StMaryMusic

assignment for monday, october 30:

the next book we will be reading is the Jones/Baraka: Blues People. if you don't have it, get it. use the remainder of this week to finish up all the assignments for the first quarter (which ends on friday)

NO WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER FRIDAY FOR THE FIRST QUARTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!!!!

final vocab for Cook: hieing, tantalize, latent, perspicacious, optimism, pessimism, solipsism, predicated, fastidious

discussion questions:
is music a more personal, social, or cultural phenomenon?
what can music tell us about an individual? a culture?
why does music have "unique powers as an agent of ideology"?

assignment for the weekend of october 28:
finish reading "Music: A Very Short Introduction"

your beethoven papers should be finished.
for monday, turn in a rough draft of your final paper.
the topic can be anything discussed in the last 2 chapters of Cook.
people who went on the field trip may write about some aspect of the concert.
i've posted the beethoven and bartok pieces (see below) comparisons are a good place to start.

field trip:
we'll meet after school and take the train to penn station at 4:15. (we'll need to buy tickets)
subway (we need metro cards) up to 72nd.
get food,
watch concert (7:00 arrival time)
train back home around 10

bring your copies of the Cook.

i posted an index of the sound files at the hotcuprecords site.
www.hotcuprecords.com/music/index.rtf

P = piano
S = symphony
T = trio (chamber music)
L - lieder

assignment for tuesday, october 24:
REMEMBER: cook is talking about "classical" music in this chapter

read pp. 108 - 115

vocab: concision, indicative, replete, reiterate, inviolate, impute, austere, spurious

discussion questions:
does pop music "have gender" apart from that if its creator? (what about examples like the fact that a jewish man wrote "Killing me softly."?)
can Tomlinson's arguement (p. 114-115) be used to help explain the decline of "classical" music in America?
what differences do you hear between beethoven and schubert? i'm posting 3 examples at www.hotcuprecords.com/music/!@$#@$%:

symphonies: mvt. 1 of symph. 9 by beethoven (/muisc/beethovenS91.mp3) and mvt. 2 of the "unfinished" symph. by Schubert (/music/schubertS.mp3). (examples used on pp. 108-110)

chamber music: finales from beethoven's "Archduke" trio (/music/beethovenT.mp3) and schubert's "trout" quintet (/music/schubertT.mp3)

lieder (art songs): (/music/beethovenL.mp3) (/music/schubertL.mp3)

rough drafts of beethoven papers are now late. if you have not turned one in, get on it. also, if you're going to the concert on thursday, i need $44 and a signed permission slip. listen to the bartok piano concerto (/muisc/bartok.mp3) it's totally awesome!!!
stay on top of the work for the class.

assignment for monday, october 23:

read pp. 102 - 107 in Cook.

vocab: status quo


what other forces construct the canon of "masterworks" today?
what is the difference between the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones?
how do these differences change the way they are studied?
what do you think of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra? (p. 107)

paper info:

some of you have turned in your beethoven piano sonata papers. rough drafts are due monday, typed versions due by friday.
for the trip on thursday:
i posted a sound file of the bartok piano concerto on the hotcuprecords site. the version there is our good friend rudolph serkin playing it with the columbia symph and george szell conducting. rudy tears it up. listen to the piece before you go to see it on thursday.
www.hotcuprecords.com/music/bartok.mp3

also, listen to the other movements of beethoven's 5th symphony.
www.hotcuprecords.com/music/beethovenS52.mp3 ...change the "S52" part to "s53" and S54 for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th movements.
i also posted the last movement of symphony 9 "S9.mp3"
cook talks about the "ode to joy" theme in the chapter you are reading now. there's an analysis of it in the book.

assingment for thursday, october 19:

read pp. 94 - 101

vocab: spurious, rhetoric

keep working on your beethoven papers
i need $44 from everyone going on the trip next thursday.
see me to get permission slips

NOTIFICATION FOR FIELD TRIP
i just got 14 tickets to the show.
cost $44 each (they're better seats)
get the money to me by friday
checks made out to Matthew Elliott

if you have questions,
my email is : moppaelliott@hotmail.com

assignment for tuesday, october 17:

re-read pp 84 - 94 ...serioulsy. re-read it.

work on beethoven papers more. if you haven't listened to one version of the sonata AT LEAST 4 times, you're not going to be able to analyze it.

concerning beethoven paper:
having read a couple of these, i should offer some help. you need to listen to the recordings several, if not many times to begin to detect the differences between them. i would reccommend picking one to listen to over and over until you're very familiar with it before listening to the other two. you'll then hear the differences more clearly. in order to stress the importance of this, i'm granting you all an extension on this paper and it will be this week's assignment as well.
so...one rough draft by this friday.
if you already turned one in, assume that it needs a great deal of work and rewrite it for friday.

FIRST FIELD TRIP!!!
this is not a requirement, and there will be more.
on thursday, october 26, the new york philharmonic is playing a program of music that includes Beethoven's 5th symphony. the concert will be sold out, so there are no cheapo student tickets available. the tickets are $28 apiece for the show. anyone interested in going needs to tell me by the end of school tomorrow and bring me money by friday. here are the details:
thursday
4 PM - leave manhasset (you'll need to buy a train ticket to and from penn station)
5 PM - take the subway uptown to lincoln center (you'll need a metro card for 2 rides - $4)
5:30 - get food (you'll need some cash for eats)
7:00 - get to avery fischer hall for show at 7:30
9:30 - 10 ish - head back downtown to catch the train back to manhasset or whereever you're going.

total cost:
$28 for ticket
$8 or so for train
$4 for subway
$12 or so for food
=
$50-$55 when all is said and done

assignment for monday, october 16:

read pp. 85 - 94 (carefully and slowly)

vocab: avid, predicated, provisional, pejorative

many people are behind with papers. for this week, i should have a typed version of your third paper and a written version of the beethoven "appassionata" paper. the website is www.hotcuprecrods.com/music/beethovenP2.mp3 the files are P2-P8 (see below)
really concentrate on the differences between the two. things like tempo, dynamic change, phrasing, etc are most important. also, mr. good studied with mr. serkin....can you tell? is mr. laurent-amiard significantly different?

assignment for thursday, october, 12:

typed copy of third paper is due by tomorrow (friday)
over the weekend, work on your beethoven "appassionata" sonata.
rough draft is due monday!!!!
vocab by tomorrow!!!

assignment for wednesday, october 11: (my bro's birthday)

read pp. 79 - 84 in Cook

vocab: watershed, tenable, intrinsic, aspiration, prescriptive

discussion questions:
what difference is there between music you hear and music you participate in?
in what context can you separate the author from the performance? (pp 80-81)
why is western art music so strange? (compared to other traditions)
are YOU a stakeholder? (p. 82, line 29)
how do "ways of hearing" change over time? (in the rock and pop world?)
find music by the "Old Spice Girls." what do you think?
explain the second paragraph on page 84. especially the first 5 lines.

assignment for tuesday, october 10:

read pp. 74 - 78 in Cook

vocab: supplant, truncated, apocryphal, constitute, instigate, hermeneutic, remuneration, presage, vanguard

discussion questions:
who was Wittgenstein?
what is his relationship to language and music?
if language constructs meaning, how do record companies "make" you like certain things?
can a record company make an aritst "good" by saying that they are good?
describe Van Gogh's "Sunflower" paintings. look them up on Google Images
why do orchestras need conductors? why don't rock bands?

Papers for the week of october 9:
rough drafts may be picked up in imm. aud. final draft (typed) is due by thursday, oct 12.

for your next paper, everyone will be comparing three versions of the "appassionata" piano sonata by beethoven. there are three versions posted online. the first is by Richard Goode (.../music/beethovenP2.mp3, and P3, and P4. there are three movements) recorded 4 years ago, or so. the second is also recent. Pierre Laurent-Amiard (.../music/beethovenP5.mp3, and P6, and P7). the last is by Rudolph Serkin from 1962 (.../music/beethovenP8.mp3, all three movements in one track).
compare their styles, interpretations, etc. but stay away from sound quality (the last is burned from a record, so it'll have some pops and stuff) learn about each pianist. does their background alter the way they play?
500 words.
rough draft on monday, oct 16

i also posted the chopin and brahms pieces to be listened to.
www.hotcuprecords.com/music/chopin.mp3 this is one of his etudes that cook discusses
.../music/brhams1.mp3 this is one movement from his second symphony (possible future paper topic)

ASSIGNMENTS
many of you are failing to turn in your work on time. this IS a full credit class and late work will lower your grade. find an hour a day to work on the material and a time to drop it off in IMM. auditorium. Vocab! Papers!

assignment for the weekend of friday, october 6:

read pp. 58-73 in Cook.

vocab: florid, interstices, impinge, untrammelled, pertinent, abysmal, ineradicable, surrogates

discussion questions:
what is the function of notation?
how accurate must a performance be to be "authentic"? (p. 62)
do other artists suffer from the same inaccuracies as beethoven and mozart? (p. 62)
why is the piano so important to western music? what is its role?
why do we treat music as an imaginary object?
explain the last line in the first paragraph on page 71. (...changing the subject.)
which of the two theories at the end of the chapter do you side with? (pp. 71, 72, 73)

assignment for thursday, october 5:

read pp. 51-58 in Cook

vocab (DUE FRIDAY!!): apocryphal, precarious, contentious, sublimate,

rough draft of paper three due friday!!

discussion questions:
what is the importance of notation?
can you understand historical music without understanding notation?
are all recordings as vague as Moreschi's? (p. 55)

assignment for wednesday, october 4:

read pp. 43 - 50 in Cook
keep in mind that Cook is discussing "classical music" in these chapters

vocab: transient, poignant, monolithic, academia, niche, ubiquitous, banal,

ROUGH DRAFT OF THIRD PAPER IS DUE BY FRIDAY!!!!
PAPERS ARE IN RESPONSE TO CHAPTERS 2 OR 3 IN COOK.

discussion questions:
is classical music reaching a larger and larger audience? (p.46)
what is YOUR response to Brahms' symphonies (p. 49)...i'll post one tonite or tomorrow.

assignment for tuesday, october 3:

typed versions of papers are due!!!

read pp. 39-43 in Cook

vocab: culmination, autonomy, commodity, parlous, preposterous, post-colonial, apartheid, implicit, ethnocentric, pluralist

discussion questions:

Do music critics and members of the public "audience" have the same perspective on music?
Are composers and musicians similar to restaurateurs? (p. 40)
Is there a division between high and low art?(p.41)
What is meant by "apartheid" in the second paragraph on p. 42?