Twentieth-century Music Theory and Practice


Book Description

Twentieth-Century Music Theory and Practice introduces a number of tools for analyzing a wide range of twentieth-century musical styles and genres. It includes discussions of harmony, scales, rhythm, contour, post-tonal music, set theory, the twelve-tone method, and modernism. Recent developments involving atonal voice leading, K-nets, nonlinearity, and neo-Reimannian transformations are also engaged. While many of the theoretical tools for analyzing twentieth century music have been devised to analyze atonal music, they may also provide insight into a much broader array of styles. This text capitalizes on this idea by using the theoretical devices associated with atonality to explore music inclusive of a large number of schools and contains examples by such stylistically diverse composers as Paul Hindemith, George Crumb, Ellen Taffe Zwilich, Steve Reich, Michael Torke, Philip Glass, Alexander Scriabin, Ernest Bloch, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Sergei Prokofiev, Arnold Schoenberg, Claude Debussy, György Ligeti, and Leonard Bernstein. This textbook also provides a number of analytical, compositional, and written exercises. The aural skills supplement and online aural skills trainer on the companion website allow students to use theoretical concepts as the foundation for analytical listening. Access additional resources and online material here: http: //www.twentiethcenturymusictheoryandpractice.net and https: //www.motivichearing.com/.




Performing Knowledge


Book Description

Performing Knowledge explores the relationship between musical performance and analysis through a unique collaboration between a music theorist and a cast of internationally renowned performers, investigating major musical works of the twentieth century--Ravel, Schoenberg, Bartók, Schnittke, Milhaud, Messiaen, Babbitt, Carter, and Morris. The book is a brave crossing of disciplinary divides between scholarship and practice, a theory text enlivened by the voices of performers who create, interpret, and articulate structure.




A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context


Book Description

A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context is an integrated account of the genres and concepts of twentieth-century art music, organized topically according to aesthetic, stylistic, technical, and geographic categories, and set within the larger political, social, economic, and cultural framework. While the organization is topical, it is historical within that framework. Musical issues interwoven with political, cultural, and social conditions have had a significant impact on the course of twentieth-century musical tendencies and styles. The goal of this book is to provide a theoretic-analytical basis that will appeal to those instructors who want to incorporate into student learning an analysis of the musical works that have reflected cultural influences on the major musical phenomena of the twentieth century. Focusing on the wide variety of theoretical issues spawned by twentieth-century music, A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context reflects the theoretical/analytical essence of musical structure and design.




Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-century Music


Book Description

Designed to introduce the reader to a variety of analytic techniques applicable to music of our century, this valuable new book is written in a straightforward, clear style and includes abundant music examples, practical exercises, and reinforcing overviews.




Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity


Book Description

In the first decade of the twentieth-century, many composers rejected the principles of tonality and regular beat. This signaled a dramatic challenge to the rationalist and linear conceptions of music that had existed in the West since the Renaissance. The ‘break with tonality’, Neo-Classicism, serialism, chance, minimalism and the return of the ‘sacred’ in music, are explored in this book for what they tell us about the condition of modernity. Modernity is here treated as a complex social and cultural formation, in which mythology, narrative, and the desire for ‘re-enchantment’ have not completely disappeared. Through an analysis of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and Cage, 'the author shows that the twentieth century composer often adopted an artistic personality akin to Max Weber’s religious types of the prophet and priest, ascetic and mystic. Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity advances a cultural sociology of modernity and shows that twentieth century musical culture often involved the adoption of ‘apocalyptic’ temporal narratives, a commitment to ‘musical revolution’, a desire to explore the limits of noise and sound, and, finally, redemption through the rediscovery of tonality. This book is essential reading for those interested in cultural sociology, sociological theory, music history, and modernity/modernism studies.




Tonal Harmony, with an Introduction to Twentieth-century Music


Book Description

Tonal Harmony with an Introduction to 20th-Century Music is intended for a two-year course in music theory/harmony. It offers a clear and thorough introduction to the resources and practice of Western music from the 17th century to the present day. Its concise, one-volume format and flexible approach make the book usable in a broad range of theory curricula. The text provides students with a comprehensive but accessible and highly practical set of tools for the understanding of music. Actual musical practice is emphasized more than rules or prohibitions. Principles are explained and illustrated, and exceptions are noted. In its presentation of harmonic procedures, the text introduces students to the most common vocal and instrumental textures encountered in tonal music. Traditional four-part chorale settings are used to introduce many concepts, but three-part instrumental and vocal textures are also presented in illustrations and drill work, along with a variety of keyboard styles. To encourage the correlation of writing and performing skills, we have included musical examples in score and reduced-score formats as well as charts on instrumental ranges and transpositions. Some of the assignments ask the student to write for small ensembles suitable for performance in class. Instructors may modify these assignments to make them most appropriate for their particular situations. - Preface.




Theories and Analyses of Twentieth-century Music


Book Description

This introduction to the theories and analytical approaches of contemporary Western art music focuses primarily on pitch, but also treats rhythm and meter, texture, and form. Analyses of three songs exemplifying distinct modes of pitch organization (functional tonality, atonality, and neotonality) engage students, helping them understand the implications of what they have learned. Williams covers the fundamentals of set theory, and then expands on these fundamentals in chapters on diatonicism, symmetrical sets, neotonality, free atonality, and serialism. The author also explores more recent compositional techniques, such as chance and indeterminacy, minimalism, and eclecticism.




Twentieth-century Music


Book Description

Presents a comprehensive exploration of twentieth-century musical idioms within their larger political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. This book provides an overview of the vast array of technical principles that characterize modern music and at the same time reveals the distinguishing features of the numerous styles. Organized into historical and theoretical-analytical portions, this book illustrates topics with in-depth analyses of one or more works of a given composer citing illustrates topics with in-depth analyses of one or more works of a given composer. Musicians, music teachers, and music enthusiasts.




University of Michigan Official Publication


Book Description

Each number is the catalogue of a specific school or college of the University.




Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945


Book Description

Presents various interdisciplinary articles to bridge the gulf between classical and popular music.