Music report Great Ideas in Western Music:
From week one of our class, Great Ideas in Western Music, we have relied heavily on recorded performances. Recordings have given us the opportunity to listen repeatedly to different pieces and particular sections of pieces in order to catch their peculiarities.
This kind of listening is liberating and of course helpful when you study music closely for the first time. But there are costs. The very experience of listening to a piece of music on an iPod, or watching a music video on YouTube tends to be too abstract and disembodied when compared with the live performance. The mere presence of instrumentalists or singers on stage at a live concert helps organize our experience as both listener and viewer. Not only can we identify the source of the sound, but we can also observe how musicians use their bodies in ways to communicate particular qualities of feeling: singers smile and sometimes grimace, violinists sway, clarinetists dart etc., etc., etc. In addition, we can see how conductors enact the dimension of time in a piece so that we, too, can keep track of what is going on. Equally important, we can survey how audiences behave at different kinds of live performances. Depending on the nature of the concert, the audiences deportment, the liberty of applause, the attitude of performers, even the clothing may change. These details of the concert-going experience tell us not only about musical styles, but also about the deeply ingrained values embedded within varying cultures of concert performance.
The main purpose of your concert comparison paper is to articulate the specific nature of a live classical performance as opposed to a different concert, be it another type of a classical music event or a pop concert. So, to begin:
1. ATTEND TWO CONCERTS:
a. One must be a classical/Western art music concert (this includes musicals, ballet, and opera)
b. The other may be a concert genre of your choice
(Possible two-concert pairs might be: an opera and a symphony orchestra concert; a symphony orchestra concert and a pop concert; a musical and a contemporary classical music (avant-garde) concert; a ballet and a world music concert. There are many combinations that are possible!)
2. TAKE NOTES AT THE CONCERTS of everything you observe that has to do with the totality of your concert experience: the venue, the audience, the musicians and ABOVE ALL, the music.
3. TAKE A CONCERT PROGRAM from the classical concert you attend. You will need to attach this program to your Report. If an event runs out of concert programs, take a photograph of one if you can. A concert program is not needed for the second concert program.
NOTE: If you attend a Miami University Music Department concert you will also need to surrender your Miami ID to the Concert Manager in the lobby in order to receive credit for attendance. After the concert is over you will be able to retrieve your ID and be on your merry way. If you leave the concert early, you will not receive your ID, nor credit for attending; your ID will be available for pickup in the Music Department Office (109 Presser Hall).
4. WRITE A COMPARATIVE ESSAY that describes what the concert experience was like in each concert in as much detail as possible.
Please use the terminological tools that you have been receiving in this class every week in your discussion of the music. In addition, you are welcome to talk about what you felt while listening to the music and observing the concerts environments.
a. Keep the following questions in mind when making an outline or brainstorming for your paper: how were the two musical experiences different, and how did that difference affect YOU? What, for YOU, made the biggest difference in a live classical music performance as opposed to a recorded one, or a non-classical one? Do you think classical music is still blooming, or would you rather predict its impending demise?
b. Your paper can take any discursive form you wish: short story, poem, newspaper column, comic book, Facebook page, a series of Tweets… BE CREATIVE! A catchy title often helps better focus your argument.
5. THE DETAILS
a. All Reports must include:
i.The types of concerts attended.
ii.The dates and locations of the concerts.
iii.The names of the performers or ensembles.
iv.The types of instruments used.
v.Descriptions of the venues and audiences.
vi.Musical terminology learned in the course of the semester to describe the music of the concerts.
b. All responses should be written in complete sentences. In addition to content, your Report will be evaluated on grammar punctuation, and organization.
c. Length: 3 to 5 pages in length. When taking on a more creative endeavor, please talk to me about the length requirement.
d. Include your name, course number and section (MUS189A), and date in the header.
e. Reports must be typed, double-spaced, in 12-point font with one-inch margins, and stapled/use of a paper clip.