SYLLABUS
–
Lyrics
assignment [middle of the term]
Reference info
Groove v. flexible tempo, pop v.
classical: Greg Sandow
on rhythm
6 (or 7) Kinds of Meaning in Music and 4 Types of Difficulties in the Arts
Notes on language
& music and contrasts between popular and classical music
Song forms
– descriptions of common song forms to help you analyze your song project.
Text
painting – examples of the variety of relationships between words &
music.
Notes on melody – help in analyzing the melody of your song for your analysis project
CONCERT REPORT date due 3 May, 2010.
Concerts
are listed on the syllabus. Alternatives
need to be approved in advance via email.
Possibilities may be found at the following links:
Many good choices at Stanford
University listed on their music department’s calendar.
Also look under the calendar link at
the bottom of the San Francisco Classical Voice
website pages or check the classical
listings on sfgate.com.
The San Francisco Symphony website is worth
exploring, and it lists their concerts.
Tips on
Taking Notes During a Piece of Music when in
class.
Extra Credit (due last day of class for full credit)
OTHER
LINKS
Harmony (blues and other chord progressions) and form is demonstrated here.
A critic reflects
on the live concert experience, authenticity, and rock.
A discussion of
excessive compression on CDs.
Douglas Wolk explains why people like to use the device: "Compression is like salt: a little of it makes everything sound better. Compressed voices sound more authoritative; compressed instruments sound more precise and energetic. Done properly, it gives sound more oomph." But: "Making CDs very loud means that you can't do much else with them. When a recording is ultra-maximized, its dynamic range is severely limited, and it loses what's called 'headroom' — the amount by which a recording can get louder than it is, the sound-engineering equivalent of available space. Without headroom, the entire recording starts turning into one dense, undifferentiated clump of sound." posted on Alex Ross’s blog.
Steve
Reich @ 70 website has excellent clips and info on
this composer.
Great sources for arts news, complied
from many sources: Arts Journal (a daily digest), and Arts & Letters Daily, from The
Chronicle of Higher Education.
Classical (and Post-Classical) music blogs of interest
by a critic who ventured into punk and other sorts of rock but ultimately returned to writing about classical music for the New Yorker magazine, Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise
by a composer/critic Greg Sandow,
who thinks the classical music world currently is like the
by a composer/critic rather positive or at least indifferent about the “death of classical music,” as long as Post-Classical music rises to replace it, Kyle Gann: Post-Classic
great insights into what it feels like to
be a thinking and working musician:
by a pianist based in
by a classical singer in
It is not easy to determine the nature of
music, or why anyone should have a knowledge of it.
Aristotle, Politics
rev. Jan 2010
David Meckler
ARCHIVE
Fall 2009 assignments
and lecture notes Fall 2009 Fall 2009 syllabus
Spring 2009 Spring
2009 Class Notes.
Spring 2008 THE CLASS JOURNAL
Spring
2008 Final Exam due by e-mail or hard copy on Tuesday, 27 May at NOON.
Guidance
for Your Music Analysis Project
Step One – select a song, write a few
thoughts about why it might be a good song to analyze;
write out the lyrics and, based on the
lyrics, make a chart of the form of the song.
This is a first draft and may be handwritten. .
Step Two – meet with me (5-10 minutes) before presentations start.
Step 3 – Data Collection &
Observations (.doc format) Detailed basic
analysis –
Step 4 Interpretation (paper) and Step
5 Presentation (guidelines in .doc format).
Fall 2007 class journal
Final exam Fall 2007 (.doc format)
Spring 2007 class journal
FINAL
EXAM SPRING 2007 (.doc format; includes the following live links)
Website
on Steve Reich for question #3
Dudamel
Beethoven audio example website for question #4. Click “track listing” and then click the 1st
track.
Levitin/Byrne discussion for question #7
Outline
of second half of the course, Fall 2006, on classical
and post-classical music issues
FINAL EXAM for FALL 2006.