Music 326A (Music Appreciation): January – April, 2023
Prof. Brandon Konoval
UBC Arts One Program and The School of Music
brandon.konoval@ubc.ca
Office hours after class, and by appointment online.
Brief description:
Music 326A offers an overview of historical and cultural developments in the Western art music
tradition, broadly speaking, from the Middle Ages through to the dawn of the 20th century.
Connections with non-Western traditions and contemporary Indigenous (North American), jazz,
rock, and film music will be explored, although they are not the focus of the course. Music 326A is
for students who are not enrolled in the Music program, and therefore there is no expectation of prior
knowledge of the subject matter, or of any ability to play, sing, or read music notation.
Evaluation:
There are three components for course evaluation:
Exam 1 (30~50% of final grade):
Friday, February 17, 2023
Exam 2 (30~50% of final grade):
TBA (April 2023)
Personal Project (20% of final grade):
Due: Thursday, April 13, 2023
Please note that the exam on which you have scored higher will be the exam mark that constitutes
50% of your final grade; correspondingly, the exam on which you have scored lower will be the exam
mark that constitutes 30% of your final grade. The format for both exams will be in four parts: short
answer, listening identification, multiple choice, and long answer. Exam 1 will cover the first five
sections of the course sequence (that is, up to and including the Baroque), and Exam 2 the remaining
two sections.
The Personal Project will be either a written document of approximately 1500–2000 words (5–6
pages double-spaced, 12-point font), or a video-capture slide presentation of approximately 8–10
minutes, in which you will discuss a music-related topic of your own choice, demonstrating an
application of concepts or information from the course, though the specific subject of your discussion
need not be one taken up in the course itself. The aim of the Project is to expand beyond course
coverage in line with your own musical interests, whether by examining other styles or traditions of
music, or by delving more deeply into some topic area that we can otherwise only survey in the course
itself. Beyond the realm of ‘classical’ music, previous Projects have explored topics like the use of
music in film or in gaming with a narrative structure (eg., Nier), the African roots of ‘country music,’
the role of sampling in the contemporary music industry, Bhangra music and dance, ambience, grime,
Armenian folk traditions—the variety has been extensive, and you are welcome to ask me about any
topic you are interested in pursuing, though I do not wish to be restrictive. The Project does not need
to be an essay or term paper: it is up to you to decide how you would like to frame your project and
share it with me. Please email your project directly to me at: brandon.konoval@ubc.ca, either as a
pdf document or link. Video/slide presentations must be uploaded to a (non-public) YouTube
platform, providing me with access via link, with due attention to copyright; many written papers
provide links to online video just as I provide links to music examples in our textbook and repertoire
lists.
Course Materials:
There is no published textbook that you are required to purchase for Music 326A: I have written a
textbook for our own use, along with repertoire sheets containing links to open access videos (all
found on YouTube). All course materials are therefore specific to our needs, and provided at no extra
cost. I will release each chapter of the textbook as a pdf document at the start of each section of the
course, as identified by the course outline provided below.
Please note: the textbook chapters provided as pdf documents are comprehensive; thus, if you
miss a class or two, you will be able to readily recover all the information you have missed, though
without the guided listening experiences provided in the classroom. (Many of the chapters nonetheless
have multiple listening charts, to help all students revisit and review what has been listened to in class.)
However, you are expected to attend lectures regularly and to take your own notes: if you fail
to do so, you may find it difficult to distinguish contextual information in the course notes from the
core concepts and examples that you will be examined upon. Exams are based upon what is taught in
the live classroom setting, and the textbook is a support that you can use to situate and review what
you have learned in the classroom.
MUSC326A: Course Outline
1. Prelude: What’s My Role in Music Appreciation?
Appreciation and Participation
Building Musical Dimensions: Melody and Accompaniment
Pachelbel’s Canon
Imitation and Melody
Going for Baroque
2. Texture in Music
Relative Behavior and Relative Prominence
Monophony
Pitch and Pitch-class
Ambiguity in Musical Texture
Texture in Transition: From Monophony toward Polyphony
Polyphony
Imitative Polyphony
Homophony
Alternating and Superimposing Textures
Musical Texture: Basic Features to Listen For
3. Medieval Music: An Introduction
Why Start Here? And Other Key Questions in Medieval Music
What are we actually listening to? Music and Historical Imagination
Preservation through Notation: The ‘Gregorian’ Project
Tradition and Innovation I: From Chant to Organum and Motet
Melody and Mode
Tradition and Innovation II: From Chant to Mass and Hymn
4. Renaissance Music: An Introduction
The Origins of a Renaissance
A Rebirth of What?
Secular Music in the Renaissance I: Songs
Secular Music in the Renaissance II: Instrumental Dances, Rhythm,
and Meter
Humanism: Renaissance Time Travel, Secular and Sacred
Text Sources, Translations, and Religious Practices
The Mass: Before and After Luther
The Hymn
5. Music of the Baroque Era
Is there a ‘Baroque Style’?
The Tragedy of Dido and Aeneas
A Counterpoint of Styles
Opera Seria, or The Rebirth of Tragedy
Components of Opera Seria I: Aria and Recitative
Components of Opera Seria II: The Chorus
Components of Opera Seria III: Instrumental Numbers
and the Libretto
Sacred Vocal Music and Protestant Tradition
The Cantata, Sacred and Secular
The Baroque Mass
The Baroque Oratorio
Changing Roles for the Composer and Performer
The Baroque Concerto
Ritornello Structure and the Concerto Grosso
Preludes and Fugues
Midterm Exam (units 1 through 5)
6. Music of the Classical Era
What does ‘Classical’ Mean?
Opera Buffa, or The Birth of (Musical) Comedy
The Cosmopolitan Composer
Opera and Musical Entrepreneurship
The Magic Flute: Cultural, Philosophical and Political Contexts
The Magic Flute: Components of a Cosmopolitan Opera
The New Orchestra and New Instrumental Genres
Components of the Classical Symphony and Orchestra
The Symphony and Sturm und Drang
Hybrid Forms: Sonata meets Rondo
The Classical Concerto and Sonata Form
Revolution from Within: Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata
7. Music of the (long) 19th Century
A ‘Romantic Era’ of Music?
Revolution from Without: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Berlioz and Programmatic Music
Programmatic Music, Self-Expression, and Organicism
Tchaikowsky and the Concert Overture
Wagner and the ‘Total Work of Art’
Schubert and the Lied
Chopin, Schumann, and the Piano Character Piece
New Directions and the Response to Romanticism:
Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg