Courses tagged with "Course Facilitation" (55)

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of three broad topics concerning music in relation to time.

1. Music as Architecture: the creation of musical shapes in time;
2. Music as Memory: how musical understanding depends upon memory and reminiscence, with attention to analysis of musical structures; and
3. Time as the Substance of Music: how different disciplines such as philosophy and neuroscience view the temporal dimension of musical processes and/or performances.

Classroom discussion of these topics is complemented by three weekend concerts with pre-concert forums, jointly presented by the Boston Chamber Music Society (BCMS) and MIT Music & Theater Arts.

Through a progressive series of composition projects, students investigate the sonic organization of musical works and performances, focusing on fundamental questions of unity and variety. Aesthetic issues are considered in the pragmatic context of the instructions that composers provide to achieve a desired musical result, whether these instructions are notated in prose, as graphic images, or in symbolic notation. No formal training is required. Weekly listening, reading, and composition assignments draw on a broad range of musical styles and intellectual traditions, from various cultures and historical periods.

Offered in the spring and fall terms, Introduction to Stagecraft is a hands-on course that gets students working with the tools and techniques of theatrical production in a practical way. It is not a design course but one devoted to artisanship. Among the many remarkable final projects that have been proposed and presented at the end of the course have been a Renaissance hourglass blown in the MIT glass shop and set into a frame turned on our set shop lathe; a four harness loom built by a student who then wove cloth on it; a number of chain mail tunics and coifs; a wide variety of costume and furniture pieces and electrified period lighting fixtures.

This course gives a broad overview of Western music from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with emphasis on late baroque, classical, romantic, and modernist styles (1700-1910). It is also meant to enhance students' musical experience by developing listening skills and an understanding of diverse forms and genres. Major composers and their works will be placed in social and cultural contexts. Weekly lectures feature demonstrations by professional performers, and introduce topics to be discussed in sections. The focus of the course is on the weekly listening and reading assignments.

This course is an introduction to diverse musical traditions of the world. Music from a wide range of geographical areas is studied in terms of structure, performance practice, social use, aesthetics, and cross-cultural contact. Course work includes hands-on music making, live demonstrations by guest artists, and ethnographic research projects.

This course is an introduction to Islam from the perspective of media and sound studies, intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam in its various manifestations has had a complex relationship with media. While much contemporary writing focuses on Islam in the media, this course explores how many aspects of Islamic practice and thinking might be understood as media technologies that facilitate the inscription, storage and transmission of knowledge. Central questions include: How do Islam and media technologies relate? What kinds of practices of inscription and transmission characterize Islam in all its varieties across time and place? How might Islamic thought and practice be understood in light of databases, networks, and audiovisual sensation? Given the rich diversity in Islam historically and geographically, emphasis will be placed on these interconnected but divergent practices from the earliest revelations of the Qur'an to contemporary Islamist political movements, with geographies spanning from Indonesia to the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Europe and North America. In addition to exploring these themes through reading and writing, students will be encouraged to complete course assignments and projects in media, using audiovisual documentary or composition as a means of responding to the course themes.

This subject covers a specific branch of music history: Western concert music of first sixty years of the twentieth century. Although we will be listening to and studying many pieces (most of the highest caliber) the goal of the course is not solely to build up a repertory of works in our memory (though that is indeed a goal). We will be most concerned with larger questions of continuity and change in music. We will also consider questions of reception, or historiography - that is, the creation of history and our perception of it. Why do we perceive much of this music, so much closer in time to us than Mozart or Beethoven, to be so foreign? Is this music aloof and separate from popular music of the twentieth century or is there a real connection (perhaps hidden)? The subject will continue to follow some topics of central interest to music before 1960, such as serialism and aleatory, beyond the 1960 cutoff. Conversely a few topics which get their start just before 1960 but which flourish later (minimalism, computer music) will be covered only in 21M.263.

This course surveys seven Baroque and Classical genres: opera, oratorio, cantata, sonata, concerto, quartet, symphony, and includes work by composers Bach, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Mozart, Purcell, Schütz and Vivaldi. Course work is based on live performances as well as listening and reading assignments.

This course provides an introductory survey of the Western classical tradition, exploring music both as a phenomenon of sound and culture.  The focus of this course is the development of aural skills that lead to an understanding and appreciation of music.  Making use of live performances and streaming audio available on the Internet, we will listen to and explore some of the most important and influential repertoires and genres of music that emerged in the last four centuries: High Renaissance vocal music, the cantatas and oratorios of Bach and Handel, Mozart’s comic operas, the monumental orchestral works of the Romantic movement, and the major musical movements of twentieth-century Europe and America, revealing significant connections with contemporary pop and jazz styles.  These styles have become an enduring part of the world of music in the twenty-first century, traveling out of the concert hall and conservatory into the larger world via movies, television, and the Internet. This course will begi…

In this course, we will rebuild the everyday sounds of nature, machines, and animals from scratch and encapsulate them in dynamic sound objects which can be embedded into computer games, animations, movies, virtual environments, sound installations, and theatre productions. You will learn how to analyze and model sounds and resynthesize them with the open-source graphical programming environment Pure Data (Pd). Our work will be guided by Andy Farnell's book Designing Sound (MIT Press, 2010). No previous programming experience is required.

This course features directed composition of larger forms of original writing involving voices and/or instruments. It includes a weekly seminar in composition for the presentation and discussion of work in progress. Students are expected to produce at least one substantive work, performed in public, by the end of the term. Contemporary compositions and major works from 20th-century music literature are studied.

This course features directed composition of larger forms of original writing involving voices and/or instruments. It includes a weekly seminar in composition for the presentation and discussion of work in progress. Students are expected to produce at least one substantive work, performed in public, by the end of the term. Contemporary compositions and major works from 20th-century music literature are studied.

This course is an introduction to selected musical traditions of West Africa. A variety of musical practices and their cultural contexts will be explored through listening, reading, and written assignments, with an emphasis on class discussion. The course includes in-class instruction in West African drumming, song and dance, as well as lecture-demonstrations by guest artists.

After an introductory unit, the course will be organized around four main geographical areas: Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Nigeria. An in-depth study of music from these countries will be interspersed with brief overviews of Southern, Central, and East Africa.

This course focuses on Hindustani classical music of North India, and also involves learning about the ancient foundations of the rich classical traditions of music and dance of all Indian art and culture. Students explore the practice the ragas and talas through learning songs, dance, and drumming compositions, and develop insights through listening, readings, and concert attendance.

This course begins with the premise that the 1960s mark a great dividing point in the history of 20th century Western musical culture, and explores the ways in which various social and artistic concerns of composers, performers, and listeners have evolved since that decade. It focuses on works by classical composers from around the world. Topics include the impact of rock, as it developed during the 1960s - 70s; the concurrent emergence of post serial, neotonal, minimalist, and new age styles; the globalization of Western musical traditions; the impact of new technologies; and the significance of music video, video games, and other versions of multimedia. The course interweaves discussion of these topics with close study of seminal musical works, evenly distributed across the four decades since 1960; works by MIT composers are included.

This class is an introduction to the analysis of tonal music. Students develop analytical techniques based upon concepts learned in 21M.301-21M.302. Students study rhythm and form, harmony, line and motivic relationships at local and large scale levels of musical structure. Three papers (totaling 20 pages, one to be revised) and one oral presentation are required.

In this course, students study concepts and practice techniques of improvisation in solo and ensemble contexts. The course examines relationships between improvisation, composition, and performance based in traditional and experimental approaches. Hands-on music making will be complemented by discussion of the aesthetics of improvisation. Weekly lab sessions support work on musical technique. Guest artist / lecturers will engage students through mini-residencies in jazz with film, Indian music, electronic music, and blending improvisation with classic music; and an accompanying concert series will feature these artists in performance. Open by audition to instrumental or vocal performers.

This course provides continued work in the development of play scripts for the theater. Writers work on sustained pieces in weekly workshop meetings, individual consultation with the instructor, and in collaboration with student actors, directors, and designers. Fully developed scripts are eligible for inclusion in the Playwrights' Workshop Production.

This class introduces the craft of writing for the theater. Through weekly assignments, in class writing exercises, and work on a sustained piece, students explore scene structure, action, events, voice, and dialogue. We examine produced playscripts and discuss student work. This class's emphasis is on process, risk-taking, and finding one's own voice and vision.

This course focuses on popular music, i.e. music created for and transmitted by mass media. Various popular music genres from around the world will be studied through listening, reading and written assignments, with an emphasis on class discussion. In particular, we will consider issues of musical change, syncretism, Westernization, globalization, the impact of recording industries, and the post-colonial era. Case studies will include Afro-pop, reggae, bhangra, rave, and global hip-hop.