Samuel Breene Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance February 6, 2012 FYS 100: TENTATIVE SYLLABUS THE POWER OF SOUND: EXPLORING EMOTION IN MUSIC

Required Text: Daniel J. Levitin, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. New York: Plume, 2007.

Reading List: Becker, Judith. “Music and Trance.” Leonardo Music Journal 4 (1991): 41–51. Erlmann, Veit, ed. Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004. Horden, Peregrine, ed. Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. Juslin, Patrik N., and John A. Sloboda, eds. Music and Emotion: Theory and Research. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Laderman, Carol, and Marina Roseman, eds. The Performance of Healing. New York: Routledge, 1996. Lehrer, Jonah. Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Boston and New York: Mariner, 2008. Meyer, Leonard B. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961. Mithen, Steven. The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. Robinson, Jenefer, ed. Music and Meaning. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. New York: Vintage, 2007. Sullivan, Jack. Hitchcock’s Music. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006. Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin, eds. Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. New York and London: Schirmer, 1984.

Course Calendar: Week 1: What Is Music? What Is Emotion? Reading: Levitin, Chapter 1 Listening: selections from Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, the Beatles, David Bowie, etc. Subtopics: Defining pitch, interval, major/minor scale, key Week 2: Hearing Colors: Understanding Overtones and Timbre Reading: excerpts from Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia Listening: selections from Berlioz, Ravel, Ellington, Hendrix, Paul Simon Subtopics: Instruments of the orchestra; Electric instruments [power chords and distortion]; Overtone singing [view scenes from Genghis Blues]; Synaesthesia Week 3: Getting in the Groove: Rhythm, Motion, and Emotion Reading: Levitin, Chapter 2 Listening: selections from Bach, Sousa, Presley, Brubeck Subtopics: Defining tempo and meter; Unusual meters (5/4, 7/8, etc.); Feeling musical vibration/pulse [view scenes from Touch the Sound and/or Evelyn Glennie’s lecture/demo “How to listen to music with your whole body”] Week 4: Historical Interlude 1: Representing the “Passions” in Renaissance and Baroque Music Reading: Penelope Gouk, “Raising Spirits and Restoring Souls: Early Modern Medical Explanations for Music’s Effects,” in Erlmann; Descartes/Mattheson, “The Breene 2

Mature Baroque: The Doctrine of Affections,” in Weiss and Taruskin Listening: Lute-ayres of John Dowland; Arias from Handel’s operas and Bach’s Passions Subtopics: The humors; Objectifying emotion; Elizabethan cult of melancholy; the da capo aria Week 5: The Complex Emotions of “Sad” Music Reading: Stephen Davies, “Why Listen to Sad Music if It Makes One Feel Sad?” in Robinson Listening: The blues Subtopics: Philosophical approaches toward music and emotion Week 6: The Pleasure of Patterns: Melodic and Harmonic Dimensions Reading: Levitin, Chapter 3 & 4 Listening: selections from Schubert, Verdi, Armstrong, Gillespie Subtopics: Mind vs. brain; Anatomy of the brain; Processing sound and musical schemas Week 7: Remembering the Past, Predicting the Future: How Musical Memory Works Reading: Levitin, Chapter 5 Listening: Comparative exercises (same song in different styles) Subtopics: Earworms; Musical surprises Week 8: Historical Interlude 2: Emotional Rollercoasters: Subjectivity in Romantic Instrumental Music Reading: selections on the aesthetics of Romantic music (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Schumann) Listening: Romantic piano music (Chopin, Schumann) and symphonies (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky) Subtopics: Debates about musical beauty; Music as a representation of the composer’s emotions Week 9: Special Topic: Movie Music Reading: excerpts from Jack Sullivan, Hitchcock’s Music Viewing: scenes from Hitchcock’s Vertigo or Psycho Subtopics: Leitmotives; History of music and madness Week 10: Becoming a Virtuoso in 10,000 Hours: Relating Musical Skill and Emotional Depth Reading: Levitin, Chapter 7; Simon André Tissot on the child Mozart Listening: Mozart’s piano concertos; Contemporary examples of musical skill [bluegrass jam sessions, virtuosity in heavy metal, American Idol, etc.] Subtopics: Child prodigies; Improvisation Week 11: Learning to Like It: How We Acquire Musical Tastes Reading: Levitin, Chapter 8 Listening: Soothing music, e.g., Gregorian chant, lullabies (Brahms), crooning (Sinatra) Subtopics: Infant/caregiver interactions (motherese); Feelings of safety and vulnerability in music; Neuroplasticity Week 12: Historical Interlude 3: The Limits of Perception: From Expressionism to “Noise” in Twentieth-Century Music Reading: Jonah Lehrer, “Igor Stravinsky: The Source of Music,” in Proust Was a Neuroscientist Listening: excerpts from Stravinsky and Schoenberg Subtopics: Dissonance and atonality; “Danger” music Week 13: The Essence of Humanity or “Auditory Cheesecake”?: Evolutionary Debates on Music Reading: Levitin, Chapter 9; selections from Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals Breene 3

Listening: TBD Subtopics: Animal vocalization and courtship; Social bonding; Cognitive flexibility and creativity; Universality of musical emotion Week 14: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Music and Emotion Reading: Judith Becker, “Music and Trance”; Keith Howard, “Shamanism, Music, and the Soul Train,” in Horden; Carol Laderman, “The Poetics of Healing in Malay Shamanistic Performances,” in Laderman and Roseman Listening: Music from south and southeast Asia (Indian ragas, Javanese gamelan, etc.) Subtopics: Brain waves and rhythmic entrainment; Healing effects of Tibetan singing bowls; Technoshamanism

Sample Writing Assignments: 1) Listening Journal (weekly entries) Throughout the semester, seminar participants are expected to keep a journal. While the writing may be informal, it should demonstrate critical listening and should apply terms and concepts from class to each entry. Journals will be evaluated periodically.

2) My Music (1–2 pages) Describe your experience with music, either as a listener or performer. What are some of the most moving musical experiences you have had? Where do you typically listen to music? What types of music tend to trigger emotional reactions for you, and why do you think you respond the way you do? Although informal, this paper should be well organized and well written.

3) Concert review (2–3 pages) Write a review of a performance at Rhode Island College, in Providence, or beyond. Your review should apply the musical terminology that we have learned in class, and it should describe the emotional responses you felt or witnessed as part of the live musical experience. You may also wish to critique the quality of the performance, describe the performers’ gestures and interactions, or comment on audience behavior and reaction. For examples of professional reviews, you may find it useful to consult the Arts section of the New York Times.

NOTE: The musical performance you attend need not be a formal concert, but could take place at a jazz club, outdoor festival, Waterfire event, etc.

4) Comparative listening and analysis (3–4 pages) In This Is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin writes that “music is quite robust in the face of transformations and distortions of its basic features. We can change all of the pitches used in the song (transposition), the tempo, and the instrumentation, and the song is still recognized as the same song. We can change the intervals, the scales, even the tonality from major to minor or vice versa. We can change the arrangement—say from bluegrass to rock, or heavy metal to classical—and, as the Led Zeppelin lyric goes, the song remains the same.” (p. 149).

With this in mind, your task is to complete a comparative analysis, which you will present in essay format. Listen to three versions of the same song and describe similarities and differences in tempo, instrumentation, timbre/texture, dynamics, articulation/phrasing, and any other musical Breene 4 features of significance. In addition to detailed analysis of each song, your essay should have a well-formed introduction and conclusion.

5) Analyzing the portrayal of emotions in opera (4–5 pages) We have analyzed how musical sound shapes the experience of film, but similar experiences transpire in opera, a genre with a long cultural history. This assignment will provide the opportunity to become familiar with one of the great operatic masters, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After attending the evening viewing of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro), you are asked to analyze Mozart’s musical portrayal of one or more of the main characters: Figaro, Susanna, Cherubino, the Count, or the Countess. Here are some questions to consider: What kinds of emotions do the characters convey through their singing and acting? What kinds of emotional relationships exist between characters? How does Mozart’s music shape the operatic experience, and what role does the orchestra play? To aid your analysis, I will distribute a listening guide with information about the plot and a brief description of each aria and ensemble number.

NOTE: Students unable to attend the opera gathering may watch Figaro via the streaming database Opera in Video, available through Adams Library.