Manhattan School of Music
CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
Survey of Contemporary Music Part 1
CT1960
Fall 2015
2:00-3:20 T/Th
Two goals
Get to know lots of 20th and 21st century music deeply and well. That requires:
active listening and reflection
it feels -- attentive, patient, open, relaxed, curious, focused
daily ritual, good sound, distraction-free space, preparation (exercise, meditation, a cup of tea) helps you get there
listen more than once
- record your reflections. ideas:
- list features
- technical descriptions: texture? rhythm? timbre? harmony? patterns? layers?
- draw the form
- note moments to listen for next time, or to recommend to others --
- ask questions
- answer some of these:
- what is the unity of this piece? what is the variety?
- what did you notice new the second time you heard it?
- does this piece have a strong identity? what gives it that?
- what is striated? what is smooth? Apollonian? Dionysian? traditional? unique?
- how does this harmonic space work?
- how do lines unfold?
- how does it signal beginning-ness? ending-ness?
- what are the units (large form or local scale)? how are they different from each other? how are they separated?
- make your own questions and answer them
- something creative - stream-of-consciousness automatic writing? draw? paint?
learning some context
- includes biography, theory, philosophy, reception, criticism, program, lore
- requires research. internet is ok, but you'll find better stuff in the library
- does the music have text or a program? learn it. title in another language? translate.
- check out the score
physicalizing it
- conduct & ta through the score, or
- learn the theme, or the first bar, or your favorite part, on your instrument, or
- listen to a phrase, pause it, and sing or play back what you heard, or
- pretend to play one of the parts, air guitar style. really!
remembering it
- if there's not an entry yet, start an entry to the CLASS LOG
- a perfect log entry includes
- title of piece / composer / year / instrumentation
- context, as defined above. stuff around the piece. quote liberally.
- form/content observations - stuff inside the piece.
- zoom in on a part of the piece in some way: note an exceptional moment, feature, section
- what people say about it - quotes by the composer or commentators
- further reading: a list of the books and websites
- your reflections on the piece in your column - subjective, informal, see notes above
- a perfect log entry includes
- if there is an entry already, add your reflections and read your classmates'. Want to improve the entry? Go for it.
- read the CLASS LOG often to see what our classmates are listening to and thinking about. listen to some of those pieces and add your comments.
- if there's not an entry yet, start an entry to the CLASS LOG
Improve how we talk about it. We'll practice by:
- teaching it
- class presentations guide us into our listening by providing:
- some context, as defined above
- some prompts of things to listen for, appreciate and think about
- some connection to other pieces/composers/ideas we've discussed
- a question you'd like us to consider as we listen
Class Calendar
Semester 2
1/12 – New Beginnings: Technology, Organization, Indeterminacy. Withdrawing the Self. Playlist – Notes
1/14 – New Beginnings 2. Playlist
1/19 – Exploring structure: from within, from without, and open forms. Playlist – Notes
1/21 – Continued.
1/26 – Electronic Music I: Roots – Playlist – Notes
1/28 – Electronic Music II: Branches – Playlist – Notes
2/2 – Elder Reactions. Playlist – Notes
2/4 – No class
2/9 – Experimental Music I: Experience
2/11 – Experimental Music II: Purposeful Play
2/16 – Experimental Music III: Survey – Notes
2/18 – Minimalism and After. Playlist – Notes
2/23 – Minimalism and After. Playlist. Other things:
- Marc Chan - My Wounded Head 3
- Mamoru Fujieda - Patterns of Plants (from mixed ensemble version) -- buy the album
2/25 – Outliers
3/1 – Spring Break
3/3 – Spring Break
3/8 – Spring Break
3/10 – Spring Break
3/15 – Spectralism. Playlist – Notes
3/17 – Japan and Korea. Playlist – Notes
3/22 – New Romanticisms, Complexities, Simplicities. Playlist – Notes
3/24 – New Complexities / Simplicities. Playlist / Playlist.
3/29 – No class
3/31 – No class
4/5 – Improvised Music I. Playlist – Notes
5/7 – Improvised Music II.
5/12 – Religion / Music? Playlist (rough) – Notes
4/14 – NYC in the 70s and 80s. Playlist (rough) – Notes
4/19 – Our Scene
4/21 – Our Scene
4/26 – Our Scene
4/28 – Our Scene
Book List
What I'm reading as I write this class:
- Perils and Van Cleve. Composers Voices from Ives to Ellington.
- Eduardo de la Fuente. Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity.
- Duckworth, William. Talking Music.
- Duckworth, William. 20/20: 20 New Sounds from the 20th Century
- Haskins, Rob. Cage.
- Virgil Thomson. A Reader.
- Henry Cowell. New Musical Resources.
- Schwartz, Childs, Fox. Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music.
- Charlotte de Mille. Music and Modernism, c. 1849-1950.
- Andriessen and Schönberger. The Apollonian Clockwork.
- John Cage. For the Birds.
- Taruskin. Music of the Early Twentieth Century.
- Matilda Gaume. Ruth Crawford Seeger: Memoirs, Memories, Music.
- Miller, Liberman. Lou Harrison.
- Mary E. Davis. Erik Satie.
- Volta, Ornella. Satie Seen Through his Letters (with introduction by John Cage).
- Wilkins, Nigel. The Writings of Erik Satie.
- Volta, Ornella. Satie: Mammal's Notebook.
- Bailey, Kathryn. The Life of Webern.
- Anne C. Shreffler, Webern and the Lyric Impulse.
- Johnson, Julian. Webern and the Transformation of Nature.
- Kolneder. Anton Webern: An Introduction to his Works.
- Austin. Music in the 20th Century.
- Michael Nyman. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond.
- Takemitsu, Toru. Confronting Silence.
- Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music and After, 3rd. ed.
- Cage, John. Silence.
- Feldman, Morton. Give My Regards to Eighth Street.
- Cox and Warner, ed. Audio Culture.