Dr. Lavengood – Page 4 – Analytical Techniques (MUSI 611)

Week 5 (Sep 19): Analysis Symposium #1 (F22)

For our first analysis symposium, we will focus on a classic piece by Anton Webern, his Variations for Piano, Op. 27.

Week 4 (Sep 12): Serialism (F22)

This week you will learn about 12-tone serial techniques and the variety of ways this can be implemented. You’ll learn how to identify row forms, do a row count, make a matrix, and interpret serial pieces. You will also do a guided analysis of a piece by You’ll be analyzing the first movement of Ernst Krenek’s Suite for Solo Cello, Op. 84.

Week 3 (Sep 5): Set Theory (F22)

This week, you will learn about set theory and segmentation. You’ll analyze music using set theory, apply set theory terminology, and critique the usefulness of set theory.

Note: set theory ≠ serialism! We are learning serialism next week. Make sure you aren’t confusing these things!

Week 2 (Aug 29): Narrative (F22)

This week, you’ll read about the most prominent theory of narrative in the field of music theory and analyze a piece with narrative theory.

Week 1 (Aug 22): Intertextuality (F22)

Postmodernism had a huge impact on academia in the humanities, of which music theory is a part. This week involves some philosophy as you learn about Roland Barthes’s essay “The Death of the Author.”

Final project (S21)

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.

Week 13 (Apr 19): Project preparation (S21)

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.

Week 12 (Apr 12): Analysis Symposium #3 (S21)

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.

Week 11 (Apr 5): Tonality in Pop Music (S21)

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.

Week 10 (Mar 29): Lyrics (S21)

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.