Category: Fall 2018

Our focus for the remaining weeks of the semester will be creating your own projects and learning to write a proper analysis paper. Essentially, a music theory analysis paper is an argument paper. You are going to argue for your own interpretation of a piece, and you will support your argument through musical facts.

Continue reading Week 13: How to Write a Theory Paper (F18)

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 as well as tonally.

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be37-T72DNk[/embedyt] [embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVc-K1kKkVk[/embedyt]

Continue reading Week 12: “Same Drugs” by Chance the Rapper; “Broken Clocks” by SZA (F18)

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, you will analyze lyrics yourself, and you will write a reflection on lyric analysis.
Continue reading Week 11: Analysis of lyrics (F18)

This week, we’ll discuss tonality in pop music. Before you begin, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with form in pop music, if you are not already comfortable with terms like “verse,” “chorus,” “bridge,” etc. You will read about the unique problems that pop music has with tonality, analyze a pop song, and reflect on harmony in pop music vs classical music.

Continue reading Week 10: Tonality in Pop Music (F18)

This week we will focus on applying techniques of tonal rhythm and Sonata Theory to the final movement of Schubert’s “Tragic” symphony.

Listen to the Vienna Phil performing this symphony. Movement I is at the beginning of course; Movement IV begins at the timestamp 23:54.

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eReKPVqX-DQ&t=1434s[/embedyt]

Try listening both with and without the score. You may choose to look at the full score, or if that is too intimidating, you might prefer to look at the piano reduction, which I’ve uploaded in our scores folder, and added measure numbers to.

Continue reading Week 9: Franz Schubert, “Tragic” Symphony, Finale (F18)

You probably learned the basics of sonata form in your undergraduate degree, but this week we will learn one of the newer and more nuanced approaches to sonata form: Sonata Theory according to James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy (2006). You’ll also read Seth Monahan’s model analysis of a Mozart string quartet movement before attempting your own Hepokoski/Darcy analysis of a sonata movement.
Continue reading Week 8: Sonata Theory (F18)

This week you will learn how to approach the nuances of rhythm in tonal music. You’ll get introduced to the concepts 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 7: Tonal rhythm (F18)

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

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hZXpDGQ-0M[/embedyt]

Download the score from the readings folder.

Continue reading Week 6: Webern, Variations for Piano, Op. 27 (Analysis Symposium #1) (F18)

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 Ruth Crawford Seeger, “Prayers of Steel” from Three Songs.

Also: make a test comment on this post so that I can approve you as a commenter for next week’s discussion, and so that you can try out the comment function.  Continue reading Week 5: Serialism (F18)

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. Continue reading Week 4: Set theory and segmentation (F18)