INTRODUCTION TO ATONAL THEORY – MUS 609 (FALL 2000)

 

 

 

Professor:         Stephen Peles                                                  Office:     251 Moody Music Building

Office phone:     348-1472                                                           Office Hours:              MWF 2:00-3:00

 

 

 

 

 

Description

 

This course is aimed at advanced graduate students and is intended as an introduction to atonal music and to the theoretical literature which attempts to address that music.  Broadly speaking it has three goals.

 

(1)  To introduce you to the music and the special problems it poses, focussing chiefly on works that have in some measure entered the repertory.

 

(2)  To introduce you to the current state of the art in theoretical thinking concerning this literature and to provide you with some basic analytical and descriptive strategies for dealing with unfamiliar works whose structural principles are novel and perhaps unknown.  The theoretical enterprise in question is scarcely forty years old, and is thus still in its infancy as such things go.  It is hoped that the readings from the literature will provide you with some historical sense of how the field has evolved over that time.

 

(3)  To enhance your aural perceptions of this music, to make your way of thinking about it more relevant to the music itself, and to enable you to talk and write coherently about it.

 

 

 

Materials

 

     Textbooks:        John Rahn, Basic Atonal Theory.  New York:  Schirmer Books, 1980.

     Other:               music paper, note paper, pencils.

 

 

Grading

 

Homework and quizzes count for 80% of the final grade.

The final exam counts for 20% of the final grade.

Reading assignments are assignments, too; class preparation and participation will thus be taken into account in the determination of the final grade.

 

Course material is presented in three forms:  textbook and other readings, handouts, and lectures.  You are responsible for all material, regardless of the medium of presentation.  It is of utmost importance that you bring note paper and music paper to class and take notes.  In the event that you are absent for a lecture, be sure to get the notes for that class from a classmate.

 

Five percentage points shall be deducted from the grade of a given homework assignment for every day it is late.  In no case will a late assignment be accepted after that assignment has been corrected and returned to the class.

 

 

To request disability accommodations, please contact Disabilities Services (348-4285).  After initial arrangements are made with that office, contact your instructors.

 

 

 

 

Schedule^*

 

The sequence of studies follows closely that of the Rahn text.

 

 

Unit I:  Introduction to Integer Models of Pitch

Readings: Rahn front matter, chapter 1, analysis 1, chapter 2, and other readings to be announced. 

Topics:  Pitches, pitch classes, and sets of these.

 

Unit II:  Operations

Readings:  Rahn chapter 3, analysis 2, and other readings to be announced.

Topics:  Functions and other transformations

 

Unit III:  Equivalence Classes

Readings:  Rahn chapter 4, and other readings to be announced.

Topics:  Tn and TnI classes; other equivalence classes

 

Unit IV:  Invariance

Readings:  Rahn chapter 5, and other readings to be announced.

Topics:  Common-tone theorems; invariance matrices, etc.

 

Unit V:  Analysis

Schoenberg, Webern, Varese, et al.