Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Forums and Concerts: 6 required events outside regular class times
Course Description
Music making (composing, improvising, performing, listening) is a fundamental vehicle for human expression, taking on myriad forms in different times and places. This course is principally concerned with improving access to musical creativity, with providing and enhancing tools and techniques. The focus of written assignments will be to develop musical ideas and notation methods that effectively transmit them to performers. The computer will be used as a tool to explore these and related issues.
Prerequisites
There is no prerequisite for the class. All musical backgrounds are welcomed, including students without prior musical training.
This is not the class for you if you want to learn:
- How to read music (try 21M.051 Fundamentals of Music)
- About music theory (try 21M.301 Harmony and Counterpoint I)
- How to read and write lead sheets (try 21M.340 Jazz Harmony and Arranging)
- Western music literature (try 21M.011 Introduction to Western Music)
- Jazz (try 21M.026 Jazz)
- World music (try 21M.030 Introduction to World Music)
This is the class for you if you want to be creative with sound and performance. We will be experimenting with the fundaments of music making. Our inquiry will examine music from all time periods, as well as all cultures and regions. Nothing is assumed!
Partial Listing of Topics
- Listening
- Silence, Sound, Music, and Environment
- Sound Walk
- Performing
- Notation / Rhythm
- Collective Music Making
- The Voice
- Text-Sound
- Organizing
- Musique Concrete
- Analysis / Resynthesis
- Form
Requirements and Policies
This is a HASS Arts Distribution undergraduate subject. Instead of term papers, you will be writing music to meet the writing requirement. All music that you write will be performed in-class by your fellow students, or will be presented on computer.
In addition to your composition assignments, you will also have frequent reading and listening assignments.
The final project will be a significant composition, to be assigned later in the semester. This composition will be performed during the last few weeks of the semester.
Late assignments will not be accepted. Attendance is mandatory.
You will never need your cellphone during class, unless it is used in a composition as a sound source. Please keep your cellphones stored away. We will eventually be using your laptops for creating music, but not for the first month or so of the semester. Please keep your laptops stored away when we are not using them.
Required Forums & Concerts
You must attend these six events during semester, including four events with MIT artists-in-residence Either/Or. If you are unable to attend any of them due to a scheduling conflict, then we will find substitute events for you to go to. You must let me know by the beginning of the second week of class if you cannot attend any of these events.
| WEEKS | EVENTS |
|---|---|
| 2 | Forum with Either/Or: the music of Alvin Lucier |
| 2 | Concert by Either/Or: the music of Alvin Lucier |
| 5 | Forum with Charles Shadle |
| 9 | Forum with Either/Or: the music of Keeril Makan |
| 9 | Concert by Either/Or: the music of Keeril Makan |
| 13 | Forum with Florian Hollerweger |
Grading
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Composition assignments | 50 |
| In-class participation | 20 |
| Final project | 20 |
| One-page responses to listening / reading | 10 |
Calendar
Session Key
L = Lecture
F = Forum
C = Concert
| SES | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| L1 | Introduction: silence, sound, music, and environment | Assignment 1 (silent day) out |
| L2 | Soundwalks |
Assignment 1 (silent day) due Assignment 2 (soundwalk) out |
| L3 | Either/Or residency | Assignment 2 (soundwalk) due |
| F1 | Forum with Either/Or | |
| L3 | Alvin Lucier | |
| C1 | Either/Or concert: Alvin Lucier | |
| L4 |
Notation: Visualizing music Earle Brown |
Assignment 3 (visualizing music) out |
| L5 |
Review visualizing music assignment Text-sound |
Assignment 3 (visualizing music) due Assignment 4 (text-sound composition) out |
| L6 | Western notation | |
| L7 |
Choral music Text-sound performances |
Assignment 4 (text-sound composition) due |
| F2 | Forum with Charles Shadle: discussing Western Saddlebag, a newly composed suite of arrangements of traditional cowboy melodies for piano | |
| L8 | Text-sound performances | |
| L9 | Instrument building | Assignment 5 (instrumental building proposal) out |
| L10 | Instrument building (cont.) |
Assignment 5 (instrumental building proposal) due Assignment 6 (SPEAR sounds) out; due 1 day later |
| L11 | Instrument building (cont.) | |
| L12 | In class performances with your instruments | Assignment 7 (Audacity 1) out |
| Spring Break week – no classes | ||
| L13 | Musique Concrète | Assignment 7 (Audacity 1) due |
| L14 | Either/Or residency | Assignment 8 (tabula rasa) out |
| F3 | Forum with Keeril Makan | |
| C2 | Either/Or concert: music of Keeril Makan | |
| L15 | Tabula rasa assignment |
Assignment 8 (tabula rasa) due Assignment 9 (Audacity 2) out |
| L16 | Listen to and discuss tabula rasa compositions | |
| L17 | Listen to and discuss tabula rasa compositions | |
| L18 | Discuss Audacity 2 compositions; introduce final project | Assignment 9 (Audacity 2) due |
| L19 | Listen to and discuss Audacity 2 compositions | Assignment 10 (Audacity 2 response) out; due 5 days later |
| L20 | No lecture; individual meetings on project | Assignment 11 (final project draft) due |
| F4 | Forum with Florian Hollerweger: “The Revolution is Hear! Sound Art, the Everyday, and Aural Awareness” | |
| L21 | No lecture; individual meetings on project | |
| L22 | Final project presentations | |
| L23 | Final project presentations | Assignment 11 (final project) due |
| C3 | Class attends MIT CAST Sound Installations evening event | |
| L24 | Final project presentations | |
| C4 | Either/Or concert | |
