CCOG for MUC 200A archive revision 202004
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- Effective Term:
- Fall 2020 through Fall 2024
- Course Number:
- MUC 200A
- Course Title:
- Composition I: Principles and Techniques
- Credit Hours:
- 3
- Lecture Hours:
- 30
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- 0
- Lab Hours:
- 0
Course Description
Introduces music composition and arranging with a focus on 20th and 21st century compositional techniques and materials. Includes composition of chamber and concert works with the goal of compiling a portfolio of original works. This is the first course in a three-course sequence. Audit available.
Intended Outcomes for the course
Upon completion of the course students should be able to:
- Utilize arranging techniques as an introduction to basic composition of acoustic works.
- Develop an understanding of the fundamental principles of orchestration.
- Create basic original musical works using contemporary music composition techniques.
- Develop a personal compositional language at a beginning level.
- Foster the creative exchange of musical ideas through beginning-level compositional skills.
Course Activities and Design
- Analysis of musical examples exhibiting varying styles periods and techniques
- Orchestrating and arranging preexisting works
- Short, weekly compositional exercises
- Balancing unity, variety, and form
- Score and part preparation, including proofing and editing
- Completing a work from conception to performance
- Reading sessions of projects by peer or faculty performers
- One-on-one instructor/student conferences
Outcome Assessment Strategies
- Class attendance and participation (group work, discussion)
- Assignments and exercises (in-class and homework)
- Projects
- Final project portfolio
- Project performances including class critique and discussion
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
- Basic principles of orchestration and idioms of instruments
- Structures in composition: Traditional and Invented
- Musical languages (twelve-tone, post-modernism, experimental, minimalism, spectralism, microtonality, etc.)
- Manipulating musical parameters in traditional and contemporary styles
- Functional vs constructed rhythm, Fibonacci series, additive rhythm, metric modulation
- Non-western scales and modes, modes of limited transposition
- Twelve-tone method
- Tonality vs post-tonality, harmonic fields
- Contemporary uses of counterpoint and timbre
- Composing for traditional ensembles, monodic instruments
- Extended instrumental techniques
- Presentation of scores and parts