SYLLABUS
Units of study, each approximately three weeks long:
I.Timbre
What it is? How can timbre be described scientifically and sensorily? How is
timbre produced acoustically, and in the realm of computer music/sound? How has it been
used in contemporary Western concert music? What sorts of timbres are prevalent in selected
non-Western cultures? How has it been used in selected recorded music’s production
techniques? How has it figured into notions of music and politics, such as stylistic definitions
that are either imposed from without or generated by artists themselves? Does timbre figure in
gendered compositional practices, for example that of the women pioneers of analog
electroacooustic music? How does timbre figure in increasingly prevalent artifical voice
simulations?
Listening repertoire: Pop (U.S. and other), rock, classical, historical performance
practice, opera, folk, selected African musics, Georgian folk song, electroacoustic musics
(analog and digital concert musics).
II. Drone musics
What are they? How have they been categorized stylistically? How are they used? How are they
composed? What kind of listening, and listening contexts, do they demand? What kind of social
impact do they have?
Listening repertoire: Varied dance musics, selected computer musics, selected trance
musics, selected installation art.
III. Sonic Art and Urban Architectures
What is the role of sound in architectural design and in the design of urban spaces? Are the
roles of music and sound in urban space design contiguous, interrelated; or are they more
clearly compartmentalized? How can sound study generate new ways of analyzing,
understanding, and reinventing urban spaces?
IV. Tactile and Visual Musics
What is the definition of visual musics? of tactile musics? What are the history and significance
of such phenomena? We will explore the discovery and use of cymatics, the Eidophone, bass
boosting, and the scientific history of conceiving of sound as vibration. We will also explore its
relationship to research in other fields.
Structure of Course and Expectations:
Substantive reading and listening will be assigned each week, to which written responses will
be required. During the last several weeks of the course each student will give a presentation,
and will submit a final paper whose nature may be analytic or research based.