Patrick Muchmore

We’ll begin in Babel itself, the ancient site of Babylon, where archaeologists have discovered many tablets about music. Nearby sites have the earliest examples of musical notation, some dating as far back as 1400 BCE. We’ll learn some aspects of how their music worked and begin building a vocabulary for talking about and notating music in general. Across the course of the semester, we’ll learn many different musical languages, such as the music of Ancient Greece, the old court music of Japan, drum ensembles of central Africa, and the world of European classical music. We’ll also delve into many different modern musics, including the rise of sampling and turntablism in hip-hop, the theory of so-called “atonal” music, and the development of electronic sound. In short, the class will be devoted to learning a sampling of crucial aspects of the multitudinous vocabularies and grammars that pervade music across the world and across time. No prior study of nor ability to read music is required to take the class. By the end of the semester, students will be able to read basic musical ideas in a few different notation systems and will have some understanding of important aspects of not only standard European music theories but also many others that are too often learned only by specialists.

This course will be an examination of various theoretical approaches to music of the 20th century, including post-tonal, serial, textural, minimalist, and pop/rock music. Our primary text will be Joseph Straus’s Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, but we will also explore other relevant texts—including scores and recordings of the works themselves. This course will include study of the music of Schoenberg, Webern, Pink Floyd, Ligeti, Bartók, Reich, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Corigliano, and Del Tredici, among others.

A while ago I went to a visual arts museum, and they had their collection displayed in an unusual fashion. Instead of grouping art in rooms according to genre, chronology, nationality or particular artists, the art was arranged by intriguing concepts. A room might contain an O’Keeffe painting, a centuries-old indigenous piece from Australia, a Rodin sculpture and a poem that were in some way connected by a fascinating idea. I want to recapitulate something like this experience. Every class will begin with some concept from mathematics, poetry, philosophy, astronomy and more, and then we’ll gradually explore different music that engages with that concept in some way. The musical examples every week will span centuries and cultures—one week might have an avant-grade piano sonata by Boulez, a 1980s art-rock song by Laurie Anderson and a Kendrick Lamar album; the next week might have an ancient Sumerian song, a piece by Debussy and a work from the Indian Carnatic tradition. Gradually, more and more connections between the seemingly disparate topics will be revealed. So, ok, it isn’t everything exactly—and it’s more like “across the course of two semesters” rather than “all at once”—but you will know a whole lot more across a wide range of disciplines by the end. And, most importantly, we’ll listen to a metric ton of fantastic music.

A while ago I went to a visual arts museum, and they had their collection displayed in an unusual fashion. Instead of grouping art in rooms according to genre, chronology, nationality or particular artists, the art was arranged by intriguing concepts. A room might contain an O’Keeffe painting, a centuries-old indigenous piece from Australia, a Rodin sculpture and a poem that were in some way connected by a fascinating idea. I want to recapitulate something like this experience. Every class will begin with some concept from mathematics, poetry, philosophy, astronomy and more, and then we’ll gradually explore different music that engages with that concept in some way. The musical examples every week will span centuries and cultures—one week might have an avant-grade piano sonata by Boulez, a 1980s art-rock song by Laurie Anderson and a Kendrick Lamar album; the next week might have an ancient Sumerian song, a piece by Debussy and a work from the Indian Carnatic tradition. Gradually, more and more connections between the seemingly disparate topics will be revealed. So, ok, it isn’t everything exactly—and it’s more like “across the course of two semesters” rather than “all at once”—but you will know a whole lot more across a wide range of disciplines by the end. And, most importantly, we’ll listen to a metric ton of fantastic music. 

We’ll begin in Babel itself, the ancient site of Babylon, where archaeologists have discovered many tablets about music. Nearby sites have the earliest examples of musical notation, some dating as far back as 1400 BCE. We’ll learn some aspects of how their music worked and begin building a vocabulary for talking about and notating music in general. Across the course of the semester, we’ll learn many different musical languages, such as the music of Ancient Greece, the old court music of Japan, drum ensembles of central Africa, and the world of European classical music. We’ll also delve into many different modern musics, including the rise of sampling and turntablism in hip-hop, the theory of so-called “atonal” music, and the development of electronic sound. In short, the class will be devoted to learning a sampling of crucial aspects of the multitudinous vocabularies and grammars that pervade music across the world and across time. No prior study of nor ability to read music is required to take the class. By the end of the semester, students will be able to read basic musical ideas in a few different notation systems and will have some understanding of important aspects of not only standard European music theories but also many others that are too often learned only by specialists.

As a skill-building course in the language of tonal music, this course covers diatonic harmony and voice leading, elementary counterpoint, and simple forms. Students will develop an understanding through part writing, analysis, composition, and aural skills. 

This course will be an examination of various theoretical approaches to music of the 20th century, including post-tonal, serial, textural, minimalist, and pop/rock music. Our primary text will be Joseph Straus’s Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, but we will also explore other relevant texts—including scores and recordings of the works themselves. This course will include study of the music of Schoenberg, Webern, Pink Floyd, Ligeti, Bartók, Reich, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Corigliano, and Del Tredici, among others.

This course will be an introduction to a wide array of compositional languages, primarily within a notated context. We will talk about a wide variety of harmonic palettes, including some examples of microtonality à la Ben Johnston and Alois Hába. We will explore various serial procedures, such as the “classical” serialism of Schoenberg and Webern and the rotational ideas of Ruth Crawford Seeger and Stravinsky. We’ll discuss various methods for guiding improvisation, including the “diamond clef” compositions of Anthony Braxton. Rhythmic and metric ideas will be introduced, including asymmetric time signatures, metric modulation as pioneered by Elliott Carter, and rhythmic serialism as in the work of Milton Babbitt and Olivier Messiaen. We’ll talk about the potential uses of rhythmic and harmonic symmetry as, for example, in the chord progressions of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. You will learn about these both through score study and through your own small compositional projects. As we jump from topic to topic, I will also have you practice increasingly complex notational miniprojects and will introduce you to the rudiments of orchestration for keyboards, strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. At the end of the year, you will have broad range of musical languages with which to express your own personal voice and will have had considerable practice in communicating those ideas effectively.

Although this course will be important for composers, it is predicated on the conviction that learning more about the capabilities of instruments—both individually and in combination—is invaluable to the appreciation of music for anyone. Of course, a composer needs to learn the timbral palettes of various instruments, as well as how to write idiomatically for them; but performers, theorists, and historians benefit enormously, as well. They learn why some musical choices were necessary but also why some choices are especially clever or even astonishing. The first semester will focus on basic characteristics and some extended techniques of the primary orchestral instruments and will include considerations and examples for orchestral and chamber literature. The second semester will add a few more advanced and/or less-standard instruments, such as the harp, guitar, and synthesizer, but will primarily focus on extensive score study with an eye toward varied approaches to orchestration. Examples will include works from the Baroque era all the way to the present day. All students will compose small excerpts for solo instruments and chamber groups as each instrument is introduced. For composers, the first semester project will be an arrangement of part of an assigned piano piece for full orchestra; the final project will be a relatively brief original composition for a large chamber group or full orchestra. Non-composition students will have the option to either do those projects or substitute relatively brief papers that analyze the orchestration in pieces chosen from a list provided by the instructor.

If you’re wondering what class is essentially “Theory III,” it’s this one. We’ll begin with a review of diatonic harmony and voice leading, but then we’ll jump into the world of chromatic harmony. We’ll discuss sequences, as well as techniques for modulation, before moving into an in-depth discussion of many different formal structures such as fugue, through-composed songs, and sonata form. The year will end with a discussion of extensions of the tonal idea ,such as basic jazz chords and neo-tonality. Composers discussed will include the usual suspects from the common-practice Baroque, Classical and, especially, Romantic eras but also will extend to more recent examples, such as Debussy, Ravel, Davis, Coltrane, Talma, Price, and Glass.

This course will be an introduction to a wide array of compositional languages, primarily within a notated context. We will talk about a wide variety of harmonic palettes, including some examples of microtonality à la Ben Johnston and Alois Hába. We will explore various serial procedures, such as the “classical” serialism of Schoenberg and Webern, and the rotational ideas of Ruth Crawford Seeger and Stravinsky. We’ll discuss various methods for guiding improvisation, including the “diamond clef” compositions of Anthony Braxton. Rhythmic and metric ideas will be introduced, including asymmetric time signatures, metric modulation as pioneered by Elliott Carter, and rhythmic serialism as in the work of Milton Babbitt and Olivier Messiaen. We’ll talk about the potential uses of rhythmic and harmonic symmetry—as, for example, in the chord progressions of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. You will learn about these both through score study and through your own small compositional projects. As we jump from topic to topic, I will also have you practice increasingly complex notational mini-projects and will introduce you to the rudiments of orchestration for keyboards, strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. At the end of the year, you will have a broad range of musical languages with which to express your own personal voice; and you will have had considerable practice in communicating those ideas effectively.

See course description under Lectures and Seminars.

This course will begin with the origins of the concerto form in the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras and will then explore the many “-isms” of the 20th and 21st centuries, as they manifested themselves in that format. The course will function as both a history course, introducing the biographies of many composers and the evolution of the most important stylistic trends of the modern and contemporary eras, and as a music literature course to acquaint the student with seminal concertos and unsung classics of the genre. In addition to the usual common-practice suspects, students will be introduced to the lives and works of Amy Beach, Dmitri Shostakovich, Unsuk Chin, Tan Dun, John Corigliano, Sofia Gubaidulina, Alban Berg, Giya Kancheli, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Philip Glass, and others. The evolution of many styles will be explored, including spectralism, serialism, microtonalism, eclecticism, minimalism, and brutalism.

This course will begin with the origins of the piano sonata in the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras and will then explore the many “-isms” of the 20th and 21st centuries, as they manifested themselves in that format. The course will function as both a history course, introducing the biographies of many composers and the evolution of the most important stylistic trends of the modern and contemporary eras, and as a music literature course to acquaint the student with seminal piano sonatas and unsung classics of the genre. In addition to the usual common-practice suspects, students will be introduced to the lives and works of Clara Schumann, Ben Johnston, Galina Ustvolskaya, John Cage, Alexander Scriabin, Florence Price, Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, George Walker, and others. The evolution of many styles will be explored, including spectralism, serialism, microtonalism, eclecticism, minimalism, and brutalism.

This course will begin with the origins of the symphonic form in the Classical and Romantic eras and will then explore the many “-isms” of the 20th and 21st centuries, as they manifested themselves in that format. The course will function as both a history course, introducing the biographies of many composers and the evolution of the most important stylistic trends of the modern and contemporary eras, and as a music literature course, acquainting the student with seminal symphonies and unsung classics of the genre. In addition to the usual common-practice suspects, students will be introduced to the lives and works of Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Gloria Coates, Anton Webern, Galina Ustvolskaya, Amy Beach, Per Nørgård, Wolfgang Rihm, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, John Adams, and others. The evolution of many styles will be explored, including spectralism, serialism, microtonalism, eclecticism, minimalism, and brutalism.

This course will begin with the origins of the symphonic form in the Classical and Romantic eras and will then explore the many “-isms” of the 20th and 21st centuries, as they manifested themselves in that format. The course will function as both a history course, introducing the biographies of many composers and the evolution of the most important stylistic trends of the modern and contemporary eras, and as a music literature course, acquainting the student with seminal symphonies and unsung classics of the genre. In addition to the usual common-practice suspects, students will be introduced to the lives and works of Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Gloria Coates, Anton Webern, Galina Ustvolskaya, Amy Beach, Per Nørgård, Wolfgang Rihm, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, John Adams, and others. The evolution of many styles will be explored, including spectralism, serialism, microtonalism, eclecticism, minimalism, and brutalism.

As a skill-building course in the language of tonal music, this course covers diatonic harmony and voice leading, elementary counterpoint, and simple forms. Students will develop an understanding through part writing, analysis, composition, and aural skills.