The sky was stained infrequently with the red of a lifeless sunset and, as Michael watched the desolation of summer's retreat, he listened sadly to the sibilant heather lisping against the flutes of the pines, while from time to time the wind drummed against the buttresses and boomed against the bulk of the church.
From Sinister Street, vol. 1, Compton MacKenzie, 1913
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Chapter 1: Preliminaries
Chapter 2: How We Listen
NOTE: I welcome your questions, suggestions, and comments by email. The includes suggestions of music that you think make good connections with current topics. At the bottom of class pages, I will post input that I think is useful for the whole class. Tell me if your input is private or public, and if public, whether I can include your name. Useful student input from previous offerings will remain on the pages, below your more recent input.
Getting Started
Assignment for First Class
In What to Listen For in Music, by Aaron Copland, read lightly all introductory sections, and read carefully chapters 1 and 2 before coming to the first class. Expect to read 2 new chapters before each class.
Class Format
In the catalog description of this course, I describe Copland's book and invite you to "Read and talk about it with me." Take me literally. I hope to be learning along with you, and from you. Class will entail discussing the day's chapters (which you will have read beforehand), listening to musical excerpts from the book, and listening to some of the recommended works (end of each chapter). I might, if it appears necessary, present some of the fundamentals of music that are even more basic than the first chapters of Copland's book.
The Science of Music (Don't be afraid!)
I plan to end each class with a short, light, stand-alone feature called The Science of Music. Topics might include
• air, air movement, air pressure
• the nature of sound, sound waves, loudness (the dreaded decibel)
• how each family of instruments produces sound
• how your ears work
• caring for your ears -- how to test and monitor your hearing (want to try this now?)
• sound recording and reproduction
Please suggest topics for this feature! I hope that your questions and interest will shape these segments. No science background required.
Listen to Excerpts as You Read
On each Class Page, you will find Youtube videos of the musical excerpts that Copland provides within the assigned chapters. These excerpts are performed and recorded by Adam Matlock. Many thanks, Adam!
Excerpts for Chapters 1 and 2
There are no musical excerpts in these chapters.
But to get you started, and see if everything works for you, here is a sample. Turn to page 36 in the text, where you find Copland's first musical excerpt. Click the PLAY arrow in the center of the picture below, and watch the musical score on page 36 as you listen. Adam plays each passage first very slowly, then at a normal tempo (tempo in music means speed). Can you follow the musical line as he plays and you listen? Then listen again and glance back and forth between score and video. How much of what his hands are doing can you see in the score?
Musical Excerpt, Copland p. 36:
Don't be frightened by musical scores if they are a new thing for you. The main point of providing these videos is NOT to teach you to read music, but to let you HEAR the passages Copland uses to illustrate his teaching points. Focus on listening for what Copland is describing. (Some people find it fun to read a score as music plays; some don't. It's not as difficult as you think.)
At the end of each chapter, Copland recommends works of classical music for his readers to listen to, with specific recommended recordings, which have been modernized in this edition. Below, I provide links to more recent performances that are available on Youtube*. I hope to provide some additional recommendations, from other genres of music, I hope, as the course proceeds. I welcome suggestions from students.
Copland's Musical Recommendations for Chapter 2
The end-of-chapter recommendations include many long works, including a four-hour opera. Often, it will not be practical to listen to them in their entirety. At least sample them, and if Copland has mentioned them specifically in the chapter, think about how to apply his ideas to them.
1) Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier.
2) Beethoven—The Nine Symphonies
Listen HERE to Symphony 6, probably the most accessible of Beethoven's symphonies. You can easily find all nine of of them on Youtube.
• Click HERE to watch the musical score while listening to one movement of Beethoven's Symphony 6. Don't let it scare you; I won't try to teach you to read music or conduct an orchestra! Just start by seeing whether you can see the up and down movement of the high melody parts in the top lines of notes. Then see if you can follow other lines below the melodies, in the voices of other instruments. Can you name the instruments you are hearing? If not, Copland and I will try to help.
Additional Listening Recommendations
These recommendations will usually be shorter works that fit with the day's readings.
I welcome recommendations from students for this section, particularly from other genres than classical music.
As you listen, think about the following aspects of music, as you understand them now: melody, rhythm, harmony, color, and form.
• Bach: Fugue in A Minor, Modern Jazz Quartet
• It Never Was You, Kiri Te Kanawa, Andre Previn
• Waltz for Debby, Bill Evans Trio
• Once in a Blue Moon, Nanci Griffith
• Dueling Banjos, from Deliverance
• 47b Idumea - Second Ireland Sacred Harp Convention, 2012
For more about this kind of music, at Wikipedia, see Shape note and Sacred Harp. You will see that the solfège syllables are different from the well-known do-re-mi. In class, I mentioned plainsong in this context -- uh-uh, wrong -- entirely different in origin and nature: See Plainsong at Wikipedia.
Another version of this hymn, with lyrics, HERE.
* YOUTUBE TIP: Try to develop the habit of hitting your computer's "sound off" button just before going to Youtube, because many pages assault you with noisy advertisements. Then dismiss the ad as soon as you can, and turn the sound back on. You can also subscribe to Youtube Premium and get rid of ads altogether. It's easy to turn that monthly subscription on and off. I turn it on when I plan to use Youtube in teaching, then turn it off again after the end of the course.
The Science of Music I
Air, air movement, air pressure.
