That harmony article

The 3 page summary, "The Geometry of Musical Chords" was available for the clicking (that's what I wanted you to bite into) on the website as listed in my earlier post. You can get it by following the instructions to find the PDF.

Good luck with making it through the article!

ZIPs uploaded for tomorrow

OK, I've uploaded what I could - sorry if I lost things along the way, couldn't open your file, or edited out the wrong piece. From the little I've had a chance to listen to, I think you'll have plenty (!!) to talk about and listen to tomorrow.

Please let me know how the class meeting goes, and I hope to see you a week from tomorrow.

ZIP archives

The ZIP archive files will be posted here for the time being: http://www.nmt.edu/~music/mus489s07/

The date indicates which class period they're for (although discussion may continue into other classes). For Wednesday, anything with "perc" in the title is an excerpt of what you've sent me for percussion examples (I've clipped out pieces of the longer ones), and anything with "comp" in the title contains your work.

As you send in more recordings, I will add more ZIP files - time allowing - tomorrow afternoon.

Assignments: current and next

Here are the current assignments...

By Tuesday at noon:

1. Send me an mp3 clip (someone else's music) that employs percussion in what you find to be an interesting way. If the clip is longer than a couple minutes, indicate when in the clip the interesting percussion occurs -- that way I'll edit it down to a smaller size for downloading.

2. Working together, each individual should compose another short piecelet (21-30 seconds again), just for some time-on-task. Midi focus again, but you may also include real instruments.

3. Find a singer or instrumentalist outside of the class who you'd like to work with on a future assignment, which will involve composing music for that person to perform.

If you get all the clips to me and I am able to in time, I'll list a ZIP file for download as before. If I am not able to in time, bring your materials on either a regular audio CD or an mp3 player to class on Wednesday. You may have to ask Paul for help in setting up the audio system before class and putting it away after class. In class, listen first to everyone's composition, and then (time allowing) to the examples of percussion. "Talk amongst yourselves." (i.e. discuss at will)

For Wednesday, February 14th:

Visit this website and browse around and read: http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri/sciencearticle.html

I have read somewhere that this is the first music theory/composition article of its kind to appear in the journal Science. We'll discuss this article in class on the 14th.

P.S. about the TCC's short hours: http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/hours.html

I will not be there Wednesday

Due to an ongoing family medical crisis, I will not be able to be in class Wednesday, Febrary 7th. I think we can figure out ahead of time a way for the class to meet and/or share composition materials in a mutually useful way - I'll think about this over the weekend, and please post comments with ideas in reply to this post.

Possibility for next week

Good evening, all. There is a chance I will not be able to be in class next week, owing to an ongoing family medical emergency. This weekend, I will spend some time trying to figure out how I might coordinate our class remotely (and perhaps asynchronously) next week, if necessary. Thank you for your understanding and flexibility.

If it looks like my absences may have to extend beyond next week, I'll look into other solutions -- I'll work not to leave you in the lurch.

Good class today! I'm looking forward to hearing your work over the course of the semester.

Welcome to the MUS 489 blog

Please bookmark this page (or, better yet, subscribe to this blog), as this is where I will post course announcements and other general information relating to our work this semester.

I'm sorry I was unable to meet last Wednesday; I was out of town owing to a family emergency. Let's dive in this Wednesday.

Here is a list of topics that interest you (drawn from our first class meeting). These are some of the topics I'll work to fold into our semester (don't expect long lectures, though.... I'll be keeping my monologues very brief and focussing our time on your compositions and sending you in directions to get more information that will fuel you):

• using time and time-signatures cleverly


• percussion instruments and moods - moving past "just keeping the beat"


• composing in a virtual studio (such as GarageBand or Logic)


• composing outside of a virtual studio! (doing things with live players)


• chord structures and chord patterns - working with harmony


• other techniques for manipulating mood in music


• the Mr. Coffee factor - compositions incorporating non-traditional instruments

If you read this post in time, download the ZIP archive of the compositions you've sent in already here: http://www.nmt.edu/~music/mus489s07/comp1-24Jan07.zip

Uncompress the archive, and listen to the four mp3 files. On Wednesday, we'll listen to these in class and discuss how we might start work on some of the topics listed above in light of these first pieces. (We'll also try to connect people who are having technical issues with others who may have the issues solved).