Theory

In this pro-seminar we will survey some major themes that emerge in pre-modern music theory (antiquity to about 1700). Among the topics we will study are the nature and classification of mode, classical canonics (interval theory), rhythm and mensuration, discant and contrapunctus theory, tuning and temperament, and the "periphery" of music theory: musica humana, magic, and the emergence of modern science. (These latter topics will indeed help us critically scrutinize just what we might mean by "music theory" when considered historically.)

This course focuses on the knowledge necessary to improvise over the chord changes of standard jazz tunes. We cover basic terminology and chord symbols, scale-to-chord relationships, connection devices, and turn-around patterns. For the more experienced improviser, we explore alternate chord changes, tritone substitutions, and ornamentations. Using techniques gained in class, students write their own solos on a jazz tune and transcribe solos from recordings. All instruments are welcome, and students should write to the instructor prior to the first class to let them know their instrument.

This course focuses on the compositional norms of the "galant" and "high classical" styles of the eighteenth century, especially the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. We will approach this repertoire from different angles, engaging literature on Formenlehre, schema theory, rhythm and meter, and topic theory. Ultimately, we will explore how conventions and deviations thereof participate in the construction of musical meaning and expression.

The second quarter explores extensions of harmonic syntax, the basics of classical form, further work with counterpoint, and nondiatonic seventh chords. Musicianship labs in ear training and keyboard skills required.

The second quarter explores extensions of harmonic syntax, the basics of classical form, further work with counterpoint, and nondiatonic seventh chords. Musicianship labs in ear training and keyboard skills required.

This course aims to develop students' analytical and critical tools by focusing on a select group of works drawn from the Western European and American concert tradition. The texts for the course are recordings. Through listening, written assignments, and class discussion, we explore topics such as compositional strategy, conditions of musical performance, interactions between music and text, and the relationship between music and ideology as they are manifested in complete compositions.

The subject of improvisation is one that has attained renewed interest and urgency across a spectrum of musical disciplines in recent years: history, theory, ethnomusicology, and composition. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that our understanding of the development and practice of just about every musical tradition has been touched by this Renaissance of scholarship. In this seminar, we will overview some of this scholarship as it impacts some 2,000 years of musical practices and theories. The idea will not be to offer a comprehensive history of improvisation, but rather to dip into selected moments and repertoires in order to see what commonalities we might find. We will see how improvisatory practices were central to a range of canonical repertoires in Western music: from Medieval organum and discant singing to 18th c. instrumental diminutions and partimento pedagogies for the keyboard, Renaissance counterpoint singing, to 19th c. virtuosic piano fantasies and vocal embellishments. We will also consider more contemporary improvisatory practices in jazz and contemporary music, touching on some non-western traditions of improvisation (particularly from the Middle East and South Asia). We will consider varied theoretical problems of aesthetics, the musical canon, and cognitive/psychological aspects of extemporaneous performance. Each class will be divided into both a theoretical/historical part followed by a practicum. Class to include guest faculty performers.

This course has traditionally focused on analyzing 20th-century art music from the European tradition (Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók, etc.) using the tools of pitch-class set (pcset) theory. For this iteration of the class, we will focus instead on the music of what Fred Moten calls the “Black radical tradition,” centering works and performances by female composers including Nicolle Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Alice Coltrane, Amina Claudine Meyers, and Renee Baker. We will also spend time with music by Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and artists associated with the AACM. Though this music is regularly categorized as “jazz” or “free jazz,” we will follow George Lewis in querying such labels, which often serve to segregate Black experimentalism from elite white traditions. In order to cultivate an alertness to the ethical stakes of studying Black music in the class, we will openly discuss problems of appropriation and intellectual colonization, making these an explicit part of the class’s subject matter. Seminal texts from Moten, Lewis, Okiji, and Baraka will serve as conceptual frames for our analytical and critical work. As part of that work, we will still learn and deploy certain concepts from pcset theory, as warranted by the music at hand. But we will also develop analytical methods that are responsive to the sounding particularities of a given work or performance, focusing especially on timbre, texture, time/rhythm/meter/groove, group interaction, and the relationship between composed and improvised sections. Analytical work will range from “unscripted,” informal prose to more formal, technical work, some of which will involve transcription. Throughout, we will bring our analytical findings into dialogue with broader interpretive and historical questions, drawing and building on the critical insights of Moten et al.

This class will explore different contemporary theoretical approaches to the analysis of popular music from 1960 to the present, in genres such as pop, rock, rap, folk, and country. Topics examined will include vocal and instrumental timbre, verse-chorus form, the presence or absence of functional harmony, flow and groove, metric ambiguity, and the ontology of song. Students will learn to use aural, embodied, spectrographic, and transcription-based methods to analyze individual songs.