Paul Kerekes

This course is a chronological survey of Western music from the Middle Ages to the present. We will explore the cyclical nature of music that mirrors philosophical and theoretical ideas established in Ancient Greece and how that cycle most notably reappears every 300 years: the Ars nova of the 14th century, Le nuove musiche of the 17th century, and the New Music of the 20th century and beyond. The course involves reading, listening, and class discussions that focus on significant compositions of the Western musical tradition, the evolution of form, questions of aesthetics, and historical perspective. There will be occasional quizzes during the fall term; short, written summary papers or class presentations are required in the spring.

In this course, we will study elements of music such as pitch, rhythm, intensity, and timbre. We will see how they combine in various musical structures and how those structures communicate. Studies will include notation and ear training, as well as theoretical exercises, rudimentary analyses, and the study of repertoire from various eras of Western music. This course is a prerequisite to Theory II: Basic Tonal Theory and Composition and the Advanced Theory sequence.

As a skill-building course in the language of tonal music, this course covers diatonic harmony and voice leading, elementary counterpoint, and simple forms. Students will develop an understanding through part writing, analysis, composition, and aural skills.

Since the turn of the 20th century, composers have been exploring new avenues for creating and organizing their music beyond a traditional tonal construct. As we will discover, some composers relate to the past by extending those techniques into a new realm while others firmly attempt to establish procedures that disregard the history of compositional methods that precede them. This course is a workshop in the art of composition, with a focus on new approaches to writing that composers devised from the late 19th century to present times. We will examine in detail significant works by a wide variety of major 20th- and 21st-century composers, beginning with the first inklings of modernism in Debussy, Wagner, and Schoenberg; stopping by a myriad of resulting genres such as neoclassicism in Stravinsky and minimalism with Steve Reich; and finishing off with very recent compositions by established and emerging composers from across the globe. Since this class focuses heavily on compositional techniques through the act of composing, it is expected that students have, or will develop, a fluency in notation, preferably with Sibelius or Finale. The class will culminate in a reading session of your final work by live performers.