S-Analytical Tech/Post-Tonal

Introduction to the theory and analysis of post-tonal music, drawn from the work of Forte, Rahn, Perle, and others. Basic concepts including pitch class, integer notation, pitch-class sets, normal form, set class relatedness, symmetry, and interval cycles. Analytic applications to compositions of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartok, Debussy and others.

Analysis of Pop and Rock Music

Popular music is a repertoire. While in some ways its inner workings may seem simpler than Western Classical music, its musical materials can be extremely complex and varied. This becomes especially true when considering the music materials? interactions with their cultural surroundings and means of social production. This class will balance musical analysis with this social theory, delving into rock?s compositional norms (harmony, syntax, rhythms, and the like) while asking why these choices are made.

Instrumental Chamber Music

Instrumental chamber music and its most representative genres (trios, quartets, quintets, etc.). The seminar tackles works by some of the most widely acknowledged practitioners of these genres along with works by composers belonging to under-represented groups. By working on this repertoire, students will examine how the distinctive features and conventions of instrumental chamber music changed over time and across different genres and musical cultures.

Topics in Musical Culture

This course will provide graduate students in all Music Department areas the opportunity to deeply explore a bounded musical topic by examining it through a historical or historiographical lens. Regardless of the topic selected for a given iteration of this class, the class will always be defined by its focus on historiography, in other words the question of how a particular topic has been established, explained, theorized, and debated by people over time.
Subscribe to