|
Syllabus | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
CREATIVE PROJECTS IN MUSIC
Because the focus of this course is Fine Arts, you will be called upon to grapple with artistic material (in the form of music!) in this course, and work with it in a significant way. We will look at pictures of musical manuscripts and see how music was written by hand in the Middle Ages. Then we will study the basics of music notation, using a simple adaptation of the neumes in use during the Middle Ages. Within the parameters set by the instructor, you will spend some time experimenting and composing a short plainchant based on a Latin text from the Christian liturgy (parts of the Mass, such as an antiphon, Psalm, Alleluia, Agnus Dei, etc.). Later in the semester we will perform the rhythms of Arabic music which influenced Western secular music and are still in use today. Then we will try to understand something of the difficulties (and delights) of writing an isorhythmic part for a 14th c. Ars Nova motet. These exercises are meant to be journeys of discovery, and your musical background and training (or lack of it) should have no bearing on the grade you earn. Enthusiastic participation and honest effort is more important.
GUIDELINES FOR YOUR CHANT PROJECT
LISTENING EXPECTATIONS
Music will be the primary means by which we ‘enter’ the Middle Ages in our minds, in the sense that we will try to understand as much as we can about life during this strange and wonderful time by experiencing the music. As you progress in this course, your listening sensibilities will be sharpened and you will improve your ability to focus on specific details in music, details which can possibly provide us with a window into the mind of its creator. Our goal will be to understand why musicians/composers/songwriters made the choices they did, and why those choices seemed to them inevitable at the time. Listening and thinking about what you hear in this way will help you recognize aspects of Medieval music that set it apart from all other musics, and also help you hear unique differences between compositions. There will be a listening component on each of the three Unit Exams.
Listening selections will be on NetJuke