Revised schedule

We are behind schedule, or at least my original schedule - here is a possible revision, ideas welcome!

Week 7, March 4
Each of us brings in one or two moments of a film score, discuss aspects of representation. What is the music representing, in your scene(s) of choice? How is it representing? Is it playing with or against stereotype? Those are some beginning questions; there is lots of literature on film music, but we have enough reading already, so I will leave it up to you if you'd like to dive into this (of course if you decide on film music for a final topic I'll expect a bibliography).

Other topics:

• Mithen, Fitch on evolution
• Music and neuroscience
• Infant-directed speech, pet-directed speech
• Ligeti, Kubrick & 2001: A Space Odyssey (and film music in general). Movie night either Wednesday or Thursday

Week 8, March 11

• Hofstadter concluded
• Program music
• Hatten & topics
• Wagner & leitmotifs

Week 9, March 18

• Presentations on program music & musical representation

Spring Break

Week 10, April 1

• The Sonification Handbook

Week 11, April 8

• The Sonification Handbook, continued

Week 12, April 15

• Tom Johnson, Looking at Numbers
• Sonification & SuperCollider, other programs

Week 13, April 22

• Sonification & Max

Week 14, April 29

• Preparation for final presentation (or concert?)

Tim Smith on Bach's fugues and religious symbolism

At the website for the Oregon Bach Festival, Tim Smith has created a quite beautiful analysis and performance of the Well-Tempered Clavier. I found this weeks ago by accident and finally re-found it; to my layperson's mind the B minor fugue is one of the best examples I've seen of Bach's religious symbolism. Highly recommended!

There is also an older article at his Northern Arizona University website on the 25th variation of the Goldberg Variations, "That Crown of Thorns" - another good example of Bach and extramusical references.

Singing Neanderthal readings

Let's try the following schedule for Steven Mithen's The Singing Neanderthals. Like the Hofstadter, we won't have quizzes on the readings, and it's OK if you skim some parts; but our discussions will be more fruitful if we all read together. From time to time I will probably ask for some blog comments to get things rolling.

for Friday, March 4, pp. 1-61:

• Chapter 1, The mystery of music
• (Part One: The Present) Chapter 2, More than cheesecake?
• Chapter 3, Music without language
• Chapter 4, Language without music

for Friday, March 11, pp. 62-104:

• Chapter 5, The modularity of music and language
• Chapter 6, Talking and singing to baby
• Chapter 7, Music hath charms and can heal

for Friday, March 18, pp. 105-165:

• (Part Two: The Past)
• Chapter 8: Grunts, barks and gestures
• Chapter 9: Songs on the savannah
• Chapter 10: Getting into rhythm
• Chapter 11: Imitating nature

for Friday, April 1, pp. 166-278 (includes spring break):

• Chapter 12: Singing for sex
• Chapter 13: The demands of parenthood
• Chapter 14: Making music together (maybe the least convincing chapter?)
• Chapter 15: Neanderthals in love
• Chapter 16: The origin of language
• Chapter 17: A mystery explained, but not diminished

Hofstadter readings

Greetings from New York! Sorry I can't make class today, but I have finally figured out which excerpts from Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach we should read, with a quasi-schedule:

for Friday, Feb. 26:

• Introduction & Three-Part Invention (which we already read)
• Chapter I: The MU-puzzle
• Two-Part Invention
• Chapter II: Meaning and Form in Mathematics
• Contracrostipunctus
• Chapter IV: Consistency, Completeness, and Geometry

for Friday, March 4:

• Little Harmonic Labyrinth
• Chapter V: Recursive Structures and Processes
• Canon by Intervallic Augmentation
• Chapter VI: The Location of Meaning
• Crab Canon

for Friday, March 11:

• Chapter XI: Brains and Thoughts
• English French German Suite
• Chapter XVI: Self-Ref and Self-Rep
• The Magnificrab, Indeed

I would also like you to start on Mithen's The Singing Neanderthals; I will post a reading schedule for that soon. In the meantime, for the Hofstadter, the idea is to give us some interesting ideas to talk about, and possibly some food for thought as we prepare analyses and mapping schemes for sonification. So I'm not going to "quiz" you on the readings, but they are really interesting (and if you do run into the occasional boring spot it's OK to skim). We'll have a better discussion if we all read it. Have a good weekend! Next week we will finish the Art of Fugue, and start on the Hofstadter.

LIN Ensemble, Art of Fugue

Here is an interesting arrangement for clarinet, cello and piano of the Bach - this is Contrapunctus XIII, one of fugues that works both right-side up and upside down.

Interestingly enough, this album features some Bach arrangements by the prominent Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, winner of the prestigious Gravemeyer award this year.

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

Here is the YouTube playlist for the Art of the Fugue, performed by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. This is my favorite recording, for style, tempo, and variety of instrumentation - but if you have a favorite recording please go ahead and post it!

Art of the Fugue

As we discussed in class, let's plan on a couple of weeks to tackle the Art of the Fugue. I don't want to get too far behind schedule, so it might be more like a week and a half; we'll see how it goes next Friday.

As Will did for the 3-part Ricercar from the Musical Offering, and Dakota and I did for the 6-part Ricercar, please label subject and answer wherever they appear, as well as false entries. Remember, the exposition is finished once all voices have entered. For Art of the Fugue, most pieces have four voices. Also try to do a little bit of harmonic analysis: what are the main key areas?

Any place where there is no subject or answer is known as an episode (or development, or "developmental episode); these passages are often sequential, or feature strettos, etc. One of my favorite fugue scholars, Tim Smith, has a terrific (old but still very useful) website at Northern Arizona University, with a handy glossary.

Finally, if you are interested you can download midi files for each fugue from imslp.org. These need a little bit of cleaning up, but overall they can be useful tools. Have fun!

Tori, Contrapunctus 1
Elisa, Contrapunctus 12
Mike, Contrapunctus 3
Guillermo, Contrapunctus 4
Will, Contrapunctus 5
Dakota, Contrapunctus 6
Qi, Contrapunctus 7
Ralph, Contrapunctus 8
Matt. Contrapunctus 9
John, Contrapunctus 10

Guillermo, Contrapunctus 11
Elisa, Contrapunctus 2
Mike, Contrapunctus 13
Tori, Contrapunctus 14
Ralph, Contrapunctus 15
Dakota, Contrapunctus 16 (inversion fugue)
Matt, Contrapunctus 18
Will, Contrapunctus 19
Qi, Contrapunctus 19

Contrapunctus IX

From the Art of the Fugue, with the amazing Akadamie für Alte Musik Berlin.