Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon Portland Community College

CCOG for MUS 213A Spring 2024

View archive version »
Course Number:
MUS 213A
Course Title:
Music Theory II (part three)
Credit Hours:
3
Lecture Hours:
30
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Continues study of music from Music Theory II (part two). Focuses on 20th-century composition techniques. Includes impressionism, 12-tone serialism, early electro-acoustic, minimalism and other later practices. Prerequisites: MUS 212A. Corequisites: MUS 213B. Audit available.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  • Provide harmonic/formal analysis of representative works using an understanding of 20th-century composition techniques.
  • Compose original examples of musical works based on 20th-century practices.
  • Identify specific stylistic differences in works composed over the last 500 years using the knowledge of 20th-century and earlier practices.

Course Activities and Design

Material will primarily be presented in a lecture/discussion format. Other educational methods will be used to enhance lectures. These will include guest presentations and performances, research papers, small group work, original composition assignments and concert attendance.
A large amount of student to teacher and student to student contact should be achieved throughout the term in order to encourage and accomplish successful student development. The application of concepts presented will be accomplished through the examination of musical works in a variety of musical genres. Composition assignments that focus on particular aspects of music will be regularly scheduled.  Whenever possible students should be encouraged to perform assignments and compositions in the classroom. In addition, students will be given the opportunity to learn and use music technology (MIDI) to supplement the regular course work.

Students will be able to reharmonize a traditional musical composition using jazz harmonic theory.
Students will be able to apply basic jazz scale/chord theory to an existing jazz chart.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples of extended tertian harmonies.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples using the church modes and modal cadences.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples of nontertian harmonies.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples that employ parallelism.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples of extended tertian harmonies.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples using polychords, polyrhythm and polymeters.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples of free tonality, pandiatonicisim and bitonality.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples based on synthetic scales.
Students will be able to identify differences between the compositional styles of Stravinsky and Bartok.
Students will be able to identify the basic cell(s) used in an atonal cell based composition.
Students will be able to identify and compose atonal musical examples using all the various transformations of a musical cell.
Students will be able to provide a harmonic analysis of an atonal composition using basic set theory.
Students will be able to identify and compose examples using 12-tone serial procedures.
Students will be able to create a pitch matrix for an atonal 12-tone serial composition.
Students will be able to identify compositional techniques related to the latter half of the twentieth century.

Outcome Assessment Strategies

The instructor should make the criteria for assigning a course grade and for evaluating student progress clear at the beginning of the term. The individual instructor will determine the methods of assessment. Assessment methods may include:

Qualitative examinations
Quantitative examinations
Homework assignments
Music presentations
Class participation
Composition projects
Small group work/problem solving
Concert reports

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)


New Musical Resources
… Extended and added tone harmonies
… Modality vs. tonality
… Quartal and quintal harmony
… Church modes, whole tone and pentatonic scales
… Nonfunctional tonality
… Parallelism
    
Early Twentieth Century Tonality
… The golden mean in music
… Secundal harmonies
… Polychords
… New rhythmic devices (asymmetric meter, ostinato, polymeter and polyrhythm)
… Octatonic and synthetic scales
… New forms of tonality (free tonality, bitonality, pandiatonicism and polytonality)
Stravinsky vs. Bartok
… Additive formal process
… Stratification
… Isorhythms and nonretrogradable rhythms
… Modes of limited transposition
Jazz Harmony and Theory
… Reading charts and jazz harmony
… Extending chords
… Substitution patterns
… Scale/chord theory
… Improvisation
Atonality
… Cellular organization and variation
… Schoenberg, Berg and Webern
… Set theory (interval class, pitch class, normal order, prime form, interval vectors)
… Serialism and 12-tone method
… Non 12-tone serialism and absolute serialism
Recent Developments
… Electroacoustic music
… Indeterminancy
… Extended technique and prepared instruments
… Minimalism
… New notational methods
COMPETENCIES/SKILLS
The following skills are expected to be achieved to successfully meet the minimum requirement ("C" or "Pass") of the course.

  • Harmonize melody according to 20th-century jazz practices including chord extensions and substitutions.
  • Identify and compose musical examples employing early 20th-century non-tertian harmony.
  • Identify and compose musical examples of non-traditional tonality.
  • Identify and compose synthetic scale based musical examples.
  • Provide harmonic analysis of tonal musical works from the early 20th century.
  • Provide harmonic analysis of atonal musical works from the early 20th century including cell based and serial methods.
  • Compose atonal musical examples using intervalic organization procedures and serialism.
  • Identify compositional devices used in musical works from the second half of the 20th-century.