Western concert music also boasts timbral diversity, even if we are not always aware of this. For the last unit of the course, we will focus on the use of timbre within Classical and 20th-/21st-c. orchestral music.
Table of Contents
Apr 3: Corpus analysis of orchestraton treatises
You already read some of Zachary Wallmark’s work in our Foundations unit (cognitive linguistics). This is another project of Wallmark’s that grapples with the way we describe timbres.
Due Monday at noon
Read .
Write a response essay (NB: NOT a summary!) to this essay, at least 500 words long.
Due Wednesday at noon
Read your partner’s response essay, and write a meaningful response to their thoughts, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! For your partner responses, leave a comment on their thread.
Apr 10: Pines of Rome
Discussion leader: Stephen
A number of students remarked that Pines of Rome is one of their favorite pieces. This article discusses timbre in that piece and its relationship to birdsong.
Due Monday at noon
Read .
Write a response essay (NB: NOT a summary!) to this essay, at least 500 words long.
Due Wednesday at noon
Read your partner’s response essay, and write a meaningful response to their thoughts, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! For your partner responses, leave a comment on their thread.
Apr 17: Haydn
Discussion leader: Bryan
Understanding the contexts of Classical harmony helps listeners to appreciate the innovative techniques present in that repertoire that may not sound so revolutionary to modern ears. If we appreciate Classical timbres in context, we can also find innovation in this domain of music.
Due Monday at noon
Read the third chapter of . Make sure you listen to these pieces!
Write a response essay (NB: NOT a summary!) to this essay, at least 500 words long.
A response essay is your personal take on the readings, and thus you shouldn’t be trying to write the “right answer,” but rather your opinion and reaction to what you’ve read.
More on response essays
A response essay is your personal take on the readings, and thus you shouldn’t be trying to write the “right answer,” but rather your opinion and reaction to what you’ve read. Remember that these are graded pass/fail, so anything you write is valuable in that sense. Feel free to use I/me pronouns and to freely express yourself (while remaining professional) and your opinion of the reading.
Due Wednesday at noon
Read your partner’s response essay, and write a meaningful response to their thoughts, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! For your partner responses, leave a comment on their thread.
Apr 24: Spectralism
Spectralism is a style of composition that flourished in the 1970s. The inspiration for spectralism is the composing-out of the spectromorphological aspects of timbre.
Due Monday at noon
Read Read .
Write a response essay (NB: NOT a summary!) to this essay, at least 500 words long.
Due Wednesday at noon
Read your partner’s response essay, and write a meaningful response to their thoughts, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! For your partner responses, leave a comment on their thread.
Bibliography
If articles are not available online, you should find them in the Readings folder.
