MUSIC

By the time of moderation, music majors will be expected to have successfully completed two semesters of music theory courses and two semesters of music history courses. Please consult your advisor about this. Additionally, those concentrating in composition or performance should register for composition workshop and performance class.

College and Community Ensembles

Each ensemble is for one credit except where indicated. It is possible to participate in more than one ensemble and receive additional credit accordingly.

Scholarships for private music lessons will be available.

Auditions will take place on Wednesday, September 11th at 6:30 pm in Blum Hall. Sign-ups for audition times will be in the Music office. *

CRN

92349

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 104

Title

Bard College Community Orchestra

Professor

James Bagwell

Schedule

Mon 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm OLIN Audit.


This is a yearlong course. Students earn 2 credits per semester, and an additional 2 credits for registering in private lessons, which are strongly recommended. *Auditions for the Community Orchestra will be held on Tuesday September 10th from 4pm - 6pm in Bard Hall for new members. A sign-up sheet will be posted in Blum at the beginning of the semester. Please be prepared to play two pieces-one slower and lyrical, and one faster.

CRN

92350

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 105

Title

Bard College Community Chorus

Professor

James Bagwell

Schedule

Tu 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm OLIN


Rehersals begin on Tuesday, September 10, 2002.

Music: Mozart Requiem

CRN

92351

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 106

Title

Bard Community Chamber Music

Professor

Luis Garcia-Renart

Schedule

TBA .


The program will select students, alumni, faculty and community performers to present chamber music recitals on and off campus. The program will aim for diversity, both in instrumentation (including voice) as well as in repertoire. Weekly coaching will be given by faculty, and rehearsals between coachings will be expected.

CRN

92352

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108B

Title

Ensemble: Contemporary

Professor

Joan Tower

Schedule

Mon 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Blum Hall


Depending on registration, students will form their own ensembles (2-5 players) to play a work from the 20th century repertoire.

CRN

92353

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108D

Title

Ensemble: Chamber Singers

Professor

James Bagwell

Schedule

Mon 5:00 pm - 6:45 pm BDH

Tu 5:00 pm - 7:15 pm BDH

2 credits. Auditions will be held on Monday Sept 9th, 2002 from 5pm to 7pm in Bard Hall. A sign-up sheet will be posted at the beginning of the semester.

CRN

92354

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108F

Title

Ensemble: Jazz

Professor

Thurman Barker

Schedule

Tu 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm Blum Hall

CRN

92355

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108G

Title

Ensemble: Chamber

Professor

Luis Garcia-Renart

Schedule

TBA .

CRN

92356

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108H

Title

Ensemble: Balinese Gamelan

Professor

TBA

Schedule

Tu 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm OLIN 305

CRN

92473

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108 I

Title

Electro-acoustic Ensemble

Professor

David Behrman

Schedule

Tu 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm BARD HALL

CRN

92357

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108J

Title

Ensemble: Percussion

Professor

Thurman Barker

Schedule

Tu 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm Blum Hall

 

CRN

92679

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 108K

Title

Jazz Vocal Ensemble

Professor

Terri Roiger

Schedule

TBA

CRN

92358

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 133

Title

Fundamentals I / Ear Training I

Professor

Luis Garcia-Renart / James Bagwell

Schedule

Mon Wed Fr 9:00 am - 10:00 am Blum Hall

Tu Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am Blum Hall


This course will build up skills (from scratch) in reading music and building up and recognizing basic chords *such as triads and seventh chords. The course will consist of both lectures and ear training labs.

CRN

92360

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 171

Title

Jazz Harmony I

Professor

John Esposito

Schedule

Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm BLM 117

Fr 10:00 am - 11:20 am Blum Hall

This course will include acquisitions of the basic skills that make up the foundation of all Jazz styles. We will also study the Jazz language from ragtime to the swing era.

No prerequisites.

CRN

92361

Distribution

B

Course No.

MUS 211

Title

Jazz in Literature I

Professor

Thurman Barker

Schedule

Mon 10:00 am - 11:20 am BLM 117

Wed 10:00 am - 11:20 am Blum Hall

Cross-listed: AADS, American Studies

This course presents some of the short stories and poems by Rudolph Fisher, Langston Hughes, Ann Petry, and Julio Cortazar. The text used in this section is "Hot and Cool" by Marcela Briton and the "Harlem Renaissance Reader", edited by David Lewis.

CRN

92362

Distribution

C

Course No.

MUS 215

Title

Topics in the History of Music: The Operas and Ideas of Richard Wagner

Professor

Kyle Gann

Schedule

Wed Fr 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 104

More has been written about Richard Wagner than about any musician in history. By the end of the 19th century he had achieved a ubiquity that Madonna can only lust after today: dozens of newspapers with names like "Revue Wagnerienne" debated his ideas, and every composer faced a choice whether to defy or succumb to the roaring wind of his influence. Though Wagner was virtually self-taught, his 13 operas - or rather, music dramas, Gesamtkunstwerks - turned the operatic stage from a place of entertainment into the shrine of a new religion. Meanwhile, he lived as though the responsibility for fueling the gossip mills of Europe rested on his shoulders alone. He handed ammunition to the anarchist Bakunin in the 1849 Dresden uprising, made love to the wife of his Swiss patron Wesendonck, stole the wife of his conducting protégé Hans von Bulow, became the untouchable artist-in-residence of mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and ground out enough anti-Semitic tracts to make him a future hero of Adolf Hitler. This course will plunge us into Wagner's world of make-believe: Tannhauser, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, Parsifal, and that glorious, four-evening-long predecessor to Tolkien, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Can a deeper psychological understanding of these works make Wagner, with his notoriously sustained musical idiom, seem still relevant to the 21st Century? No prerequisites: non-majors more than welcome. Be prepared to write copiously about social, philosophical, and psychological aspects of a composer who was much more than a musician.

CRN

92363

Distribution

A

Course No.

MUS 219

Title

Romantic Harmony

Professor

Kyle Gann

Schedule

Tu Th 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm BLM 117


This course will explore the Romantic Era in terms of its most colorful characteristic: harmony. Works by Chopin, Field, Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms, Liszt and Scriabin will be analyzed, along with excerpts of larger works by Berlioz, Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler - for form and orchestration, but most of all to explore the flowering of ultrachromatic harmonic progressions and modulations. Along with augmented sixth chords, borrowed chords, enharmonic modulations, and chromatic voice-leading, the class will study the wealth of thematic transformation techniques that made late Romanticism such a fluid and often extramusically referential language. This course is intended for music majors, but is open to anyone who has fulfilled the prerequisite, Fundamentals I and 2 or the equivalent.

CRN

92367

Distribution

A

Course No.

MUS 230

Title

Music of Conflict in the 20th Century

Professor

Colorado String Quartet

Schedule

Tu 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm OLIN 104

This course will explore the origins of eclecticism in 20th Century musical expression. Through live performances by the Colorado Quartet and guest artists, the discussion will focus on cause and effect of the disintegration of tonal harmony and traditional formal relationships for composers and their audiences. Significant works by such composers as Shostakovich, Bartok, Schulhoff, Messiaen, and Crumb will serve to illuminate the relationship of music to the artistic, literary and social/political climate of their day. Readings may include Solzhenitzyn, Grass, Remarque, Denisovich, Orwell, Camus, Sartre.

CRN

92431

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 240

Title

Introduction to Experimental Music

Professor

David Behrman

Schedule

Wed 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm EMS (verify schedule in addendum)


Beginning with the radical innovations of such revolutionary figures as Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Edgar Varese early in the twentieth century, the experimental music tradition in the United States will be examined. In addition to studying the body of work this tradition has produced, as well as discussing its aesthetic and philosophic underpinnings, students will be encouraged to actively realize and perform pieces by some of the composers studied. Examples of possible performance projects: Ives's quartertone pieces; Cowell's piano music; graphic scores by Feldman, Brown and Cardew; chance and indeterminate scores by Cage; realization of a Nancarrow player-piano score on Disklavier, event pieces by Fluxus, Palk, and Kosugi, meditations piece by Oliveros, phase pieces of Steve Reich; notated and text pieces by Rzewski; game pieces by Wolff and Zorn, etc. This course is expected to be taken as a prerequisite for all Electronic Music Studio courses.

CRN

92364

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 248

Title

Ear Training III

Professor

James Bagwell

Schedule

Tu Wed Th Fr 10:30 am - 11:30 am BLM 117


Ear Training III will serve as a continuation of Fundamentals II ear training. Work will include rhythmic, harmonic and melodic dictation; 2, 3 and 4 part dictation skills will be developed. Special focus will be given to practical sight-reading abilities. Evaluation will be based on periodic quizzes, both individual and group.

Prerequisite: Fundamentals II or consent of instructor.

CRN

92436

Distribution

A

Course No.

MUS 263

Title

Early Romantic Music

Professor

Christopher H. Gibbs

Schedule

Wed 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm OLIN 104


This course will examine a limited number of exemplary compositions of early nineteenth-century Romantic music, beginning with Beethoven and Schubert and ending with the deaths of Mendelssohn and Schumann in mid century. Classroom discussions will focus on the style and organization of individual works, problems of performance practice, compositional method, and issues of biographical, cultural, and historical context. In addition to extensive listening and reading assignments, students will a prepare research project. There will be no attempt to be comprehensive in the coverage of nineteenth-century music, but rather to consider a representative variety of genres and compositional, aesthetic, and biographical issues. Among the pieces that will be considered in depth are Beethoven's Symphonies 5 and 9, Schubert's Erlkönig and Piano Trio in E-flat, Op. 100, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Mendelssohn's concert overtures, and Schumann's Carnaval, as well as other works that respond to the interests of the students taking the course. No prerequisites: as this course will consider the literature, philosophy, politics, and cultural climate in which these works were created and first heard, students from all disciplines are particularly welcome; the ability to read music is not required.

CRN

92365

Distribution

A

Course No.

MUS 302

Title

Advanced Analysis Seminar

Professor

Kyle Gann

Schedule

Fr 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm BLM 117


A course in advanced analytical techniques. The entire semester will be devoted to in-depth analysis of three works from the 19th and 20th centuries, representing the Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern periods. Emphasis will be placed not on harmonic analysis (even in 19th-century works), but on how networks of motives are used to generate overall structure; this is a search for the essence of large-scale compositional thinking. The student will complete his or her own analysis paper on a work related to the music analyzed in class. Suggested works for this semester (though subject to change): Franz Liszt, Sonata in B Minor; Olivier Messiaen, Turangalila Symphony (selected movements); Robert Ashley, Improvement: Don Leaves Linda.

Prerequisite: Analysis of the Classics of Modernism or Romantic Harmony, and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited.

CRN

92605

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 335

Title

Freedom Principle III

Professor

Thurman Barker

Schedule

Wed 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm BLUM HALL

Cross-listed: AADS, American Studies, MES

This course, which employs a cultural approach, is also designed to look at the social climate surrounding Jazz to examine its effects on music from 1958 to the mid-60's. Emphasis will be on artists and composers such as Cecil Taylor, Omette Coleman, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and Horace Silver. Illustrated with recordings, films, and videos.

CRN

92366

Distribution

A

Course No.

MUS 343

Title

Seminar: Benjamin Britten

Professor

Frederick Hammond

Schedule

Tu 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm OLIN 104

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is widely recognized as a major figure in twentieth-century music. He composed in every important genre-opera, ballet, song and choral music, the symphony, the concerto, solo and chamber instrumental music, as well as a special series of works for schoolchildren. Britten was a rebellious product of the English Establishment like his friend, W.H. Auden ( who for a while presided over a rooming-house in Brooklyn whose denizens included Britten and his companion the tenor Peter Pears, the writers Christopher Isherwood and Carson McCullers, the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and a trained chimpanzee). Although Britten and Pears were homosexuals in a period when homosexuality was a crime, and pacifists and conscientious objectors in World War II, Pears was knighted and Britten ended his life as a member of the House of Lords. This survey of his work will focus particularly on his operas, especially Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), and Death in Venice (1973).

CRN

92755

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS 344

Title

Music of the African Diaspora I

Professor

Richard Harper

Schedule

Th 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 104


This course focuses on the musical cultures of Africa. Music and music making are examined in the context of African philosophy, religion and the specific practices of various cultures. This examination lays the basis for an investigation of the musical practices of the Caribbean and other areas of the New World where Africans reside in significant numbers. In addition to reading, writing and analysis, Music of the African Diaspora requires critical listening and participatory activities.

CRN

92368

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH A

Title

Workshop: Composition

Professor

Joan Tower

Schedule

Mon 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm Blum Hall

Primarily for music majors interested in composing music but also for performers who want to get "on the other side of the page". This class will compose music that will be written down and passed to players to be rehearsed and taped. Every step of the process is assisted (particularly at the notational level) and discussed. Players in the class, as well as students and professional players from outside, will later join in to help bring each piece to life in sound. In addition, other twentieth-century works are played and discussed and occasional visits to performances of new music are made. Individual meetings are arranged on a regular basis. Being able to read music is a prerequisite. See instructor before registration.

CRN

92369

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH B

Title

Workshop: Performance Class

Professor

Luis Garcia-Renart

Schedule

Th 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm Blum Hall


This class is conceived as a unifying workshop for performing musicians within the department. Please meet with the instructor prior to or during registration. (Private lessons can be taken for credit by registering for this course.)

CRN

92370

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH E

Title

Workshop: Songwriting

Professor

Greg Armbruster

Schedule

Th 4:00 pm - 6:20 pm OLIN 104


All songwriters, as well as poets, lyricists, singers, instrumentalists, and composers are invited to create and share their original work in this safe forum for collaboration, performance, feedback, discussion, and analysis. The goal is to help participants express more clearly their musical intentions in song form. Lyrics, setting, clarity, musical scene, melody, accompaniment, accompaniment and voice as duet, notation, editing, rewriting, and the collaborative process are examined. Collaborative projects among class participants are organized and writing assignments focus on skill building. Participants present their work with or without self-accompaniment or in collaboration with others. Guests may attend class in order to help participants present their music. Although previously written work may be presented, the focus is primarily on work in progress or work composed during the semester, with the specific goal of writing ten new songs. An open performance is given at the last class meeting.

CRN

92371

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH G

Title

Workshop: Vocal & Voice

Professor

Arthur Burrows

Schedule

Mon 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Blum Hall


In this singing class we explore the art songs of America, England, France and Germany, including some opera arias and ensembles depending on the make-up of the class. At the same time we learn the necessary technique to perform them successfully. Each class will be divided into two parts. The first will deal with vocal technique, and the second with technical issues that arise from individual performance. Requirements: the ability to match pitches, and an adequate vocal range. Pianists will be assigned individual singers to work with and coached in the various musical styles.

CRN

92372

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH H

Title

Workshop: Classical Guitar

Professor

Luis Garcia-Renart

Schedule

Wed 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm Blum Hall


Once a week a two-hour seminar will be offered to everyone to talk about specific technical and interpretation principals of the classical guitar, as well as to listen and to discuss the repertoire. This seminar is to be taken in conjunction with weekly private lessons offered by guitarist Greg Dinger. There will be a fee for the private instructor to be paid at the beginning of the semester. All levels of playing are accepted. Beginners to advanced players welcome.

CRN

92373

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH L

Title

Workshop: Opera

Professor

Arthur Burrows / Frederick Hammond

Schedule

Wed 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm BDH


A fully staged and costumed performance (to be announced) will be the main thrust of this semester's work. The class will be dedicated to the memorization of the music and the mounting of the work. An enterprise of this moment will require an unspecified amount of extra time that may be needed to achieve the goal.

CRN

92374

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH M

Title

Workshop: Voice-art Song Performance

Professor

Joan Fuerstman

Schedule

Mon 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm BDH

This class will be focusing primarily on the study of classical English, Italian, French and German diction using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Primarily for students taking voice lessons and for pianists interested in accompanying singers.

CRN

92757

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS WKSH N

Title

Workshop in Contemporary Electronics:From the Turntable to the GameBoy

Professor

Marina Rosenfeld

Schedule

Mon 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm EMS

The turntable, the sampler, the drum machine, the minidisc and other consumer-derived devices are at the crux of a contemporary branch of experimental electronic music that encompasses the work of artists as diverse as Philip Jeck, Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Yasunao Tone, Aphex Twin, John Oswald, Thomas Brinkmann and Otomo Yoshihide. The class will explore this music as an instrument-based practice, with a special emphasis on the turntable as an instrument whose material properties, as well as cultural significance, define its uses as an improvisatory and compositional tool. Conceptualism and visual art, free improvisation, electronic composition, DJ culture, multi-media, as well as the history and legacy of inventor-artists who pioneered the creative use or "misuse" of audio technology (John Cage, King Tubby, Lee Perry, Laurie Anderson, Grandmaster Flash) will all be considered as antecedents of contemporary practice. Students will be required to create and perform several short pieces and one larger-scale composition project exploiting the innate properties of one or more electronic instruments.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Special Projects are designed for music majors only to pursue individual or group projects with a particular Professor.

CRN

92375

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS PROJ B

Title

Special Projects

Professor

James Bagwell

Schedule

TBA

CRN

92376

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS PROJ P

Title

Special Projects

Professor

TBA

Schedule

TBA

CRN

92377

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS PROJ R

Title

Special Projects

Professor

Luis Garcia-Renart

Schedule

TBA

CRN

92378

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS PROJ U

Title

Special Projects

Professor

Kyle Gann

Schedule

TBA

CRN

92379

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS PROJ V

Title

Special Projects

Professor

Joan Tower

Schedule

TBA

CRN

92380

Distribution

F

Course No.

MUS PROJ Z

Title

Special Projects

Professor

Thurman Barker

Schedule

TBA

Private Music Lessons

All matriculated Bard students may be eligible to receive academic credit and scholarships for private instrumental or voice lessons. The choice of teachers is to be worked out on a case by case basis by the student and the Music Department. The teacher and student arrange payments and schedule.

Requirements for academic credit:

  1. Registered, matriculated Bard College student
  2. Assignment of grade, based on performance in a departmental concert or audition by an evaluating panel at the end of each semester.
  3. Participation in a music course that provides the student a larger forum of music making. A waiver of this requirement is possible in certain circumstances and is subject to Music Department review.

Credits awarded for the courses:

Lessons: 2 credits

Performance class 2 credits

Ensembles 1 or 2 credits (check description)

Chorus 1 credit

Requirements for scholarship:

  1. Selection for scholarship by departmental evaluating panel, either through performance in a departmental concert or through audition.
  2. Registration in an ensemble or performance class.
  3. Maximum of $20.00 per lesson (towards lesson cost) available, applied as credit to student's Bard account.