DOCSLIB.ORG

Making Your Classroom Go

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Making Your Classroom Go teaching OCTOBER 2015 VOLUME 23, NUMBER 2 A SMALL Makingmusicmusic Your BUT Classroom Go MIGHTY Music How to Program engage your students with the music “POP” of today TEACHING SINGERS to Sight-Read The Elementary and Secondary EDUCATION ACT QuaverFindOutAd_NAfME_Aug15.pdf 1 7/30/15 12:26 PM Find out what these districts already know... Quaver is revolutionizing music education! TM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Packed with nearly 1,000 Songs! Try 36 Lessons from our K-8 Curriculum! Just go to QuaverMusic.com/Preview and begin your FREE 30-day trial today! ©2015 QuaverMusic.com, LLC October 2015 Volume 23, Number 2 contentsMUSIC EDUCATION ● ORCHESTRATING SUCCESS Music students learn cooperation, discipline, and teamwork. 28 Teachers and students alike can rock out and learn with pop music! FEATURES 24 TEACHING SINGERS 28 POP AND ROCK GOES 32 EL SISTEMA TODAY 38 SMALL SCHOOL, TO READ THE PROGRAM! José Antonio Abreu’s BIG EFFORT, Instructing students in Pop music connects creation has taken GREAT SUCCESS the art and techniques instantly with many root in the U.S. and Alexandria Hanessian’s of sight-singing can reap students. How can continues to grow small but mighty middle many rewards in your music educators use through programs such school program thrives choral rehearsals and it in their classrooms as the Corona Youth in Spencertown, beyond. to increase student Music Project and New York. engagement? Juneau Alaska Music Matters. Photo by Little Kids Rock. Photo by nafme.org 1 October 2015 Volume 23, Number 2 Student composers contents (far left and right) work with teachers Conductor Marin Alsop 56 at Williamsville East works with students in High School. the OrchKids program. DISCOVERIES 12 The large brass choir 20 DEPARTMENTS TECHNOLOGY Technology for orchestra classrooms 22 LETTERS Opinions from our readers 6 WORKSHOP General Music CLASSROOMS Interdisciplinary reading 42 A program in New York requires students to Brass & Woodwinds create one composition each year. 12 Tips for creating a great saxophone tone 43 ADVOCACY Strings The Elementary and Secondary Education Assessment in the strings classroom 43 Act 14 Percussion Building a taiko drum ensemble RESEARCH 44 Can preparatory exercises help students Choral & Vocal with melodic dictation? 16 Effective warm-ups for high school choirs 44 PARTNERSHIPS Alternatives Be Part of the Band! 18 Building instruments with your students 45 10 STAGES Elementary Native American music in the classroom 47 Secondary High school band students— NEWS compose! 48 Collegiate UPBEAT 8 News on the 2016 All-American Marching Band Nonverbal communication on Creating a the podium 50 Cohesive Ensemble … NAfME Announces Candidates for 2016– 2018 National President-Elect … National Core Music Standards RESOURCES Move from Theory to Practice … NAfME recognizes Tri-M® Chapters New media and accessories for for Outstanding Work … 2015 National In-Service Conference … the music classroom 52 Drum Major, Musicians Announced for 2016 All-American Marching Band … Special Learners Preconference … 2015–2016 School Year BRAVA! Calendar … NAfME’s Back-to-School Teacher Resources Teaching Music salutes conductor Marin Alsop 56 Julia Cardillo/Drum Corps International. photo by from top left) courtesy of Stephen Shewan, Johns Hopkins University, (clockwise Photos by 2 Teaching Music OCTOBER 2015 powered by MatchmySound™ Finally here’s a truly a ordable way to allow your students to practice anytime, anywhere, on any internet-enabled device with instant feedback and exibility that has never been seen before. It’s PracticeFirst™, the new interactive practice tool created by MusicFirst in partnership MatchmySound™. Web-based – no software required Very a ordable and tailored for students of all Perfect for band, orchestral AND choral practice, PracticeFirst, levels, starting at only $6 per student per year powered by MatchmySound technology, gives teachers easy-to-use Comes with top content AND you can generate tools for creating assignments that are broad or individualized to your own each student. Assessment and feedback are instantaneous. Judges tone as well as rhythmic and pitch Student progress is accelerated and learning is fun! accuracy PracticeFirst is exclusively available through the MusicFirst online First time ever – works for polyphonic classroom and is fully integrated in the classroom’s gradebook, instruments like piano and guitar scheduling, portfolio-building and other features. Find out more Finally a practice and assessment tool perfect and sign up for a free demo at www.music rst.com/practice rst for choral students With MusicFirst it’s simple to teach and assess your students in a connected world. Find out more at www.music rst.com EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CEO Michael A. Butera Keep your classroom neat and organized. DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND COO Michael Blakeslee • Durable brushed aluminum melamine sides for EDITOR a sleek look that students will enjoy using Ella Wilcox COMMUNICATIONS CONTENT DEVELOPER • Strong hardwood DOUBLE STACK GUITAR RACK Rosalind C. Fehr rails for strength EDITORIAL ASSISTANT 69½"w 30¼"d 683/8"h Caroline Arlington • Safe and easy access For a listing of the NAfME National to instruments Executive Board, please see our website: nafme.org. • Transport unit with Unless specifically noted, articles wheels allows easy in Teaching Music do not necessarily represent the official policy of the mobility National Association for Music Education. Teaching Music is created for Guitar Racks NAfME by In Tune Partners, LLC. come with [email protected] CEO Irwin Kornfeld theft-deterrent PRESIDENT Will Edwards locking cables EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Emile Menasché EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Susan Poliniak CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jackie Jordan Holds 20+ ADVERTISING MANAGER Bill White cases/guitars PRODUCTION MANAGER Michael R. Vella BUSINESS MANAGER Barbara Boughton CONTRIBUTORS: Andrew S. Berman, CELLO RACK VIOLIN/VIOLA RACK Debbie Galante Block, Chad Criswell, 57"w 23"d 37"h 63"w 29"d 52"h Cynthia Darling, Justin W. Durham, Steve Fidyk, Josef Hanson, Cathy Applefield Ol- son, Adam Perlmutter, Joseph M. Pisano, Susan Poliniak, Paul Sigrist The National Association for Music Education is a voluntary, nonprofit organization representing all phases of music education in schools, colleges, universities, and teacher-education institutions. Active NAfME membership is open to all people engaged in music teaching or other educational work in music. Teaching Music (ISSN 1069-7446), an official magazine of the National Association for Music Education, is issued to members four times per year in August, October, January, and April at an annual subscription price of $10. Holds 4 Office of publication: National Association for cellos & bows Music Education, 1806 Robert Fulton Drive, Holds 20+ Reston, VA 20191-4348, U.S.A.; 703-860- violin/viola/trumpet cases 4000. Produced by In Tune Partners, LLC. Institutions may purchase one volume year of of various sizes and shapes four print issues for $200. Single copies of issues School District POs accepted. are $30. A limited number of back issues are available for purchase. Permission requests to Please mail to: reproduce or otherwise use material published in A&S Crafted Products, Box 26731, Elkins Park PA 19027 this journal should be submitted to Caroline Arlington at [email protected]. Periodicals or scan your PO and email to: [email protected] postage for Teaching Music is paid at Herndon, VA 20170, and at additional mailing offices. or fax to: 888-831-5464 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Teaching Music, 1806 Robert Fulton Drive, Reston, VA 20191-4348, U.S.A. Copyright ©2015 by the To see our NEW Double Bass Rack and National Association for Music Education. Printed in the U.S.A. Teaching Music is available via other racks, go to BandStorage.com 267-626-6123 electronic databases from most universities and libraries. 4 Teaching Music OCTOBER 2015 For all you do to shape your business, State Farm® is there. We can help you shape your policy to give you the coverage you want, with the service of an agent who’s a small business owner, just like you. Visit st8.fm/bizinsurance or contact an agent today. State Farm Florida Insurance Company, Winter Haven, FL | State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, State Farm General Insurance Company, Bloomington, IL State Farm Lloyds, Dallas, TX 1501986_STATEFARM_TEACHINGMUSIC_SEPTEMBER_8.187X10.indd 1 8/21/15 2:23 PM Letters Adjudication: A Learning They can’t possibly hear each other, trumpeter, United States Air Force Band Opportunity and, worse, I almost never see any (Ret.); Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Andrew Berman’s article “Judgment adjustments being made. Softer playing [email protected] Day” in the August 2015 Teaching Music allows better hearing. caught my interest; coincidentally, I The other common problem is Accentuate the Positive! wrote on the same subject for the balance. This is much harder to improve, It was wonderful to see composition NJMEA’s TEMPO Magazine about a since the adjudication is generally taking pedagogy addressed in the August 2015 year ago. I thought a few observations place on a strange stage in a strange hall. issue of Teaching Music. Interviewee would be relevant. It seems to be at its worst among jazz Robert Deemer oered several helpful I think one of the biggest problems is bands, where the rhythm electronics strategies for teachers encountering the perceived adversarial relationship (bass, guitar, and keyboard) drown out emerging composers, facilitating the between judges and performers. Many the wind instruments. Sometimes, a work of young composers, and seeking younger players seem to think that the change of setup can be of value. I’ve just the right thing to say to students adjudicator is sitting with sharpened heard numerous successful jazz bands tackling compositional challenges. pencil, eager to take o points for every that set up in a Deemer also noted that learning to little squeak or crack. In most cases, compose, just like learning to sing nothing could be further from the or play an instrument, is a process that truth.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Challenge of African Art Music Le Défi De La Musique Savante Africaine Kofi Agawu
    Document generated on 09/27/2021 1:07 p.m. Circuit Musiques contemporaines The Challenge of African Art Music Le défi de la musique savante africaine Kofi Agawu Musiciens sans frontières Article abstract Volume 21, Number 2, 2011 This essay offers broad reflection on some of the challenges faced by African composers of art music. The specific point of departure is the publication of a URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1005272ar new anthology, Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora, edited by DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1005272ar Ghanaian pianist and scholar William Chapman Nyaho and published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. The anthology exemplifies a diverse range of See table of contents creative achievement in a genre that is less often associated with Africa than urban ‘popular’ music or ‘traditional’ music of pre-colonial origins. Noting the virtues of musical knowledge gained through individual composition rather than ethnography, the article first comments on the significance of the Publisher(s) encounters of Steve Reich and György Ligeti with various African repertories. Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal Then, turning directly to selected pieces from the anthology, attention is given to the multiple heritage of the African composer and how this affects his or her choices of pitch, rhythm and phrase structure. Excerpts from works by Nketia, ISSN Uzoigwe, Euba, Labi and Osman serve as illustration. 1183-1693 (print) 1488-9692 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Agawu, K. (2011). The Challenge of African Art Music. Circuit, 21(2), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.7202/1005272ar Tous droits réservés © Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2011 This document is protected by copyright law.
    [Show full text]
  • Form in the Music of John Adams
    Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2018 Form in the Music of John Adams Michael Ridderbusch Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Ridderbusch, Michael, "Form in the Music of John Adams" (2018). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 6503. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/6503 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Form in the Music of John Adams Michael Ridderbusch DMA Research Paper submitted to the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Theory and Composition Andrew Kohn, Ph.D., Chair Travis D. Stimeling, Ph.D. Melissa Bingmann, Ph.D. Cynthia Anderson, MM Matthew Heap, Ph.D. School of Music Morgantown, West Virginia 2017 Keywords: John Adams, Minimalism, Phrygian Gates, Century Rolls, Son of Chamber Symphony, Formalism, Disunity, Moment Form, Block Form Copyright ©2017 by Michael Ridderbusch ABSTRACT Form in the Music of John Adams Michael Ridderbusch The American composer John Adams, born in 1947, has composed a large body of work that has attracted the attention of many performers and legions of listeners.
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of Minimalist Tendencies in Two Early Works by Terry Riley Ann Glazer Niren Indiana University Southeast First I
    An Examination of Minimalist Tendencies in Two Early Works by Terry Riley Ann Glazer Niren Indiana University Southeast First International Conference on Music and Minimalism University of Wales, Bangor Friday, August 31, 2007 Minimalism is perhaps one of the most misunderstood musical movements of the latter half of the twentieth century. Even among musicians, there is considerable disagreement as to the meaning of the term “minimalism” and which pieces should be categorized under this broad heading.1 Furthermore, minimalism is often referenced using negative terminology such as “trance music” or “stuck-needle music.” Yet, its impact cannot be overstated, influencing both composers of art and rock music. Within the original group of minimalists, consisting of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass2, the latter two have received considerable attention and many of their works are widely known, even to non-musicians. However, Terry Riley is one of the most innovative members of this auspicious group, and yet, he has not always received the appropriate recognition that he deserves. Most musicians familiar with twentieth century music realize that he is the composer of In C, a work widely considered to be the piece that actually launched the minimalist movement. But is it really his first minimalist work? Two pieces that Riley wrote early in his career as a graduate student at Berkeley warrant closer attention. Riley composed his String Quartet in 1960 and the String Trio the following year. These two works are virtually unknown today, but they exhibit some interesting minimalist tendencies and indeed foreshadow some of Riley’s later developments.
    [Show full text]
  • The Philip Glass Ensemble in Downtown New York, 1966-1976 David Allen Chapman Washington University in St
    Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) Spring 4-27-2013 Collaboration, Presence, and Community: The Philip Glass Ensemble in Downtown New York, 1966-1976 David Allen Chapman Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Chapman, David Allen, "Collaboration, Presence, and Community: The hiP lip Glass Ensemble in Downtown New York, 1966-1976" (2013). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 1098. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/1098 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Music Dissertation Examination Committee: Peter Schmelz, Chair Patrick Burke Pannill Camp Mary-Jean Cowell Craig Monson Paul Steinbeck Collaboration, Presence, and Community: The Philip Glass Ensemble in Downtown New York, 1966–1976 by David Allen Chapman, Jr. A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2013 St. Louis, Missouri © Copyright 2013 by David Allen Chapman, Jr. All rights reserved. CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Minimalism Post-Modernism Is a Term That Refers to Events After the So
    Post-Modernism - Minimalism Post-Modernism is a term that refers to events after the so-called Modern period. The term suggests that we are now using what we learned in the “modern” period, but mixing it with ideas from the more distant past. A major movement within Post-Modernism is Minimalism Minimalism mixes some Eastern philosophical principles involving chant and meditation with simple tonal materials. Basic definition of Minimalism: sustained or repetitive use of simple (often tonal) materials. The movement began with LaMonte Young (b.1935); he used simple textures and consonant materials; often called trance music. Terry Riley (b.1935) is credited with first minimalist work In C (1964). The piece has repeated high C’s on piano maintaining simple pulse. Score has 53 short motives to be played by a group any size; players play all 53 figures, repeating as many times and as frequently as desired. Performance ends when all players are done with all 53 figures. Because figures change in content, there is subtle but constantly shifting texture all the time. Steve Reich (b. 1936) prefers to call his music “Structural” not minimal. His music is influenced by his study of African drumming. Some of his early works use phasing, where a tape loop is set up: the tape records first sounds made by performer; then plays them back while performer continues to play. More layers are added, and gradually live sounds get ahead of play-back. Effect can be hypnotic: trance-like. Violin Phase (1967) is example. In Mid-70’s Reich expanded his viewpoint and his ensemble: Music for 18 Musicians is a little like In C, but there is much more variation in patterns.
    [Show full text]
  • “Classical” Minimalism
    from Richard Taruskin, “Oxford History of Western Music Volume V: Music in the Late Twentieth Century; Chapter 8: A Harmonious Avant-Garde?”. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from oxfordwesternmusic.com. “CLASSICAL” MINIMALISM For many listeners, the most characteristic and style-defining aspect of In C is the constant audible eighth-note pulse that underlies and coordinates all of the looping, and that seems, because it provides a constant pedal of Cs, to be fundamentally bound up with the work's concept. Like much modernist practice since at least Stravinsky, it puts the rhythmic spotlight on the “subtactile” level, accommodating and facilitating the free metamorphosis of the felt beat —for example, from quarters to dotted quarters at the twenty-second module of In C—and allows their multiple presence to be felt as levels within a complex texture. It may be surprising, therefore, to learn that the constant C-pulse was an afterthought, adopted in rehearsal for what seemed at the time a purely utilitarian purpose (simply to keep the group together in lieu of a conductor), and that it was not even Riley's idea. It was Reich's. Steve Reich came from a background very different from Young's and Riley's. Where they had a rural, working-class upbringing on the West Coast, Reich was born into a wealthy, professional- class family in cosmopolitan New York. Like most children of his economic class, Reich had traditional piano lessons and plenty of exposure to what in later years he mildly derided as the “bourgeois classics.” He had an elite education culminating in a Cornell baccalaureate with a major in philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Art Music Terms
    Modern Art Music Terms Aria: A lyrical type of singing with a steady beat, accompanied by orchestra; a songful monologue or duet in an opera or other dramatic vocal work. Atonality: In modern music, the absence (intentional avoidance) of a tonal center. Avant Garde: (French for "at the forefront") Modern music that is on the cutting edge of innovation.. Counterpoint: Combining two or more independent melodies to make an intricate polyphonic texture. Form: The musical design or shape of a movement or complete work. Expressionism: A style in modern painting and music that projects the inner fear or turmoil of the artist, using abrasive colors/sounds and distortions (begun in music by Schoenberg, Webern and Berg). Impressionism: A term borrowed from 19th-century French art (Claude Monet) to loosely describe early 20th- century French music that focuses on blurred atmosphere and suggestion. Debussy "Nuages" from Trois Nocturnes (1899) Indeterminacy: (also called "Chance Music") A generic term applied to any situation where the performer is given freedom from a composer's notational prescription (when some aspect of the piece is left to chance or the choices of the performer). Metric Modulation: A technique used by Elliott Carter and others to precisely change tempo by using a note value in the original tempo as a metrical time-pivot into the new tempo. Carter String Quartet No. 5 (1995) Minimalism: An avant garde compositional approach that reiterates and slowly transforms small musical motives to create expansive and mesmerizing works. Glass Glassworks (1982); other minimalist composers are Steve Reich and John Adams. Neo-Classicism: Modern music that uses Classic gestures or forms (such as Theme and Variation Form, Rondo Form, Sonata Form, etc.) but still has modern harmonies and instrumentation.
    [Show full text]
  • Minimalism and New Complexity in Solo Flute Repertoire by Twila Dawn Bakker Bachelor of Arts, Univer
    Two Responses to Modernism: Minimalism and New Complexity in Solo Flute Repertoire by Twila Dawn Bakker Bachelor of Arts, University of Alberta, 2008 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the School of Music Twila Dawn Bakker, 2011 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Two Responses to Modernism: Minimalism and New Complexity in Solo Flute Repertoire by Twila Dawn Bakker Bachelor of Arts, University of Alberta, 2008 Supervisory Committee Dr. Jonathan Goldman, School of Music Supervisor Dr. Michelle Fillion, School of Music Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. Jonathan Goldman, School of Music Supervisor Dr. Michelle Fillion, School of Music Departmental Member Wind repertoire, especially for flute, has received little focused attention in the musicological world especially when compared with other instruments. This gap in scholarship is further exacerbated when the scope of time is narrowed to the last quarter of the twentieth century. Although Minimalism and New Complexity are – at least superficially – highly divergent styles of composition, they both exhibit aspects of a response to modernism. An examination of emblematic examples from the repertoire for solo flute (or recorder), specifically focusing on: Louis Andriessen’s Ende (1981); James Dillon’s Sgothan (1984), Brian Ferneyhough’s Carceri d’Invenzione IIb (1984), Superscripto (1981), and Unity Capsule (1975); Philip Glass’s Arabesque in Memoriam (1988); Henryk Górecki’s Valentine Piece (1996); and Steve Reich’s Vermont Counterpoint (1982), allows for the similarities in both genre’s response to modernism to be highlighted.
    [Show full text]
  • Battles Around New Music in New York in the Seventies
    Presenting the New: Battles around New Music in New York in the Seventies A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Joshua David Jurkovskis Plocher IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY David Grayson, Adviser December 2012 © Joshua David Jurkovskis Plocher 2012 i Acknowledgements One of the best things about reaching the end of this process is the opportunity to publicly thank the people who have helped to make it happen. More than any other individual, thanks must go to my wife, who has had to put up with more of my rambling than anybody, and has graciously given me half of every weekend for the last several years to keep working. Thank you, too, to my adviser, David Grayson, whose steady support in a shifting institutional environment has been invaluable. To the rest of my committee: Sumanth Gopinath, Kelley Harness, and Richard Leppert, for their advice and willingness to jump back in on this project after every life-inflicted gap. Thanks also to my mother and to my kids, for different reasons. Thanks to the staff at the New York Public Library (the one on 5th Ave. with the lions) for helping me track down the SoHo Weekly News microfilm when it had apparently vanished, and to the professional staff at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and to the Fales Special Collections staff at Bobst Library at New York University. Special thanks to the much smaller archival operation at the Kitchen, where I was assisted at various times by John Migliore and Samara Davis.
    [Show full text]
  • Multiple Meters and Metrical Processes in the Music of Steve Reich
    Multiple Meters and Metrical Processes in the Music of Steve Reich Gretchen Horlacher Minimalist and repetitive music... reduces the elements of music to one, single component - periodicity. Pierre Boulez, New York Review of Books 31/1 1 (June 28, 1984): 14 That Steve Reich's music challenges listeners' rhythmic and metric faculties is well known; the composer himself has written "If I compose music that is to use repeating patterns and is also to remain interesting I must build in rhythmic ambiguity to make it possible for the ear to hear a given pattern beginning and ending in different places depending on slight differences of accent and on how one listens."1 Reich's statement draws our attention to two signal features of his metric language. First, a repeated motive may have more than one accentual interpretation; moreover, the contrasting interpretations differentiate the repeated motives, inviting the listener to engage in a process of comparison. Boulez's emphasis on periodicity is apt, for it is Reich's creative use of repetition within meter that gives the music its charge. Consider, for example, the music shown as Example la, a portion of Reich's 1967 Piano Phase, This excerpt from the two- piano work results from the superimposition of an original melody (played on one piano, and shown in filled-in noteheads in the top line of the example) with a cyclical permutation beginning on its sixth note (played on the other piano, and shown in open noteheads on the top line); the resulting two-part counterpoint is repeated many times over.
    [Show full text]
  • Rethinking Minimalism: at the Intersection of Music Theory and Art Criticism
    Rethinking Minimalism: At the Intersection of Music Theory and Art Criticism Peter Shelley A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2013 Reading Committee Jonathan Bernard, Chair Áine Heneghan Judy Tsou Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Music Theory ©Copyright 2013 Peter Shelley University of Washington Abstract Rethinking Minimalism: At the Intersection of Music Theory and Art Criticism Peter James Shelley Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Dr. Jonathan Bernard Music Theory By now most scholars are fairly sure of what minimalism is. Even if they may be reluctant to offer a precise theory, and even if they may distrust canon formation, members of the informed public have a clear idea of who the central canonical minimalist composers were or are. Sitting front and center are always four white male Americans: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. This dissertation negotiates with this received wisdom, challenging the stylistic coherence among these composers implied by the term minimalism and scrutinizing the presumed neutrality of their music. This dissertation is based in the acceptance of the aesthetic similarities between minimalist sculpture and music. Michael Fried’s essay “Art and Objecthood,” which occupies a central role in the history of minimalist sculptural criticism, serves as the point of departure for three excursions into minimalist music. The first excursion deals with the question of time in minimalism, arguing that, contrary to received wisdom, minimalist music is not always well understood as static or, in Jonathan Kramer’s terminology, vertical. The second excursion addresses anthropomorphism in minimalist music, borrowing from Fried’s concept of (bodily) presence.
    [Show full text]
  • In Steve Reich's Phase-Shifting Music
    Structural Levels and Choice of Beat-Class Sets in Steve Reich's Phase-Shifting Music Roberto Antonio Saltini In his 1968 essay "Music as a Gradual Process," Steve Reich discussed the ideas underlying his compositional technique of phase-shifting,1 which was to characterize his music from 1965 to 197 1.2 Aside from this essay by the composer himself, very few studies of Reich's phase-shifting music have appeared.3 From "Music as a Gradual Process," one can summarize Reich's main concerns as follows: (1) The musical structure must be clear, as in compositions where structure (in Reich's terms, "process") and musical content are identical. There can be no "hidden" structures which, according to Reich, serve only to obscure the musical process. (2) Once the musical process is set into motion, it has a life of its own and therefore needs no further interference from the composer. (3) Improvisation plays no part in the musical process, since most of the musical parameters created by improvisation cannot be easily identified. (4) No matter how objective and 1 Steve Reich, Writings about Music (Halifax: Press of Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design, 1974), 9-11. ^For a comprehensive list of Reich's works which employ the phase- shifting technique, see Reich, 73-75. The date boundaries were established by Reich himself in a later essay, "Notes on Composition, 1965-1973" (Reich, 49-71). ^Indeed, very few analytical studies of any of Reich's compositions have appeared. For a representative sampling, though somewhat dated, of the more important European articles, see K.
    [Show full text]