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Page 1: THEORY OF MUSIC I MUSC 210 Course Objective and … 210... · THEORY OF MUSIC I MUSC 210 Dr. Jon ... course is to provide you with a basic level of fluency with the elements of music

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THEORY OF MUSIC I

MUSC 210

Dr. Jon Gonder Fall 2016

Brodie 107 TR 2:30-3:45

245-5187 Brodie 210

[email protected]

Course Description Elementary training in the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements of music. Terminology

and musical examples will be presented in analytical, compositional, perceptual, critical, and

performing contexts. Prerequisites: An ability to read music fluently. Credits: 3(3-0)

Course Objective and Approach As stated above, the primary goal of this course is to provide you with a basic level of fluency

with the elements of music theory. In the first part of the course we will cover the rudiments of

notation and some of the basic harmonic structures such as key, scale, intervals, chords, rhythm,

and terminology. In the second part we will progress on to a more detailed study of diatonic

harmony, including basic progressions, voice leading, and smaller aspects of form; that study

will include analysis and composition. We will regularly be using the keyboard and singing in

class, as well as doing some dictation.

Student Learning Outcomes By the end of the course, the successful student will be able to:

a) demonstrate an understanding of the rudiments of music theory, including scales, key

signatures, and intervals;

b) demonstrate an understanding of triadic harmony, including usage of root position and

inverted triads, standard cadences, sequences, simple diatonic modulations, and the standard

voice-leading procedures associated with these;

c) demonstrate basic musicianship skills including performance of simple keyboard harmony

and accompaniment patterns for triads, sight-singing of primarily conjunct melodies using

“moveable do” solfège, and aural identification of cadences and melodic patterns;

d) demonstrate familiarity with basic concepts of form and music analysis, including the formal

construction of musical themes.

Supplies and Resources

There is no textbook to purchase for this course. However, there are free materials available

online that you will be asked to download, print, and bring to class. Further, you will need to

purchase a membership to www.teoria.com (details below).

For those who would like to have a textbook to use as a resource to reinforce classroom

instruction, The Music Kit by Tom Manoff is available on reserve in the Library, and the course

schedule gives you the list of chapters that are germane to each topic.

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In addition to those materials, you will also regularly need manuscript paper in class. You can

purchase some or you can download a template from the Internet and print your own. These are

available free from many sites, usually in Adobe format that you can save to your hard drive. For

example, try: http://www.songseek.com/paper/manuscript.html#paper. Please be kind to my eyes

and use 10 staffs to a page rather than 12 to a page – besides, it’s easier for you to write legibly

in a slightly larger staff. You can find this particular size of manuscript paper on the MyCourses

page for this course. Since your assignments must be stapled for submission, you will also need a

stapler for this course.

Teoria.com You will be using the www.teoria.com website in order to practice skills, do some assessments,

and demonstrate skills acquisition. As you work with teoria.com on practicing your skills, you

will store your scores on its database. This, in turn, will provide information to me about what

score you have accumulated, and I will be using that score to determine part of your grade in this

course. Thus a membership is required. It is not expensive – somewhere between $15 and $25

for a year, which is much less than the cost of a typical textbook.

I have established a group with the title of gonder2016 and you need to subscribe to that group

when you purchase your membership online. The instructions for purchasing a membership can

be found at:

http://www.teoria.com/en/help/member.php

When you are ready to purchase your access, you will need a password from me in order to join

the group; at that time, please email me and I will provide the password. Do not use anyone

else’s password.

Dannhäuser We will be using Dannhäuser for the purposes of developing facility with solfège in class. You

must print off a copy (Part I only) from www.imslp.org and bring it to class with you. From time

to time throughout the semester, there will be a quiz on singing melodies using solfège.

MyCourses The MyCourses site for this course is available at http://mycourses.geneseo.edu. Once you log

in, you should find the course among those automatically listed for you. There will be

assignments completed on MyCourse, particularly for the first part of the course, so you must

have access to and use the MyCourses site. All MyCourses assignments will have start and end

dates and times for availability.

In addition, your grades and attendance will be posted to MyCourses, so you will be able to track

your progress on individual assignments as they are completed. As for your overall grade,

experience has shown that MyCourses does not always accurately calculate your grade until all

of the items are in it at the end of the course – if you run into a problem interpreting what your

grade actually is, get in touch with me.

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Online Resources

AUDIO - Naxos Music Library (streaming audio via Milne Library – login required)

www.geneseo.edu/library ⇨ Subject Guides ⇨ Music ⇨ Streaming Audio ⇨ Naxos Online

SCORES - IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library

www.imslp.org

C.A.I. for Skills

www.teoria.com (paid subscription required)

www.musictheory.net (free)

www.noteflight.com (free or paid)

www.ars-nova.com (various softwares – not all free)

GROVE MUSIC ONLINE (best first place to go for any research on music – login required)

www.geneseo.edu/library ⇨ Subject Guides ⇨ Music ⇨ Grove Music Online

Attendance Policy and Class Environment This is a skills-based course, and class attendance is essential both to your development of those

skills and my monitoring of that development. Therefore, regular attendance and participation in

class is expected, and I will take attendance, but only for the purposes of getting to know you

better. There will be no grades for attendance, and no penalties for lack of attendance. However,

you can be assured that the content of class and the discussions in class will be at the core of the

tests and examinations, as well as the out-of-class assignments, and it is in your best interests to

be regular in attendance. Nevertheless, it is my view that you are responsible for your own level

of engagement for this course. A full level of participation is expected from you, but it is up to

you to decide whether you will rise to the level of full participation or not.

Class will start on time and end on time. If you sleep in class, you will be asked to leave class.

Side chat is disruptive to other students and to me, and while I might tolerate the latter, I

certainly will not tolerate someone disrupting the learning environment of any other student in

the classroom. More than one occurrence of either of these behaviors will lead to removal from

the course. If you need to leave early for any reason, leave with as little noise and disruption as

possible, take your belongings with you, and don’t return to class. Unless you have a

documented medical condition, this includes side trips to the bathroom. Cell phone use is not

permitted during class. If your cell phone rings in class, you don’t get to answer it – I do.

Pacing Ourselves

There is an understood axiom in colleges that says that a student should expect to do a minimum

of two hours per week outside of class for every hour spent in class, hence a total of 6 hours per

week outside of class for this course (whether or not you come to class) – that’s about 1 hour per

day. The due dates are set up in such a way as to pace the work as evenly as possible throughout

the course, for you and for me. For that reason, due dates are not flexible, and late work will not

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be accepted. Written assignments are due at the start of the class period on the due date; you are

to place them on the piano on the way into class. Once class starts, the due date and time have

passed. Your assignments are to be submitted STAPLED. Likewise, tests will only be offered on

the dates on the schedule, and there will be no make-up tests or exams. Since the class schedule

shows all dates for tests and the exam, you should refer to it before making any plans to be

absent on those dates. I occasionally remind the class of an upcoming due date, but typically

there is no reminder, so you need to keep track of all due dates as set out in the Class Schedule

below.

Just to make sure this is clear – a late assignment receives a grade of zero. If you think you might

be disappointed by the application of this policy, particularly if you are late for class on a due

date, or you leave the assignment in your dorm room, then I recommend that you avoid the

problem by being on time for class and by remembering to bring the assignment with you.

Get Out Of Jail Free

You get one GOOJF during the semester. It can be used for the following:

a) submitting a written assignment late

b) resubmitting an assignment in which you did not do well

c) having access to a late online assignment

You may not use it for anything related to a test or exam, nor for missing an in-class quiz or any

other type of participation credit. Any other use of GOOJF will be at my discretion.

You get one and only one GOOJF. Once you use it, it is gone. You may not request that you

substitute a different GOOJF, once you have used it. All GOOJF use expires on the final day of

classes.

Academic Dishonesty There are various forms of academic dishonesty, as outlined in Geneseo’s Academic Policies.

You are responsible for knowing what constitutes a violation of these academic policies; they

can be found at http://www.geneseo.edu/dean_office/dishonesty. Due to the alarming increase in

the types and the number of occurrences of academic dishonesty, the minimum penalty for any

form of academic dishonesty will be a grade of zero for the particular assignment. It is possible

that additional sanctions could include a grade of E for the course, or suspension or dismissal

from the University.

Students who are retaking this course with me as the instructor may not resubmit assignments

that were submitted during their previous time in the course; those assignments must be done a

second time in their entirety. Students who are retaking the course after taking it with a different

instructor may not submit any work that was previously submitted to that instructor.

For the most part, music theory does not involve group work, so you need to be very cautious

when working together on assignments for this course. You are welcome to work together on

assignments that appear during the main body of the various chapters in the workbook. However,

you may not work together on the end-of-chapter Review Exercises that you must submit for

grading. Any violation of this will be considered plagiarism, and will receive a minimum penalty

of a failing grade for the course for each student involved in the violation.

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Disability Accommodation

SUNY Geneseo will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented physical,

emotional, or cognitive disabilities. Accommodations will also be made for medical conditions

related to pregnancy or parenting. Students should contact Dean Buggie-Hunt in the Office of

Disability Services ([email protected] or 585-245-5112) and their faculty to discuss needed

accommodations as early as possible in the semester.

Office Hours I have established regular office hours for this course on Wednesday morning from 9:00 a.m. to

12:00 noon. I am in my office almost every day, and I am happy to meet with you at your request

at a time other than the published office hours; for quickest results in setting up a time, please

send me an email so that we can schedule an appointment. I make every effort to respond to

email within 24 hours.

There is one caveat to my willingness to meet with you. If you are not fully engaging yourself in

this course in terms of attendance and doing your work, I will not meet with you privately in

order to go over materials that you missed or didn’t complete. So, for example, if you miss a

class, without one of the standard reasons for doing so (medical, legal, or crisis -- all of which

requires appropriate documentation), and find yourself having difficulty with the concepts or

processes that we covered during that class, I will not meet with you to re-teach the material.

Also, I will want to see completed work in your workbook before I meet with you about a

problem that you are encountering with any particular topic.

METHOD OF DETERMINING FINAL GRADE

The basic framework for grading in this course is as follows:

Regular Written Assignments * 25 %

Assignments from MyCourses 10 %

Participation (see details below) 10 %

Rudiments Exam (see pass:fail grading requirement below) 30%

Quizzes and the like (including keyboard and solfège) 10 %

Final Exam 15 %

Pass:Fail Rudiments Requirement

The mastery and ready application of music theoretical rudiments is essential to the

development of functional musicianship and is therefore required for continuation on to

Music 211. Mastery of theoretical rudiments is evaluated on a pass:fail basis. To receive

a passing mark, students must receive a 90% or better (27 out of 30) on a written and

timed rudiments exam. Scores of lower than a 90% will receive a failing mark of 0/30 for

the rudiments portion of a student’s overall final grade, resulting in a maximum grade of

C- for the course (see “Assignments and Grading” below). The exam will cover the

construction and identification of intervals, triads, dominant seventh chords, scales, and

key signatures. The exam will be administered three times over the course of the

semester. Students may take the exam multiple times.

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Keyboard and Accompaniment Technique

In addition, all music majors are expected to develop functional keyboard technique during the

first-year music course, including the ability to harmonize melodies in two and four parts on

sight at the keyboard, harmonize unfigured bass lines, and accompany simply melodies at the

piano. All students registered for MUSC 210 must therefore sit for a piano placement interview

with Dr. Stanley during the first week of the semester. All prospective music majors are

strongly encouraged to register for MUSC 140 simultaneously with MUSC 210. From time

to time during the semester, there will be a keyboard quiz that tests a specifically-assigned

element of keyboard performance.

* Non-stapled work is reduced by a letter grade for the first occurrence, two letter grades for the

second, and three letter grades for each subsequent occurrence.

You are required to attend three concerts presented by the Music Department as part of the

participation grade for this course. The list of concerts is available in the Music Department’s

office and also on the MyCourses page for this course.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CLASS SCHEDULE and ASSIGNMENT LIST

Some Important Information and Thoughts

As you will read in the schedule below, the course is divided into two segments. The first, which is

primarily about rudiments, will unfold almost precisely as listed in the schedule; thus the MyCourses

due dates given here for Unit 1 are exact. N.B.: other due dates related to Unit 1 will be announced in

class. The date of the first test is also exact, so you should put it on your calendar now. The second

unit deals primarily with harmonies and how voices and chords move and relate to each other.

One overarching principle is that we will become more involved and active with skills development

as we progress. Thus when you are looking at the schedule for Unit 2, you (and I, likewise) can only

approximate what the order of topics and due dates will be. The order of topics shown in Unit 2

reflects loosely, at present, one logical order of presentation. However, there are many other orders of

presentation that will also be logical, and we will certainly not be sticking slavishly to the order you

see here. There is no way to know now exactly how it will unfold. All of that is to say that you must

consider the schedule for Unit 2 to be ‘conceptual’ rather than ‘linear.’ For that reason, you will see

almost no due dates set up now.

Therefore, this means that we will also be using a large number of exercises and assignments that will

be provided during class time that are uniquely developed for our purposes. Out of those will come

due dates that are not on the schedule below, and which will be announced at that time. As noted

earlier, you can continue to expect regular assignments as those two units move along, usually for

each class. Another good reason to attend class.

Bring all relevant materials to every class, as well as manuscript paper and pencils.

Remember: NEATNESS COUNTS!

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UNIT ONE – Rudiments

Date Topic The Music Kit MyCourses DUE

8/30 Introduction

9/01 Notation, clefs, staff , tones, semitones Chapters 1, 2, 3 MC 1 - 09/02

9/06 Major scales and keys, tetrachords Chapter 4, 5 MC 2/3–09/05

9/08 MC 4 – 09/09

9/13 Intervals Chapter 6 MC 5 – 09/14

9/15 MC 6/7 – 9/19

9/20 Minor scales and keys Chapter 7

9/22

9/27 Triads (all positions) Chapter 8

9/29 MC 8 – 09/30

10/04

10/06 Rhythm Topics

10/11 Fall Break – NO CLASS

10/13 RUDIMENTS TEST

UNIT TWO – ABCs of Harmony

10/18 through 12/08 (no class November 24 - Thanksgiving)

Dominant Sevenths Chapter 10

Harmonic Function

Melody

Harmonizing Melody

Non-chord tones

Phrase

Cadences

Basics of Form Chapter 11

Voice Leading and Part Writing

Melody Writing

Sequence

Basic Chromaticism

Tempo and Expression

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Thursday, December 15 FINAL 12:00 noon – 2:30 p.m.

The above schedule is subject to change, and you will be notified of any changes. If any change

affects a due date, that due date will not be earlier than that specified in the schedule.

There are NO make-up tests and exams in this course.