dub";   52. Simon Reynolds, "Post-Rock"

Group 2: IX. Electronic Music and Electronica (365);   Quotes & Intro;   53. Jacques Barzun, "Introductory Remarks to a Program of Works Produced at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center";   54. Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Electronic and Instrumental Music";   55. Karlheinz Stockhausen, et al., "Stockhausen vs. the Technocrats"; 56. Kim Cascone, “The Aesthetics of Failure: ‘Post-Digital’ Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music.”

WEDNESDAY:
Continuation of abstract presentations


FRIDAY:
Discourse 1 Presentation
Discourse 2 Presentation

Week #14: 12.3

MONDAY:
Discourse 3 Presentation
Discourse 4 Presentation

WEDNESDAY:
Discourse 5 Presentation
Discourse 6 Presentation

DUE: PRINT OUT of your ENTIRE Discourse Workbook, bound with cardstock cover and the plastic thingies with the teeth.
INCLUDE FINAL ASSESSMENT

The contexts should include (in this order):

ABSTRACTS:
2b. Abstract: Russolo
2c. Abstract: Varese
4a. Abstract: Russo and Warner
5a. Abstract: Simon Reynolds
6b. Abstract: Eno Ambient Music
8. Abstract: Nyman
10. Abstract: McClary
11. Abstract of your choice (Conrad, Mertens, or Sherburne)
13. Abstracts from the other students
14. One abstracts of your choice from the Week 13 readings

ACADEMIC REFLECTIONS:
3b. Messiaen Reflection
5b. Academic Reflection: Night
12. Academic Reflection: Sociopolitical Sounds
14. Academic Reflection: Cultural Sounds

OTHER WRITINGS:
2a. Music Essay, draft 1
3a. Music Essay, final draft
4b. Messiaen Review
6a. Album Review
9. Album Review (2nd Draft)

GLOSSARY
Continue to add terms from the class, reading, as well as your own additions.

PLAYLIST
Simply a listing of what you have been listening to this semester. You may include items outside the course.

FRIDAY:
Evaluations
ABBEY ROAD!

Week #15: 12.10

Meetings to discuss grades (if necessary).