Carolyn Wilson Digital Collections (Lipscomb Univ.)
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AP Music Theory and College: Coordinating the Curriculum
Get PDFThis paper reports on the results of two descriptive surveys that assess the degree of alignment between the AP Music Theory curriculum and introductory college-level music theory and aural skills courses throughout the United States. One survey was sent to current high school AP Music Theory teachers, who specified how much time they spend on each topic within the AP curriculum. College faculty responded to the same list of topics, indicating when each is introduced across their 2-year music theory and aural skills curriculum. Comparing these results revealed competing themes of fluency and exposure. Curricular alignment and possible skill fluency occur when high school teachers spend substantial time on topics that are likely to be introduced in the first two semesters of college. In contrast, many high school teachers briefly expose students to topics that are typically saved for later semesters in college (due to requirements of the AP curriculum or personal pedagogical choice). The implications of both approaches are discussed, with focus placed on the extent to which each approach corresponds with the stated goals and challenges of both high school and college survey respondents
Mamlok on Day One: Strategies for Incorporating Recent Music Into the Early Undergraduate Music Theory Curriculum
Get PDFThis research offers concrete solutions to two challenges that face music theory instructors seeking better coverage of post-tonal music in their undergraduate music theory curricula. The first of these challenges is the lack of curricular time dedicated to music composed since 1900, particularly given the typical course structure in which such topics are left for last. The second of the two challenges is the attitudes frequently held by students towards this music, which they may prejudge to be difficult, unfamiliar, aesthetically unappealing, or entirely divorced from previous topics. Instructors can at least partially overcome both of these challenges by frequently incorporating examples of art music from the post-tonal era into the early semesters of the undergraduate music theory curriculum (focusing in this paper primarily on demonstrating the applicability of this concept to topics generally covered in units on fundamentals)
Report on the 2019 Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Get PDFIncorporating Sight-Singing, Melodic/Harmonic Dictation, and Formal Listening Skills into a First-Semester Aural Skills Course
Get PDFThis syllabus and course outline may serve as a reference for those interested in incorporating multiple facets of the aural skills curriculum within the first semester of aural skills: sight singing exercises, melodic and harmonic dictation, and formal listening skills
Using “Old King Cole” and “Greensleeves” as Exemplars for an Inductive Approach to Teaching the Harmonic and Melodic Forms of the Minor Scale
Get PDFTeaching minor scales is more complicated than teaching major scales, and students invariably have more difficulty with them. I offer an approach using several versions of “Old King Cole” and “Greensleeves” to demonstrate the inherent richness of minor keys, and the generation of the resulting three minor scale forms (natural, harmonic, and melodic). This approach helps clear up a common misconception among students—that there are three minor keys for every pitch (e.g., a key of G natural minor, a key of G harmonic minor, and a key of G melodic minor), and demonstrates instead that a minor key includes nine discrete pitches (or seven diatonic pitches, with two chromatic alternatives). This further leads to an understanding of how and when those diatonic or chromatic alternative notes are used in context, and why minor keys contain both a minor and a major v/V chord, something that often perplexes students. This approach can be used with music majors or non-majors in anelective general-education class. It can be modified by instructors to accommodate students with either weaker or stronger backgrounds
The Analysis and Composition of Polymorphic Canons
Get PDFAlthough theorists have examined various aspects of the canonic genre, scant attention has been given to the polymorphic canon, a designation which Prout bestowed on those pieces with multiple solutions. This article focuses on two prototypical examples, the anonymous Non nobis Domine and a seven-measure dux by G. H. Stölzel quoted in Marpurg’s Abhandlung, from whose analyses we may extract recurring melodic paradigms prior to providing practical guidelines for their composition
We Know It’s Important, But How Do We Do It? Engaging Beginning Aural Skills Students Through Meaningful Improvisation Activities
Get PDFImprovisation as a core component of music curricula has been a topic of great interest in higher education in recent years. Articles on the subject are numerous and music theory and musicianship textbooks increasingly incorporate improvisation activities within their pages. The immediacy of improvisation tells us something about the way in which the inexperienced student assimilates essential bits of musical vocabulary in real time, and in the service of aural skills training is an effective tool for evaluating musicianship development. Recognizing that this learning tool was only a peripheral aspect of my own first-year aural skills curriculum, I retooled my courses to include more meaningful, graded improvisational exercises. This paper details my structured approach to introductory improvisations in beginning aural skills, how I assess them, and what I’ve learned by placing emphasis on improvisation as an integral learning activity
Counterpoint is a Piece of Cake: Renaissance Improvisation in a Modern University Course (In honorem Petri N. Sutoris)
Get PDFRenaissance counterpoint was for a long time a mainstay of university and conservatoire music degrees, aimed primarily at the composer and musicologist: a time-intensive subject, it has recently has fallen out of favor in increasingly broad curricula with a more diverse student body. Traditionally, counterpoint was taught using rule-based methods that were developed long after the musical style itself. Peter Schubert’s textbook Modal Counterpoint, Renaissance Style (2005) was seminal in returning to the theoretical and pedagogical sources of the period, although the underlying approach was still modern, species-based. More recent research (including Schubert) has revealed pedagogical approaches of the Renaissance, which were based in improvisation techniques that were taught to children. These techniques are also time-intensive, limiting their wholesale applicability in a short course in the context of a modern university. This article demonstrates how selected exercises based on historical improvisation techniques can be blended with a species-based approach to address a fundamental problem encountered in a time-constrained course: familiarity with the stylistic treatment of consonance and dissonance