SOUND
Curtis Institute of Music
Prof. Thomas Patteson
[email protected]
Spring 2019
Wednesdays, 10:00-11:50am
Lenfest 310
Attendance and Participation
I expect you to be regular in attendance, on time, and well-prepared for class. Because we meet only once a week, more than two unexcused absences may lead to you being removed from the class.
This class is a seminar, meaning that it is structured as a guided conversation that requires lots of input from the students. The amount of reading is substantial—30 to 50 pages per week—so please budget your time accordingly. If you are unable to do all the reading, you should do your best to skim the articles and identify the authors’ key points.
Leader and Scout
For each class session, one student will be the leader and one will be the scout. The leader is responsible for helping to energize our discussion of the readings. Having carefully read all the relevant texts, they should be ready to offer summaries of the key points in each reading, as well as questions to start our conversation. The scout is responsible for bringing to class something they have “found” that is somehow relevant to our thinking about sound: it could be a short reading, a composition, an instrument, a video, a sound, etc. Use your imagination! The scout will share their finding with the class and explain how it connects to the questions we’ve been asking.
Listening Journal
Twice during the second half of the semester, students will turn in a listening journal. Choose a place to sit quietly and listen for as long as possible. You may take notes as you listen. Then write one or two pages and reflect on your experience. What did you hear? How did it make you feel? Did you notice anything about the environment that you hadn’t before? You can be creative with this assignment.
Field Recording
Students will make a field recording (a recording of an environment). Choose a setting—completely up to you—and record (using your phone or another device) for as long as you can (at least 10 minutes). Listen to the recording. What do you notice? What do you hear that you didn’t in “real time”? Write one page of your observations. Students will share their recordings in class.
Instrument Profile
Get to know your instrument! Using the internet and the library, do some research on the acoustics of your instrument. Answer the following questions:
Final Project
Students will complete final projects of their own devising. Projects should be substantial undertakings that involve 10 or so hours of work outside class. They may culminate in a research paper, audio or video recording, performance, or other event or artifact. More details will be shared later in the semester.
Grading:
Attendance and Participation: 40%
Class Leader: 10%
Class Scout: 10%
Field recording: 5%
Instrument profile: 5%
Listening journal: 10% (2 x 5%)
Final Project: 20%
COURSE SCHEDULE
All reading, listening, and viewing assignments are to be completed in advance of the class session for which they are listed.
Week 1 (Jan. 16): Introduction and Overview
Week 2 (Jan. 23): Starting Points
Reading:
Viewing:
Week 3 (Jan. 30): The Science of Sound and Hearing
Reading:
Viewing:
Assignment: Instrument Profile (see above for description)
Week 4 (Feb. 6): Sound in Instrumental Music
Reading:
Listening:
Week 5 (Feb. 13): The Sounds (and Music?) of Nature
Reading:
Listening:
Week 6 (Feb. 20): Synthetic and Recorded Sound
Reading:
Viewing/Listening:
Week 7 (Feb. 27): Listening
Reading:
Assignment: Listening Journal #1 due (hand in hard copy in class)
Week 8 (Mar. 6): Sound and Spirituality
Reading:
Listening:
Spring Break!
Week 9 (Mar. 20): Special Guest - Sound artist Michael McDermott
Reading:
Week 10 (Mar. 27): Anthropologies of Sound
Reading:
Listening:
Assignment: Make a field recording (see description above)
Week 11 (Apr. 3): Sound as Music
Reading:
Listening:
Week 12 (April 10): No class
Week 13 (April 17): TBD
Week 14 (April 24): TBD
Assignment: Listening Journal #2 due (hand in hard copy in class)
Week 15: (May 1): Final project presentations
Final project due date: Tuesday, May 7 (exam week)
Curtis Institute of Music
Prof. Thomas Patteson
[email protected]
Spring 2019
Wednesdays, 10:00-11:50am
Lenfest 310
Attendance and Participation
I expect you to be regular in attendance, on time, and well-prepared for class. Because we meet only once a week, more than two unexcused absences may lead to you being removed from the class.
This class is a seminar, meaning that it is structured as a guided conversation that requires lots of input from the students. The amount of reading is substantial—30 to 50 pages per week—so please budget your time accordingly. If you are unable to do all the reading, you should do your best to skim the articles and identify the authors’ key points.
Leader and Scout
For each class session, one student will be the leader and one will be the scout. The leader is responsible for helping to energize our discussion of the readings. Having carefully read all the relevant texts, they should be ready to offer summaries of the key points in each reading, as well as questions to start our conversation. The scout is responsible for bringing to class something they have “found” that is somehow relevant to our thinking about sound: it could be a short reading, a composition, an instrument, a video, a sound, etc. Use your imagination! The scout will share their finding with the class and explain how it connects to the questions we’ve been asking.
Listening Journal
Twice during the second half of the semester, students will turn in a listening journal. Choose a place to sit quietly and listen for as long as possible. You may take notes as you listen. Then write one or two pages and reflect on your experience. What did you hear? How did it make you feel? Did you notice anything about the environment that you hadn’t before? You can be creative with this assignment.
Field Recording
Students will make a field recording (a recording of an environment). Choose a setting—completely up to you—and record (using your phone or another device) for as long as you can (at least 10 minutes). Listen to the recording. What do you notice? What do you hear that you didn’t in “real time”? Write one page of your observations. Students will share their recordings in class.
Instrument Profile
Get to know your instrument! Using the internet and the library, do some research on the acoustics of your instrument. Answer the following questions:
- How does it make sound?
- How can its timbre be described in acoustic terms?
- How can the player control the timbre? What are some extended or unconventional techniques?
Final Project
Students will complete final projects of their own devising. Projects should be substantial undertakings that involve 10 or so hours of work outside class. They may culminate in a research paper, audio or video recording, performance, or other event or artifact. More details will be shared later in the semester.
Grading:
Attendance and Participation: 40%
Class Leader: 10%
Class Scout: 10%
Field recording: 5%
Instrument profile: 5%
Listening journal: 10% (2 x 5%)
Final Project: 20%
COURSE SCHEDULE
All reading, listening, and viewing assignments are to be completed in advance of the class session for which they are listed.
Week 1 (Jan. 16): Introduction and Overview
Week 2 (Jan. 23): Starting Points
Reading:
- Aristotle, excerpt from De anima (On the Soul)
- Max Peter Baumann, “Listening to Nature, Noise and Music”
- R. Murray Schafer, “Music and the Soundscape”
Viewing:
- Pierre Schaeffer, excerpt from Solfège de l’objet sonore
- Pauline Oliveros, “The Difference between Hearing and Listening”
Week 3 (Jan. 30): The Science of Sound and Hearing
Reading:
Viewing:
Assignment: Instrument Profile (see above for description)
Week 4 (Feb. 6): Sound in Instrumental Music
Reading:
Listening:
- Arnold Schoenberg, Five Orchestral Pieces, No. 3 (“Farben”)
- Three Variations on “Plum Blossom” for guqin
Week 5 (Feb. 13): The Sounds (and Music?) of Nature
Reading:
- R. Murray Schafer, “The Natural Soundscape” and “The Sounds of Life”
- David Dunn, notes to Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond
- Trevor Hold, “Messiaen’s Birds”
Listening:
- David Dunn, Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond
- Olivier Messiaen, Le réveil d’oiseaux
- “Aeolian Harp”
Week 6 (Feb. 20): Synthetic and Recorded Sound
Reading:
- Tara Rodgers, “Synthesis” (Keywords in Sound, 208-221)
- Brian Eno, “Ambient Music” (Audio Culture, 94-97 and Book of Music and Nature, 139-142)
- Michael Bull, “iPod Culture: The Toxic Pleasures of Audiotopia”
Viewing/Listening:
Week 7 (Feb. 27): Listening
Reading:
- Michel Chion, “The Three Listening Modes”
- David Huron, “Listening Styles and Listening Strategies”
- Kyle Gann, “4’33” at First Listening” (No Such Thing as Silence, pp. 1-31)
Assignment: Listening Journal #1 due (hand in hard copy in class)
Week 8 (Mar. 6): Sound and Spirituality
Reading:
- Hazrat Inayat Khan, “The Music of the Spheres” (Book of Music and Nature, 13-20)
- Ian W. Mabbett, “Buddhism and Music”
- Pauline Oliveros, “On Sonic Meditation”
Listening:
- “Tibetan monks practicing multiphonic chanting”
- “Chap Tilak by Fanna-Fi-Allah” (Sufi Qawwali)
- “Pauline Oliveros’s ‘Tuning Meditation’ at The Met Cloisters”
Spring Break!
Week 9 (Mar. 20): Special Guest - Sound artist Michael McDermott
Reading:
- Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening - Read only Foreword, Preface, and Introduction (pp. 6-16 of the PDF)
- Hildegard Westerkamp, Sound Walking
Week 10 (Mar. 27): Anthropologies of Sound
Reading:
Listening:
Assignment: Make a field recording (see description above)
Week 11 (Apr. 3): Sound as Music
Reading:
Listening:
- Edgard Varèse, Ionisation
- Krzysztof Penderecki, Anaklasis
- Helmut Lachenmann, Pression
- Karlheinz Stockhausen, Elektronische Studie II
- Jonathan Harvey, Vivos Voco Mortuos Plango
- Gérard Grisey, Partiels
Week 12 (April 10): No class
Week 13 (April 17): TBD
Week 14 (April 24): TBD
Assignment: Listening Journal #2 due (hand in hard copy in class)
Week 15: (May 1): Final project presentations
Final project due date: Tuesday, May 7 (exam week)
