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Calendar Description:

Concepts and tools of analysis applied to a wide variety of music literature. The growth and expansion of musical structure through the analysis of traditional repertoire and twentieth-century works.

Seminar Content:

Music 4123 is an advanced undergraduate seminar concerned with musical forms and processes. It is therefore not intended as an introductory form and analysis course, but seeks to build on the basic analytical skills established in previous theory courses. The course will be divided into four roughly equal parts.

1) Beyond Basic Form - we will review the standard musical structural principles and then expand on these through analyses of works that stretch the traditional formal boundaries. We will also take a brief look at Schenkerian analytical techniques.

2) Metrical Structure - we will explore the temporal dimension of music by discussing various theories of rhythm and metre and applying these to metrical structural analysis.

3) 20th Century - we will study some works from the twentieth century and establish strategies for determining form and process without relying on pitch-class set theory. We will examine how composers use texture and orchestration to delineate structure as well as exploring extra-musical formal principles such as use of the Fibonacci series.

4) Why Analysis? - we will end the course with a discussion of the exercise of analysis itself through an examination of polemical writings on the topics of analysis and structuralist music theory.

Jeff Hennessy