Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 4 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session, for four weeks
Three weekend evening concerts with 90 minute pre-concert forums
Three open rehearsals on the day before each concert
Course Overview
Themes
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of three broad themes concerning music in relation to time.
- Music as Architecture - the creation of musical shapes in time;
- Music as Memory - how musical understanding depends upon memory and reminiscence, with attention to analysis of musical structures; and
- Time as the Substance of Music - how different disciplines such as philosophy and neuroscience view the temporal dimension of musical processes and/or performances.
Concerts and Forums
The concerts by the Boston Chamber Music Society (BCMS) commingle works by great composers of the past (e.g., Beethoven and Dvorak) and contemporary composers (e.g., Libby Larsen and MIT professor Peter Child).
The three pre-concert forums bring together experts from various disciplines within MIT and elsewhere, to talk about the concerts in relation to the three themes. The exploration is both multi-media and interdisciplinary across the arts and sciences, using projections of film, painting, sculpture, and poetry. Panelists on each forum will discuss on their own work and the music of the evening. BCMS musicians will be on hand to demonstrate and discuss aspects of the music.
Classroom Meetings
The daily class meetings will be devoted to discussion of these events (before and after), and presentations by various MIT guest speakers about a particular topic of their choosing. The presentations may be related to an artwork (e.g., a novel, a painting, a film, or another piece of music), a cultural object (e.g., a building, a musical instrument, or a specific type of media technology), or to some relevant scientific research project (e.g., in the field of music cognition). Students are also expected to give an informal classroom presentation, which might also include musical performances, to be arranged in consultation with the instructors. For those taking the class for credit, attendance at all three concerts and forums is required, as are short written responses to these events.
Calendar
Session Key
C = Classroom session
R = Open rehearsal
E = Forum/concert event
SES # | INSTRUCTORS | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
---|---|---|---|
Week #1 | |||
C1 | Martin Marks | Overview, getting acquainted, the syllabus, concerts, student projects | |
C2 | Marcus Thompson | Class discussion | Student projects organized |
R1 | Open rehearsals for concert 1 | ||
E1 |
Forum 1: Time as shapeMichael Cuthbert (musicology, moderator) Robert Jaffe (physics) Libby Larson (composer) Sara Brown (scenic design) Concert 1Andrew Imbrie, serenade for flute, viola, and piano Libby Larsen, Black Birds, Red Hills George Crumb, Eleven Echoes of Autumn Maurice Ravel, Piano Trio in A Minor |
||
Week #2 | |||
C3 | Michael Cuthbert (Professor of Music) | Repeating time: minimalism and the structure of Reich's Four Organs | Written reponses to forum & concert 1 due |
C4 | Paul Schechter (Professor of Astrophysics) | A physicist's understanding of the concept of spacetime | Project proposals due |
C5 | Michael Ouellette (Lecturer in Theater Arts) | On Michael Frayn's Copenhagen | |
C6 | Donald Sadoway (Professor of Materials Science and Engineering) | 'Everything I needed to know I learned in 3.091' (using art, literature, music, and film to teach chemistry) | |
R2 | Open rehearsals for concert 2 | ||
E2 |
Forum 2: Time as MemoryBruce Brubaker (piano/contemporary music) Peter Child (composition, moderator) Deborah Stein (music theory) Concert 2Ludwig van Beethoven, String Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 5 Peter Child, Skyscraper Symphony Antonín Dvořák, String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 97, "The American" |
||
Week #3 | |||
C7 | George Ruckert (Senior Lecturer in Music) | Measuring time: meters, cycles, and patterns in Hindustani music | Written reponses to forum & concert 2 due |
C8 | Christopher Ariza (Visiting Professor of Music) | Events per unit of time: density as a compositional parameter in the music and synthesis techniques of Iannis Xenakis | |
C9 | Stephen Tapscott (Professor of Literature) | Deeper into Muybridge: a poet's view |
|
R3 | Open rehearsal for concert 3 | ||
E3 |
Forum 3: Time as the Subject and SubstanceEllen Harris (musicology, moderator) Lewis Lockwood (musicology) Paul Matisse (sculptor) Stephen Tapscott (poet) Concert 3W. A. Mozart, Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370 Charles Loeffler, Two Rhapsodies for Oboe, Viola, and Piano William Grant Still, suite for violin and piano Lukas Foss, Time Cycle |
||
Week #4 | |||
C10 |
Charles Shadle (Senior Lecturer in Music) |
Time and structure in a film score for D. W. Griffith's Ramona (1910) | Written reponses to forum & concert 3 due |
C11 |
Mark Harvey (Lecturer in Music) |
In the moment: jazz time and improvisation |
|
C12 | Student projects & performances | ||
C13 |
Student projects & performances Wrap-Up |