MUSA221-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017

Notated Composition 2A

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 25 June 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 19 May 2017

Description

This course aims to further develop the skills of creating and notating contemporary art music for live performance.

MUSA221 aims to further develop and broaden the skills acquired at 100 level, of creating and notating contemporary art music for live performance (vocal and instrumental), to assist in the development of more sophisticated knowledge of compositional techniques and procedures, and verbal articulation skills regarding compositional goals, compositional philosophy and methods and approaches to music notation.  Students will compile a portfolio of works together with associated drafts, documentation, reflective commentary and philosophical statement.  They will also gain an analytical understanding of contrasting works from the contemporary notated composition repertoire.

Learning Outcomes

*  Skills and knowledge in the creation of a portfolio of original notated instrumental and vocal works
*  Skills in analysis of contemporary notated music
*  Commentary on the portfolio and an articulation of personal composition philosophy
*  Discipline of writing to fulfil the brief and on-time delivery
*  Skill development in goal-setting and planning
*  Analytical understanding of the student's own work in relation to the established canon of repertoire
*  Skills development in instrumental combinations

Prerequisites

MUSA122, or
both MUSA120 and MUSA101.

Restrictions

MUSI 227

Timetable Note

Workload

Student workload (150 hours) will be allocated to:
-  12 hours attending lectures
-  18 hours attending composition workshops
-  9 hours attending small group tutorials
-  21 hours completing analytical exercises
-  90 hours drafting and writing (and possibly recording) portfolio content

Course Coordinator

Christopher Cree Brown

Lecturer

Christopher Cree Brown

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Non-octave repeating scales 01 May 2017 20%
TBA 02 Jun 2017 10%
Workshop Diary 03 Jun 2017 20%
Portfolio 02 Jun 2017 50%


In addition to the assessment in this course you will be required to present at least one piece in the Composition Workshop.  This is compulsory and required to pass the course.

PORTFOLIO AND ANALYSES

Your portfolio this semester will contain at least two works, together with your drafts, feedback from tutors, notes on what you were setting out to do and why, and what challenges you faced along the way.  Whatever genre (existing or invented) your own work occupies, you should actively grapple with the hows, whys, why-nots and what-ifs of structural and material concerns in your work, and document this grappling.

Your portfolio will contain at least one work that uses/problematises/plays with the notion of Loops.  This may use anything from a pre-determined structure such as Passacaglia through to a more layer-cake compositional structure such as may be found in the techno dance music that arose in the 1990s.  Your work will, however, be notated and scored for acoustic instruments and/or live voice.

In preparing and writing your work that focuses on Loops, you must find and analyse at least two notated and recorded works that have a looping component - these will be notated works for instruments and/or voice, and not electronic compositions.  The analysis should spend approximately 1500 words identifying the loop elements in each of the two works, describing the effects of the loop elements in the work as a whole, and discussing the structural and auditory pros and cons of using looped material in a work.  A degree of comparison between the two works is desirable.  This pair of analyses accounts for 15% of your final grade.

Your portfolio will also consist of at least one work that uses verbal text in some way, which will be scored for acoustic instruments and at least one voice.  You may or may not choose to use such techniques as word-painting, emphasis of key words, repetition, meaning/mood enhancement, sprechstimme, rapping, distortion.  Whatever compositional approaches you choose to take to your text, you should also find two contrasting existing words (notated and scored for acoustic instruments and voice) that may be compared in some way to your chosen textual play.  The two existing works should be analysed and presented, again in approximately 1500 words, in a way that discusses the use of text and the musical effects that are created.  A degree of comparison between the two works is again desirable.  This pair of analyses also accounts for 15% of your final grade.

Your Portfolio material should gradually accumulate throughout the semester, and you must bring it to each class for discussion.  The final submission should include your rough drafts, any feedback from tutors, and the finished works (a minimum of two works as described above; more works may also be included).

Additional Course Outline Information

Assessment and grading system

The following shows how to translate grades to numerical scores:

A+  90–100;    A   85–89;    A-  80–84;    B+   75–79;    B 70–74;    B-   65–69;     C+  60–64;     C  55–59;     C- 50–54;     D  40–49;   E  0–39
In a course at 100- or 200-level examiners may grant restricted credit (R) which will be equivalent to a pass for all purposes except as a prerequisite.

A pass is 50 marks and over.

Please see the School of Music handbook for information regarding the following:  late submission of work, aegrotats, plagiarism and dishonest practices, appeals, and reconsiderations.

Notes

Use of Technology

This course assumes that you have sufficient information and technology skills to confidently use a computer to access material for your course.  Your written work should be submitted typed, using standard word-processor software.  The School of Music has iMacs you are able to use which have all standard software required for this course.

You will be required to access our learning management system - Learn - and to become familiar with its tools.  Learn provides easily-accessible information about the course and assessments, topics and deadlines, and supports the learning you will gain from attending all lectures and tutorials.  For help using Learn, refer to: http://learn.canterbury.ac.nz/

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $817.00

International fee $3,525.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Humanities .

All MUSA221 Occurrences

  • MUSA221-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017