SYLLABUS

Repertoire + Listening for Musicians I Carnegie Mellon University School of Music

“If you like music at all, you’ll find out the meanings for yourselves, just by listening.” Leonard Bernstein

Instructor: Paul Johnston [email protected] Course number: 57-189 or 57-188

Table of Contents Welcome

0

Why we have this course

1

What you need for this course

2

How the course is organized

2

Navigating online Weekly assignments Exams Grading

2 3 4 4

FAQs

5

Without those two flaps sticking out from the sides of your head, your embouchure, fingers, or vocal chords don’t matter much musically. Even more important is the brain which interprets the data a musician’s ears pick up. If you want to be a professional musician, practicing hard and receiving excellent instruction and gaining ensemble experience are some of the ways you’ll keep getting better. But you can reach much higher if you hear how high others have taken our art. REPERTOIRE+LISTENING FOR MUSICIANS

will expose you to many of the best practitioners of our art. Even if you don’t have a musical career in mind, there’s value in just marinating in excellence—in having lived a life which includes that once-in-a-species composer Mozart and the intensity of conductor Arturo Toscanini. Here’s why I’m excited about this course: 1) All of us love music anyway, so here we get to listen to a lot of something we love. 2) Also, I think this new emphasis on soaking up repertoire and developing critical listening skills will contribute to a noticeable jump in artistry with you and your CMU colleagues. 3) Rep + Listening’s online focus sure beats when I was in school and had to go to the library to do all my listening. Today, we can utilize newer media to return to the ancient notion of learning inductively from extensive exposure to good models. That’s how people like Handel learned and fulfilled their genius. 4) Lastly, we’re doing something which would make Plato happy. “There is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm.” Plato, The Republic

1 DISCLAIMER: You are responsible for knowing the course requirements

outlined in this syllabus. The syllabus is available online at the Blackboard site for Repertoire & Listening for Musicians www.cmu.edu/blackboard. Failure to fulfill requirements in a timely fashion may detrimentally affect your grade. Send questions to the instructor at [email protected].

Why we have this course To Extol, Expand, Examine, and Exemplify. • To Extol great music which has stood the test of time; • To Expand our conception of a canonical List of musical works, encouraging critical listening beyond the essentials of Western classical music and of one’s own generation; • To Examine music and music-making closely as listeners in order to establish habits of attentiveness and informed judgment; • To Exemplify values which build artistry, including: listening to repertoire and diverse models of excellence in one’s own specialty (instrument, voice category, composition), extending curiosity towards instruments and voices other than one’s own, and expressing thoughts and feelings about music with verbal skill. The majority in our class is preparing to work in Western classical music. So the bulk of the playlist for Rep + Listening celebrates that heritage. However, I grew up in rural and urban Asian settings. I can tell you that there are non-European classics and classics not meant for concert halls. These, too, are a part of our human heritage. So expect occasional musical field trips, so to speak. MEASUREABLE OUTCOMES

As the Repertoire + Listening curriculum unfolds, you the student should be able to: • hear complete works, movements, or significant excerpts from assignments and identify them by distinguishing musical characteristics, as well as by composer and title, period or century; • write informed critical opinion in short weekly essays comparing recorded performances, identifying period styles, contrasting performing traditions and interpretive choices, or exercising advocacy for particular repertoire or artists; • write both objective and subjective critiques—and know the difference.

2 What you need for this course Very little. Rep + Listening is an online course. If you have a laptop and headphones, you’ll have more flexibility in where and how often you can do your listening—at least on campus, in coffee shops, and other wireless zones. Check system requirements at the same site where you logged in to read this Syllabus: www.cmu.edu/blackboard. Blackboard is a very intuitive program, so you’ll learn your way around it quickly. Get on it before the first day of classes to get a feel for its environment and to see if you do have any problems. For example, you’ll want to be sure that your browser is among those which work with Blackboard. For technical questions, CMU’s Blackboard support is very helpful: [email protected] and (412) 268-9090. You also need to download RealPlayer, if you don’t already have it. It’s available at www.RealPlayer.com. Other than your computer and some good headphones or speakers, that’s it for the first semester. All documents you’ll need, including this Syllabus, are available online at Blackboard. In later semesters, we’ll be adding score reading to our critical experiences. So you’ll eventually be adding miniature scores to your personal library. But that’s not until second semester. (It won’t hurt, if you’re so inclined, to follow some of this semester’s music with scores, which you could check out from Hunt Library on campus as well as from the music division of the Carnegie Library just across Schenley Bridge. Scores could give you insights for our discussion board which others might miss.)

How the course is organized NAVIGATING ONLINE

When you get online with Blackboard, the first thing you see will be Announcements. In addition, you’ll have the following important menu choices: Prologues, Music Files, Weekly Playlists, a Summary Playlist, and Interactions (containing Discussion Boards by class section as well as the Café). Here’s what these buttons contain. • Prologues – This is where you’ll want to start each week’s assignment. The Prologues are too short to be called lectures; they’re just brief setups for each week’s music. But don’t skip them, because they will also contain the discussion questions. Prologues are available in two forms—Word.doc and pdf. • Music Files – This gives you URLs which stream the listening assignments. (If you don’t already have it, you’ll need to download RealPlayer at www.RealPlayer.com.) To stream audio from off campus, you’ll need to utilize the library’s AnyConnect VPN at www.library.cmu.edu (from the menu on the left, click “Off-Campus/Wireless Access”). Music files are kept online for the entire semester, so you can enjoy works from previous weeks. (This is especially important when you’re reviewing for listening tests.) The listening is self-paced, so you can also listen ahead.

3 If you listen ahead, be sure to review previous weeks’ materials a) to reinforce your memory, and b) because the Music Files this first semester are loosely coordinated with the subject matter of my Survey of Western Music History course. The nice thing about having the music online is that you can easily multi-task. You can have the music going, shove the window to the side or hide it, then read the Prologue or start formulating your response for the Discussion Board. However, whatever background listening you do, you’ll need to spend time listening in a more foreground, attentive way, too. You have to do so enough to have stuff stick for our listening tests and to inform appropriate critical judgments. • Weekly Playlists – This gives details on each week’s listening, including titles, movements, performers, timings, and recording information. • Summary Playlist – This is an overview of the repertoire for the whole semester. It also has abbreviated references to the performers and recording information— probably enough info if you want to hunt down your own copy. • Discussion Board – Within the Interactions menu you’ll find discussion boards for each section of our class. (Look at your class schedule to determine which of Sections A-C you’re enrolled in. Blackboard is set up so you can post only to your section.) Here’s where you post reactions to the week’s assigned listening and to my discussion questions. Start a thread or respond to someone else’s. Non-music majors (57-188) don’t have a weekly written requirement. But you do have a discussion board. If you have comments on the assigned music or the discussion question, feel free to converse. My TA’s and I will read what comes in. • Café – This is for musical conversation besides the assigned material. I know you listen to a lot of music besides what’s required for class. Your fellow classmates and I don’t want to miss anything good. So use this board to promote or discuss an upcoming concert (especially if you’re going to be in it), current movies with notable soundtracks, bands playing locally, and recordings you’ve recently heard. Or maybe there’s another recording of one of our assigned pieces which you think merits our attention. You can also give thumbnail reviews of, say, Pittsburgh Symphony concerts or productions at the opera. I’m curious to see how this special discussion board will evolve. I require only that our comments here and elsewhere be characterized by honesty, courtesy, and reasonably good taste (of which I am the final authority). WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS

Each week… Saturday, 8:00 p.m. – For those who wish to get a jump-start on the coming week, I’ll have the week’s Prologue feature (including discussion material) online at this time. The discussion material will be of three types: 1) a specific question, 2) your choice of two or three specific questions, or 3) I’ll often give you a kind of “open mic” where you respond to the listening in your own unique, thoughtful, creative, inimitable, charming, poetic, tragic, and comic way. But be relevant. Thursday, 12:00 midnight – By this time, you must have submitted a 100- to 200-word commentary/reflection based on my discussion question/s, informed by the music. I don’t want filibustering, but I will be lenient about the upper word limit.

4 Friday, 12:00 midnight – By this time, you must have submitted at least one 50-word response to someone else on the Discussion Board. But please feel free to respond beyond the minimum. I reserve the right to award extra points to students who make notable contributions to the quality of our discussion. Everybody’s posts will get read. I won’t necessarily respond to everyone personally every week. My graduate assistants will also participate. The complete Music Files and playlists are available for the full semester. You can listen to anything from the playlist whenever you want. The Café will always be open! EXAMS

There are two listening tests. One is at midterm; the other is during finals week. The final exam is the only component of Rep + Listening which is not online. Location and time will be announced in the University’s exam schedule, which is posted online. Occasionally, the Prologues feature online will contain tips on how best to prepare for the listening tests. Suffice it to say for now, a significant percentage of your listening test scores will be determined by whether answers represent a reasonable guess, based on distinguishing musical characteristics, not by whether you give opus numbers, key signature, precise years of composition, and the maiden name of the composer’s mother-in-law. This is not Jeopardy. GRADING

For 3 units (music majors—57-189): Up to 30% of the grade is determined by meeting the minimal requirement for participation in online discussion. Points may be added for those making notable contributions to the quality of our discussion. Up to 60% comes from midterm and final listening test scores. Up to 10% comes simply from your written assurance that you’ve listened to all the repertoire required this term, or accounting for how much was missed. This is on the honor system. You’ll be asked for an estimate on your Rep+Listening final. For 1 unit (non-music majors—57-188): While you aren’t required to submit online discussion or to take listening tests, I will ask you for written assurance that you’ve listened to all the repertoire required this term, or to account for how much was missed. You’ll be asked on your Survey final. This is on the honor system. Listening, nevertheless, will be rewarding, fun, and gorgeous, and it will help make lectures in Survey of Western Music History more understandable. You need to listen to at least 70% of the music to Pass. The overall course grading system is Pass/Fail (P/N). Passing is 70%.

5 FAQs How can I get the most out of this course? The most important thing is to keep up with the listening. I think if you listen to every piece attentively at least once, and maybe casually a second time while you’re doing other things, you should be fine. Also, the week or two before each exam gives you shorter play lists and extra time to review. Count on an average of 3-4 hours a week for everything—listening, discussion, review. Those who come with an above-average familiarity with repertoire may find it takes less time. As for the writing component (for majors), just getting discussion in on time is a significant percentage of your grade. If your contributions to our discussion stand out, I’ll give you extra percentage points towards your semester total. This is not a professional writing course, but since being articulate in public is an asset to establishing a musical career, I will give extra points if your writing is grammatical, stylish, not sloppy with such mechanics as - Punctuation : and speling, and, as Yoda might say, courteous is. How was the repertoire chosen? Key music faculty in various areas have been consulted in order to create a balanced playlist. The question to faculty has been, “What musical literature in your area should music majors not in your area have heard?” Based on this faculty input, as well as consultations with music critics, we’ve collated a master repertoire list. Then, from this we draw material for each semester, influenced by what’s being taught in Survey or Music History I and II, for example, or what CMU ensembles are performing in a particular semester. Over the two years of this curriculum, you’ll find a whole lot more instrumental music in Semesters I and II and an increase in vocal music for Semesters III and IV. But it all balances out eventually. How does this class interface with Survey of Western Music History? It complements it. But the focus of Rep + Listening is on 1) hearing lots of repertoire and 2) critique; Survey puts the music in a historical-cultural context. Survey is a one-semester, full-credit, 9-unit class; Rep + Listening is a multi-semester, 3- or 1unit proficiency curriculum. For your first semester, what you learn about in Survey and what you hear in Rep + Listening will reinforce each other, like a picture and a frame. The remaining three semesters of Rep + Listening which are required of music majors will reinforce what you are learning in form and analysis, orchestration, counterpoint, studio, ensembles, and more. I’m a tuba major. Why do I have to listen to all this violin or piano repertoire? If you are a music major, whatever your concentration, the focus is on music and how you can move, entertain, and even change audiences with it. Suppose you are a tuba major. If most of what you listen to is tuba or brass music, you will probably have little more than a safe, ordinary career. If, however, you hear music-making outside your narrow area of specialization, you’ll get ideas which may make you think, “I wonder if I could do that…” There is nobody—at least nobody who could get into CMU—who can’t learn from the way violinist Jascha Heifetz turns a phrase, the x-ray vision conductor George Szell brought to orchestral scores, the risk-taking of the Guarneri String Quartet, or the way

composer Francis Poulenc borrowed from everybody without sounding like anybody but himself. Also, the music business is so crowded with hopefuls, I believe that your only chance at good gigs is to jump a level from being a mere pro to being an artist. Nobody is outstanding or unique in a vacuum; one must have many inspirations. And so Rep + Listening will give you many inspirations. It will hopefully encourage habits of curiosity which will continually inspire you as long as you make music. Also, it’s good for composers and violinists et al. to know what a tuba can do.

LEGAL NOTICE: No student may make an audio or video recording of any classroom activity without the express written consent of Paul Johnston. If a student believes that s/he is disabled and needs to record or tape classroom activities, s/he should contact the Office of Disability Resources to request an appropriate accommodation.