Carolyn Wilson Digital Collections (Lipscomb Univ.)
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Backlog 2009
Get PDFThe 2009 Lipscomb University Backlog yearbook.https://digitalcollections.lipscomb.edu/backlogs/1084/thumbnail.jp
The Liability of Labels
Get PDFIt is a great honor for me to have been awarded the 2006 Gail Boyd de Stwolinski Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Music Theory Teaching and Scholarship, and I am deeply appreciative of all those people who participated in the nomination and selection process. I am especially grateful to Mary Arlin, Chair of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, for her work, including her presentation to me of an elaborate framed certificate at the 2006 meeting of the Society for Music Theory, and for her efforts to include the announcement in the general business meeting of the Society. As described in Volume 21 of this journal, the prize was established by Gail and her husband Louis de Stwolinski to recognize the role of the classroom music theory teacher. I was very pleased to be recognized as the fourth recipient of the award, and hope that my prize money will continue to be used to recognize outstanding teaching
Vilene Shelton
Get PDFThe recollections of Vilene Shelton about her time at the Nashville Christian Institute
Elements Associated with Success in the First-Year Music Theory and Aural-Skills Curriculum
Get PDFA total of 156 students enrolled in first-year music theory and aural-skills courses at the University of Missouri during the fall semesters of 2004 and 2005 were asked to participate in a study intended to determine which elements of their prior musical or scholastic training might be associated with success in freshman level music theory and aural-training courses. We employed multiple regression analysis to determine results and provide implications for teachers of these courses. The following elements were studied: high school class rank percentile, composite score on the American College Test (ACT), mathematics score on the ACT, prior music theory experience, prior experience with solfège or scale-degree numbers, major (music or non-music), performing medium (vocal or instrumental), prior experience with a chording instrument (e.g., piano, guitar), and score on a theory diagnostic exam administered at the beginning of the first semester of theory study. Results were analyzed separately for the music theory and the aural-skills courses. For the music theory course, the general scholastic elements of high school class rank percentile and ACT math scores emerged with the strongest associations, followed by prior experience with solfège or numbers, music major status, and prior theory experience. Diagnostic exam scores, performing medium, and chording instrument experience were not associated with final scores in the music theory course. With regard to the aural-skills course, associated with final scores were the diagnostic exam, ACT-composite scores, high school class rank percentile, and chording instrument experience. Prior experience with solfège or numbers, prior theory experience, performing medium, and major were not associated. Among other things, these findings suggest that it would be advantageous to begin the aural-skills sequence a semester later than the first-semester written theory course, thus allowing time for the students to familiarize themselves with the written concepts
Teaching Fugue à la Handel - Lessons for Princess Anne
No full textHandel, while living in London, once told Dutch organist Jacob Wilhelm Lustig, who was visiting that city, No power on earth could have moved me to resume teaching duties again - except Anne, the flower of princesses. Anne, the daughter of George II, studied composition with Handel from 1724 to 1734. For this gifted keyboardist, Handel wrote a series of thorough-bass exercises, culminating in six fugue exercises, three fugue models and one sketch. These lessons later became part of Handel\u27s bequest of his manuscripts to his friend John Christopher Smith, who acted as his manager. They are now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge
A Comparison of Four Sight-Singing and Aural-Skills Textbooks - Two New Approaches and Two Classic Texts in New Editions
Get PDFIt seems that music departments throughout North America are perennially revisiting their curricula. Textbook choices are frequently part of those deliberations, as instructors strive to deliver the material efficiently, accurately, and musically. Even if one\u27s department is not in the throes of reconsidering its approach to aural-skills instruction, current market forces might encourage such an exercise, for the year 2007 produced a wealth of sight-singing and aural-skills textbooks. Of the four texts under review here, two are new to the market, and two are revised editions of classic texts
Postscript to Absolute Pitch Perception and the Pedagogy of Relative Pitch (JMTP vol. 21, 2007)
Get PDFI am writing to correct an omission from my article Absolute Pitch Perception and the Pedagogy of Relative Pitch, published in the most recent issue of Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy (vol. 21, 2007). Among the strategies I suggested for teaching relative-pitch skills to students with absolute pitch were (1) the use of scale-degree and roman-numeral singing and dictation without staff notation or key specified, and (2) the use of dictation excerpts drawn from music literature (for the variety of timbres and textures). I discussed these strategies with reference to several sight-singing and dictation textbooks: Wittlich and Humphries (1974), Yasui and Trubitt (1989), Karpinski (2000, 2007), and Phillips et al. (2005)
Backlog 2008
Get PDFThe 2008 Lipscomb University Backlog yearbook.https://digitalcollections.lipscomb.edu/backlogs/1097/thumbnail.jp
Maximal Evenness as Conceptual Apparatus for a Course on Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis
Get PDFMusic Theory\u27s New Pedagogability, Richard Cohn observes that as recently as 25 years ago the boundary between research and teaching at the introductory levels seemed inevitable and unbreachable...[and that]...we are at a somewhat different juncture now. A number of central concepts have emerged...that can be taught at the introductory level (Cohn 1998, [3]). Among the central concepts that he mentions is Clough and Douthett\u27s concept of maximal evenness. A maximally even set is a set whose elements are distributed as evenly as possible around the chromatic circle (Clough and Douthett 1991, 96). Each maximally even set is labeled ME(c,d), where c is the cardinality of the universe - in the case of the chromatic scale, 12 - nd d is the cardinality of the set contained within it. Timothy Johnson\u27s textbook Foundations of Diatonic Theory, as if in answer to Cohn\u27s call, puts maximal evenness front and center; indeed, Johnson himself acknowledges the connection in his Preface. As to the intended audience, the material in this text was originally designed for use as a supplement in traditional Theory I courses, but...is equally appropriate for courses in the fundamentals of music...and for stand-alone courses [in]...mathematics and music (Johnson 2003, vii). Maximal evenness can also profitably be used as a central concept for a course on twentieth-century music theory and analysis. In such a course, typically the final one in the undergraduate curriculum, students possess substantial music theory knowledge, and therefore maximal evenness can serve synthetic ends, as a means of consolidating (and expanding) what students already know. Such synthetic ends are appropriate in a course that often constitutes the conclusion of a student\u27s formal training in music theory.This paper will outline such a course, based on one that I teach at my own institution. In this course, instead of introducing theoretical concepts using musical examples, a typical strategy in required music theory courses, the focus is more on music theory - on exploring the underlying structure of the objects students have been studying and tasks students have been carrying out for the previous two years. What I offer here is a new way to organize the final course in the undergraduate theory curriculum, a way that suggests a different ordering and combination of topics - and manner of talking about topics - than that offered by current approaches. Central to the course is the concept of maximal evenness, but woven in are closely related ideas from neo-Riemannian theory and elementary combinatorial theory
Pedagogic Applications of Fourier Analysis and Spectrographs in the Music Theory Classroom
Get PDFOver the last twenty-five years, computer technology has transformed the teaching environment. This is especially true for the field of music theory. Software programs designed for ear training, notation, and interval/chord spelling have been helpful in allowing students to improve their musicianship skills rapidly. There is another type of software program that can also be extremely beneficial for music theory students, which has direct applications in musical analysis - Fourier analysis and spectrographs. Fourier analysis and spectrographs can be used in a variety of ways to elucidate specific musical concepts and generate discussion in the theory classroom at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Spectrographs are images of musical sound generated by Fourier analysis, which show not only the fundamental pitch, but also the overtones and complex noise-like sounds as well. These images are related to the way we hear and perceive sound, making them extremely relevant for all musicians