Theory

Improvisation: when we hear this term, we think of real-time performance. We think of skill, inspiration, passion. With a little more reflection, we think of the hours of preparation that lie behind every action of the improviser, the licks, tropes, and patterns. If improvisation is determined by a larger aesthetic system, how is it any different from other species of performative actions? Is improvisation only improvisation by virtue of not (yet) being on paper? The term can become so broad that it becomes unwieldy. We can name very few intrinsic characteristics of improvisation, but we know it when we see it - in other words, it is controlled by the vast network of social and cultural signs present in its performance context.
Improvisation is a Western term that has been associated in the 20th century with Black musical forms. Because of this, the term improvisation undergoes a process of racialization - representing the body as opposed to the mind, the irrational as opposed to the supposed rationality of composition. We can now easily see the presence of improvisation in other performance cultures, including European art-music. Keeping this in mind, all attempts to theorize the improvisatory should nevertheless be sensitive to its history. Can musical improvisation give us a model for newer, more egalitarian social structures? Or does the very word improvisation represent a modernist myopia, a failure to see the organizational structures that ungird musical activity?

This is a yearlong course in ear training, keyboard progressions, realization of figured basses at the keyboard, and reading of chamber and orchestral scores. Classes each week consist of one dictation lab (sixty minutes long) and one keyboard lab (thirty minutes long).

The second quarter of this three quarter sequence 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 of this three quarter sequence 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.

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.

This seminar will review recent work in affect theory and its application to musical practice. It will also explore how theoretical perspectives on relationships between music and the emotions, beginning in the eighteenth century and extending through to the twenty-first, suggest reformulations both to affect theory and to the way it might be applied to music. Seminar discussions will be focused on readings from affect theory, the history of music theory, music psychology, and cognitive psychology, and detailed consideration of musical works from a range of musical traditions.

This is a yearlong course in ear training, keyboard progressions, realization of figured basses at the keyboard, and reading of chamber and orchestral scores. Classes each week consist of one dictation lab (sixty minutes long) and one keyboard lab (thirty minutes long).

This course focuses on the genre of the string quartet mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. We will analyze quartets by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Bartók using several different methodologies. Students will become proficient in analyzing metric, harmonic, formal aspects of the musical language, as well as be able to articulate the development of this venerable genre.