Introduction to musical composition

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Forums and Concerts: 6 required events outside regular class times

Music making (composing, improvising, performing, listening) is a fundamental vehicle for human expression, taking on myriad forms in different times and places. This course is principally concerned with improving access to musical creativity, with providing and enhancing tools and techniques. The focus of written assignments will be to develop musical ideas and notation methods that effectively transmit them to performers. The computer will be used as a tool to explore these and related issues.

There is no prerequisite for the class. All musical backgrounds are welcomed, including students without prior musical training.

This is not the class for you if you want to learn:

This is the class for you if you want to be creative with sound and performance. We will be experimenting with the fundaments of music making. Our inquiry will examine music from all time periods, as well as all cultures and regions. Nothing is assumed!

This is a HASS Arts Distribution undergraduate subject. Instead of term papers, you will be writing music to meet the writing requirement. All music that you write will be performed in-class by your fellow students, or will be presented on computer.

In addition to your composition assignments, you will also have frequent reading and listening assignments.

The final project will be a significant composition, to be assigned later in the semester. This composition will be performed during the last few weeks of the semester.

Late assignments will not be accepted. Attendance is mandatory.

You will never need your cellphone during class, unless it is used in a composition as a sound source. Please keep your cellphones stored away. We will eventually be using your laptops for creating music, but not for the first month or so of the semester. Please keep your laptops stored away when we are not using them.

You must attend these six events during semester, including four events with MIT artists-in-residence Either/Or. If you are unable to attend any of them due to a scheduling conflict, then we will find substitute events for you to go to. You must let me know by the beginning of the second week of class if you cannot attend any of these events.

Session Key

L = Lecture
F = Forum
C = Concert

Assignment 1 (silent day) due

Assignment 2 (soundwalk) out

Assignment 3 (visualizing music) due

Assignment 4 (text-sound composition) out

Assignment 5 (instrumental building proposal) due

Assignment 6 (SPEAR sounds) out; due 1 day later

Assignment 8 (tabula rasa) due

Assignment 9 (Audacity 2) out

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