Here is the syllabus for a course in counterpoint at the undergraduate level that I will start on Monday. Students have studied modal and tonal counterpoint in their core music theory courses and is quickly reviewed here. We will explore the counterpoint of people speaking in a group, some percussion studies, and some modal explorations. […]
Every year I tell my music theory students to not forget to say THANK YOU to their teachers at the end of a course. In fact, to say thank you whenever the opportunity arises — that is, without sounding like a goody-two-shoes. It is so easy, and facilitates friendly interpersonal relationships.
But then, I’m paid by […]
I am beginning to think about teaching a course on counterpoint in the spring quarter. Our undergraduates are required to take two quarters of it, the first being traditional modal and tonal counterpoint (roughly Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint, for non-musicians, think Palestrina and Bach), and the second quarter was a kind of counterpoint after that […]
Dean Christopher Waterman announced today that the Herb Alpert Foundation has given 30 million dollars to UCLA, specifically to create a synergistic relationship between the three (now) separate music departments: The Department of Musicology, The Department of Ethnomusicology, and The Department of Music. I am the Chair of the latter. Associate Dean Tim Rice has […]
I have started a new blog called music @ UCLA. Some years back, just like the Dark Crystal, the music department broke up and formed three separate departments: The Department of Music (which includes composition, performance, music education, and performance practice), the Department of Musicology, and the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology. Got that?
When […]
“Benward,” as we used to call him, was an excellent music theory teacher. I had him for two year. We were always proofing his new text books, so we never got the real publications, just grey photocopies Benward had “Ism-itis” and could cull down every trend in the 20th century with an ISM. ModernISM, mimalISM, […]
Crosby, Still, Nash and Young perform a Stephen Stills song from their first album “You don’t have to Cry” on the Tom Jones Show (London 1970).
The amount of music an educated musician these days “should” know has become rather staggering. That being said, it is shocking how little music literature young music students know these days. It is far more likely that they will know Danny Elfman, James Horner or John Williams film scores before they know a Beethoven, Mozart, […]
In their third quarter of music theory, my students have been working on their midterm. This time, instead of an exam, they were assigned to arrange or compose three duets (one had to have a transposing instrument). The combinations were: flute and oboe; clarinet and alto sax; trumpet and trombone (or euphonium); violin, viola, or […]
Last night I met, face-to-face, the brilliant and multi-talented PK, of Loose Poodle fame. We overlapped one year at the New England Conservatory from 1976-1977 and thought we knew each other. We’ve corresponded via emaiil and blogs for the past year, and knew each other that way, but when we sat and looked at each […]
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