Your final project is an analysis of piece of your choosing. The purpose of the project is for you to apply the skills you’ve learned in class, to a piece that you enjoy and want to share with the rest of the class.
Continue reading Final project (F23)Author: Dr. Lavengood
Week 13 (Nov 13): Project preparation (F23)
Our focus for the remaining weeks of the semester will be creating your own projects and learning to write a music-academic paper. Essentially, a music theory paper is an argument paper. You are going to argue for your own interpretation of a piece/idea, and you will support your argument through musical facts.
Continue reading Week 13 (Nov 13): Project preparation (F23)Week 12 (Nov 6): Analysis Symposium #3 (F23)
For our final analysis symposium, we’ll be looking at two recent R&B/hip-hop hits that borrow elements from soul. Both “Same Drugs” and “Broken Clocks” are very interesting lyrically, timbrally, and tonally.
Continue reading Week 12 (Nov 6): Analysis Symposium #3 (F23)Week 11 (Oct 30): Tonality in Pop Music (F23)
A lot of pop songs have a very clear tonic, or even have very few chords besides a tonic chord. This is the norm in pop music. This week, you will read about the unique problems that pop music has with tonality and reflect on harmony in pop music vs classical music.
Continue reading Week 11 (Oct 30): Tonality in Pop Music (F23)Week 10 (Oct 23): Lyrics (F23)
This week we’ll learn how to analyze the structure and poetry of lyrics. This goes beyond the kinds of meaning-based lyric analyses you see on sites like Genius.com and looks instead at how the lyrics are written and what kinds of subtle messages might be present there. We will learn through Lori Burns’s excellent approach and then you’ll do your own analysis.
Continue reading Week 10 (Oct 23): Lyrics (F23)Week 9 (Oct 16): Timbre (F23)
The final unit deals with pop music. You will need to familiarize yourself with pop form terminology if you are not already comfortable with terms like verse, chorus, prechorus, bridge, or refrain.
This week we’ll talk about my research specialty: timbre. (I won’t have you read my research, since I feel that might be awkward to respond to, but you can access my article outlining my methodology here if you are interested.) We will focus on Kate Heidemann’s excellent article on vocal timbre, and you will analyze a song a la Heidemann.
Continue reading Week 9 (Oct 16): Timbre (F23)Week 8 (Oct 9): Analysis Symposium #2 (F23)
This week, everyone will analyze a movement from Mozart’s String Quartet in G major, K. 387, to review our techniques for tonal music.
Continue reading Week 8 (Oct 9): Analysis Symposium #2 (F23)Week 7 (Oct 2): Sonata Theory (F23)
This week, you’ll learn a new(ish) approach to sonata form. You’ll also do some practice analysis on your own to see how it differs from what you already knew.
Continue reading Week 7 (Oct 2): Sonata Theory (F23)Week 6 (Sep 25): Hypermeter (F23)
This week you will learn how to approach a large-scale metrical understanding of tonal music: hypermeter. You’ll get introduced to the concept through Edward Klorman’s excellent summary of popular approaches, listen to several pieces by Strauss, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, and others, and do your own analysis of a song by Clara Schumann.
Continue reading Week 6 (Sep 25): Hypermeter (F23)Week 5 (Sep 18): Analysis Symposium #1 (F23)
For our first analysis symposium, we will focus on a classic piece by Anton Webern, his Variations for Piano, Op. 27.
Continue reading Week 5 (Sep 18): Analysis Symposium #1 (F23)