Composition at Columbia -- News & Events

Department of Music, Columbia University
Featured Undergraduate Courses for Spring 2009-10

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Spring 2010 Music V2030.001
MUSIC AND MYTH
Call Number: TBA Points: 3
Day/Time: TR 4:10pm-5:25pm Location: 620 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Giuseppe Gerbino

The course explores the relationship between music and myth in Western culture, from ancient Greek cosmogony to 20th-century opera. Special emphasis is placed on the way the West, in the footsteps of the ancients, strove to create ritualized images of itself and of its worldview. Specific topics include works by Monteverdi, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Offenbach, Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky, and Enescu.

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Spring 2010 Music V2500.001
WOMEN AND MUSIC
Call Number: 77651 Points: 3
Day/Time: MW 2:40pm-3:55pm Location: 404 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Alessandra M Ciucci

This course focuses on women and music in the Arabo-Islamic world.  We will challenge conventional accounts that suggest women's participation in musical activities in Islamic societies is either restricted to the domestic sphere or related to a disreputable professional sphere that often includes dance and prostitution. Behind these clichés lies a more complex reality:  the relationship between women and music is multifaceted and shifting. After laying the groundwork for and delineating critical approaches to the study of gender in the Arabo-Islamic world, this course looks at how gender roles may be stated, enforced, inverted, or contested in the course of performance, at the role of sung poetry and the female voice in arousing emotions, and at the ways in which nationalism, patriarchy, religion and morality affect female performers and their musical practices.

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Spring 2010 Music V3129.001
HISTORY OF WESTERN MUSIC: CLASSICAL-20TH CENTURY
Call Number: 87304 Points: 3
Day/Time: TR 2:40pm-3:55pm Location: 622 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Elaine Sisman

A survey of Western music from the Classical era to the present day, focusing on the development of musical style and thought, and on analysis of selected works. Required for all Music Majors; open to non-Majors.

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Spring 2010 Music V3136.001
THE OPERAS OF VERDI
Call Number: 83037 Points: 3
Day/Time: TR 6:10pm-7:25pm Location: 620 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Karen Henson

This course will provide a historical and critical introduction to the operas of Giuseppe Verdi.  The course will be organized around four operas: Macbeth (1847), La Traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), and Otello (1887). The course will emphasize not only the popular Verdi but also a more innovative figure, one influenced by Shakespeare and by developments in nineteenth-century spoken theater.

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Spring 2010 Music V3168.001
THE AMERICAN MUSICAL
Call Number: 93049 Points: 3
Day/Time: MW 2:40pm-3:55pm Location: 622 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Walter M Frisch

A historical survey of American musical theater from its origins in the late nineteenth century; through the integrated musicals of figures like Kern, Gershwin, and Rodgers & Hammerstein; to Sondheim and a new generation including Adam Guettel and Michael John LaChiusa. Focus will be on selected works, through which broader cultural and musical trends will be examined.

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Spring 2010 Music V3305.001
THEORIES OF HEINRICH SCHENKER
Call Number: 97550 Points: 3
Day/Time: M 4:10pm-6:00pm (620 Dodge Hall); and W 5:10-6:00 (814 Dodge)
Instructor: David E Cohen

An examination of Schenker's concepts of the relation between strict counterpoint and free writing; "prolongation"; the "composing-out" of harmonies; the parallels and distinctions between "foreground," "middle ground," and "background"; and the interaction between composing-out and thematic processes to create "form."

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Spring 2010 Asian Humanities: AHHM V3320
MUSIC-EAST ASIA-SOUTHEAST ASIA
(2 sections offered, Prof. Kaye and Prof. Keenan)
Call Number: 29571 Points: 3
Day/Time: MW 6:10pm-7:25pm Location: 622 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Andrew L. Kaye
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Spring 2010 Asian Humanities: Music V3320.002
Call Number: 24695 Points: 3
Day/Time: MW 6:10pm-7:25pm Location: 814 Dodge
Instructor: Elizabeth K. Keenan

This course surveys some of the musical traditions of East and Southeast Asia, in a series ofintensive case studies.  We examine the relationships between music and society, and music and the other arts (notably dance, poetry, and theatre) with examples drawn from the cultures of mainland and insular Southeast Asia (from Burma to Indonesia) and East Asia (principally China, Japan and Korea) with further considerations on the bordering cultural regions of eastern Central Asia (especially Mongolia and Tibet) and Siberia.  Attention will be given to a range of musical styles and social contexts, including court, traditional, folk, village, religious, theatrical, and popular musics.  The impact of modern technologies and the interactions among these regions and within the global system will be among the issues addressed for the contemporary period. No prior musical training is required.

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Spring 2010 Music V3330.001
ADVANCED COUNTERPOINT
Call Number: 79538 Points: 3
Day/Time: TUESDAY 9:10am-11:00pm  **NEW TIME **
Location: 620 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Alfred W Lerdahl

Prerequisites: MUSI V3322 or instructor's permission. The study of tonal counterpoint through exercises and style-based composition: fughettas following Fux's pedagogy; fugal expositions and complete fugues following Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

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Spring 2010 Music V3630.001
RECORDED SOUND
Call Number: 86846 Points: 3
Day/Time: M 1:10pm-4:00pm Location: 320 Prentis Hall
Instructor: Terence Pender

This course's main objective is to gain a familiarity with and understanding of recording, editing, mixing, and mastering of recorded music and sounds using Pro Tools software. Discusses the history of recorded production, microphone technique, and the idea of using the studio as an instrument for the production and manipulation of sound.
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Spring 2010 Music W4242.001
ADVANCED COMPOSITION
Call Number: 62194 Points: 3
Day/Time: WEDNESDAY 1:10-3:00 **CORRECTED TIME FROM PREVIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT**
Location: 620 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Joseph P Dubiel

Composition for larger ensembles, supported by study of contemporary repertoire.

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Spring 2010 Music G4505.001
JAZZ COMPOSITION AND ARRANGING
Call Number: 93656 Points: 3
Day/Time: M 10:10pm-12:00pm Location: 620 Dodge
Instructor: Don Sickler

In a seminar and hands-on workshop setting, this course offers an introduction to jazz arranging and composition techniques.  Different historical styles will be covered, including, swing, bebop, hard bop, modal, fusion, Latin, and free jazz. Each week will focus on a different ensemble with varying instrumentation, different performance style, and various compositional forms.  This class is geared for music majors, pre-professional musicians/composers, and those pursuing Jazz Studies. Some previous music experience, not necessarily in jazz, will be required.

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Spring 2010 Music W4526.001
ORCHESTRATION
Call Number: 63547 Points: 3
Day/Time: MW 10:35am-11:50am Location: 814 Dodge Hall
Instructor: Fabien Lévy

Classical and Romantic music is normally studied with an eye to the vertical and horizontal organization of tones (harmony and counterpoint) and to the organization of form and rhythm (musical analysis), as well as under a historical perspective. Rules of orchestration are a further crucial aspect to fully understand a work of this music. The goal of this course is to study different principles of “functional“ orchestration, with examples taken mainly from eighteenth and nineteenth century music. “Functional orchestration“ designates different instrumental techniques for organizing the musical work such as crescendos, contrasts, opposition of themes, climax, melodic movements, counterpoint and voice leading,
distinction and fusion, resonance, "wet"/"dry" sounds, doubling and mixtures, complex textures, etc. This seminar is for undergraduate students as well as for graduate students in composition, historical musicology, and music theory. The ability to read and write orchestral music is required. The W4525 Instrumentation Course (instructor: Prof. Jeffrey Milarsky) or instructor permission is a prerequisite.

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