Music Program Classes
Classes offered at the Graduate Center in
Spring 2008
Click her for
registration times. Click here for
Fall 2007
classes.
76002
Proseminar in Music History: Renaissance
81202 Performance Workshop: Renaissance
Profs. Ruth DeFord and Anne Stone
Thursday, 1:30–3:30 (3 credits) and 4:30–6:30 (2 credits). Room 3389.3
This pair of courses serves as an introduction to the advanced study of late medieval and Renaissance music, focusing on issues of rhythm and rhythmic notation from ca. 1300 to ca. 1550. It consists of two co-requisite components: proseminar (1:30-3:30) and performance workshop (4:30-6:30), the latter devoted to singing pieces discussed in the proseminar from copies of original sources. Topics are organized chronologically.
76700
Proseminar: Teaching
Music
Prof. Richard Kramer 1 credit Tuesday, 4:30–6:30. Room 3491.
An exploration of
teaching strategies and a discussion of prominent
pedagogical issues across the range of disciplinary
areas in Music, including Ethnomusicology, with
special emphasis on teaching the music of the United
States; Theory and Composition; Musicology, with two
sessions given to the teaching of Music
Appreciation; and Performance. A final meeting will
offer instruction on the use of computers in the
classroom. Faculty from respective areas will
conduct each session, joined by current and recent
teaching fellows who have taught in the CUNY system.
Students will be assigned a mentor on the campus at
which they are scheduled to teach in the following
fall semester and will be expected to attend a few
meetings of the class and to make a guest
presentation, as well as a twenty-minute
presentation to the proseminar. No written work will
be required.
The course is required of first-year Chancellor’s
Fellows. All students in Music are welcome to
register, up to the cap of twenty students.
81001,
81002, 81003, and 81004 Studio Tutorial (Room and Campus
TBA) Staff 3 cr.
81101,
81102, 81103, and 81104 Ensemble
(Room TBA) Prof. Norman Carey 1 credit, Tuesday
and Friday , 2-5pm
81504 Performance Practice of the 20th and 21st Centuries
Prof. Maurice Peress 3 credits Thursday, 10am-1pm. Room 3491.
A
study of the music of Antheil, Bernstein, Crumb, Ellington, Feldman,
Gershwin, Ives, and Stravinsky. Special emphasis will be given to
American composers whose broad range of vernacular-inspired styles pose
interpretive challenges alongside the technical problems usually faced
by the modern performer: polyrythms, unusual instrumentation, layered
tempi, and aleatoric music. Students will be asked to prepare
applicable works for instrument or voice.
83400
Musical Relations of African Americans and Euro-Americans in the U.S. 1895-1970
Prof. Stephen Blum 3 credits Wednesday,
10am-1pm. Room 3491.
The seminar aims at historical inquiry informed by
ethnomusicological perspectives. Analysis of recordings, notations, and
other documents provides a basis for critique of current interpretations
(and enduring misrepresentations) of this 75-year span of American
social and musical history. The seminar attempts to develop an approach
to musical analysis that is adequate to the historical complexity of the
topic. In addition to weekly reading and listening assignments (which
include ear training exercises), each student is expected to write two
short reports and a research paper on an approved topic. The work load
is a heavy one, commensurate with the subject (and the music is as good
as music gets). Open only to doctoral students enrolling for credit; not
open to auditors or M.A. students.
84000
Introduction to Disability Studies in the Humanities
Prof. Joseph Straus 3 credits Thursday, 2-5pm. Room 3491.
(Note: This course will be listed under both Music and IDS)
An introduction to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of
Disability Studies. Topics will include “Disability, Representation, and
the Body,”
“Narratives of Cure,” “Deafness,” “Psychiatric Disorders,” “Disability
and Performance,” “Writing the Disabled Body,” “Gender, Disability, and
the Workplace,” and “Disability, Eugenics, and Reproductive Technology.”
Guest lecturers include CUNY faculty (Sarah Chinn, Director of CLAGS and
Ruth O’Brien, Political Science) and three of the leading figures in
Disability Studies (Lennard Davis, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, and Simi
Linton). The topics, instructors, and students in this course will
represent a variety of fields within the humanities.
Enrollment by permission of the instructor:
jstraus@gc.cuny.edu
84200 Analysis of Popular Music
Prof. Mark Spicer 3 credits
Wednesday,
6:30–9pm. Room 3491.
This seminar will offer an in-depth study of the myriad styles of
popular music that have emerged in roughly the last forty years, what
might be described as the "post-Beatles" era. A wide range of issues in
the analysis of recent popular music will be addressed, including: (1)
the inadequacies of traditional music notation in conveying this music
graphically; (2) the pros and cons of applying techniques normally
reserved for the analysis of Western art music to popular music; and (3)
the problems inherent in locating meaning in pop and rock songs.
Coursework will involve weekly reading and listening assignments, short
papers in response to the reading and listening, a transcription
exercise (due at midterm), and a substantial final project, which may
take many shapes or forms, but typically students will present close
analyses of a song or group of songs of their own choosing. (Enrollment
is limited to doctoral students in music, or by permission of the
instructor.)
85400
Intermediate Schenkerian Analysis
Prof. Mark Anson-Cartwright 3 credits Monday, 10am-1pm. Room 3491.
Schenkerian analysis of music with text (ca. 1780
to ca. 1890). Although the emphasis will be on weekly assignments in
graphing, students will also read and respond to literature on
text-music relations in music of this period.
85600
Analysis of Musical
Transformation
Prof. Phillip Lambert 3 credits Friday, 10am-1pm. Room 3389.
A study of transformational theories and their application in musical analysis. The course will focus on the work of David Lewin, Henry Klumpenhouwer, and others, with special emphasis on the usefulness of their theoretical ideas for the analysis of tonal and post-tonal music. Activities will include collaborative and comparative analyses, oral presentations on readings, and individual analysis projects. This course is intended for students who have already taken the fall-semester course in basic post-tonal theory or who have acquired the equivalent background in some other way.
86000
Performance Studies: New York in the 1960s
Prof. Tamara Levitz 3 credits Wednesday, 2–5pm. Room 3491.
I envision this course as an introduction to
performance studies as relevant to music scholarship, set within the
context of New York City in the 1960s. We will become familiar with the
history of performance art and dance in 1960s New York, critically
interpreting selected performances by Fluxus, the Judson Dance Theater,
Merce Cunningham and John Cage, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
(and other proponents of Black Dance), Bill T. Jones, and others
(including forays into salsa and the twist). In each case, I will choose
performances that interact in fascinating ways with compelling music,
which will often be the center of our discussion. At the same time, we
will read classic and intriguing texts on performance studies, from
Richard Schechner through Susan Foster to Barbara Browning and Katherine
Dunham, discussing issues ranging from representation through identity
politics to myriad ways of talking about music and movement. We will
also try to take advantage of the rich archival situation for studying
dance and music in New York. Assignments will include: a small archival
project involving dance, a final research paper (on a relatively open
topic involving any aspect of dance or movement culture in 1960s New
York), and an oral presentation conceived as conference paper.
86400
Writing About Music
Prof. Allan Atlas 3 credits
Tuesday, 2–4pm. Room 3389.
To some extent, this course is an "advanced writing workshop." It will deal with the strategies of scholarly writing, with the presentation of historical, analytical, and aesthetic judgments/interpretations in a clear, hard-driving, and polished manner. Each student will write: (1) four short papers (approximately 500-750 words = 2 - 3 double-spaced pages) on assigned topics, these to be submitted at the rate of one every other session over the course of sessions 3 - 11 (each paper will be assigned two respondents); (2) a Notes-length (approximately 1,000 words) review of a book, edition, or recording of your choice (due at sessions 10-11), OR (3) a faux dissertation proposal (approximately 1,500 words plus annotated bibliography--due at sessions 12-13); in addition, students will work in two-, three-, or four-person teams, with each team presenting an annotated outline (in effect, an annotated table of contents of the kind that one might submit to a publisher) for a large-scale book on the history of music in Victorian England. Finally, from time to time we will analyze selected readings from the musicological (in the widest sense) literature, studying strategies and prose styles (both good and bad) that various scholars have used. N.B.: (1) class limit: eight students; (2) pre-requisite: the Music Program's version of Music 70000, an equivalent course taken elsewhere, or permission of the instructor; (3) although the class is worth 3 credits, it will meet 2 hours each week, in addition to which I'll make myself available for another three hours each week.
86700
Stravinsky in France
Prof. Tamara Levitz 3 credits Monday, 2–5pm. Room 3491
In this course, we will examine significant
moments in the history of Stravinsky’s compositional career in France
from the premiere of L’Oiseau de feu (The Firebird) in
1910 to his exile to America in 1939. Our goals are to become familiar
both with the music of Stravinsky and French culture in this period, and
to develop innovative critical approaches to the study of each. We will
address a set topic every week, proceeding in chronological order. We
will examine, for example, Russian-French cultural exchange at the turn
of the century, cultures of mourning (Ravel), surrealism (Poulenc),
queer culture in Paris, colonialism, Neoclassicism in relation to
archeology and the burgeoning field of ethnologie, Catholic
debates in France in connection with Stravinsky’s compositional process,
and so on. Students will be responsible each week for doing the
readings, engaging thoughtfully with and committing time to the assigned
music (usually one, and sometimes two pieces, but limited to what one
can digest in a week, both in terms of analysis and listening), and
visual sources. At the moment I am planning as assignments one small
report, a substantial final research paper, and an oral presentation
designed as conference paper.
88200 Topics in Caribbean Music:
The Dominican Republic, the French Caribbean, and the British West Indies
Prof. Peter Manuel 3 credits
Monday, 2–5pm. Room 3389.
A study of the folk, salon, and commercial popular
music cultures of the Dominican Republic, the French- and
English-speaking Caribbean, and their diasporic communities in the USA.
Genres covered will include merengue, bachata, reggaetón, contradanza,
konpá, bélé, gwo-ka, zouk, roots reggae, quadrille, dancehall, calypso,
soca, Indo-Caribbean traditional and modern musics, and the musics of
Afro-Jamaican and Afro-Dominican religions. Students will present two or
three reports on articles, a short formal analysis of an assigned piece
or excerpt, and write a term paper.
89200 Composers Forum
Prof. David Olan 0 credits
Tuesday, 7:30–9pm. Room 3491.
The Composers Forum features a series of
lectures by prestigious composers and scholars of 20th-century and
contemporary music. Note that the Composers Forum does not meet every
Tuesday, but only on selected dates (to be announced).
Classes of previous semesters: Fall 2007, Spring 2007
Music Programs • The Graduate Center,
CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue • New York, New York 10016-4309
(212) 817-8590 • music@gc.cuny.edu
