There have been a number of things that I've found frustrating as I teach post-tonal theory (and as I think about post-tonal music on my own). First, I have been frustrated by the available textbooks. Straus's book provides an excellent overview of set theory and serial techniques, but is difficult to use for repertoire that doesn't sit well with those techniques. Roig-Francoli's covers a broader range of material, and I like the anthology, but there are things about the text that I don't like. I tried this semester to use Morris's Class notes as a supplementary outline, but the outline format was a blessing and a curse, and the dense mathematical language was a bit much for some of my students.
My frustration with available post-tonal ear training materials led to my article in Indiana Theory Review a few years ago, but even that is not entirely adequate for a good bit of repertoire.
The ubiquity of set theory and related tools as well as our general dependence of the score coupled with the inadequate post-tonal ear-training materials has me thinking about a "listening to 20th- (and 21st-) century music project.
As I am currently envisioning it, this would be an online modular resource that takes advantage of everything the internet does well as far as delivery of multimedia and availability of recordings and score (the prohibitive cost of scores and/or licensing is another factor under consideration here, too). I envision a curriculum of mostly so-called "art" music, with some popular music and jazz interspersed.
Another fundamental change here would be asking students what they hear, not telling them what to hear (or, what notes to circle). A graded set of questions about the piece as heard would be provided, enabling the materials to be used for any population, ranging from undergraduate non-majors to graduate students. Hyperlinks will be available to related biographical materials and ancillary sources.
I intend to start another (!) blog to roll out this project--stay tuned here for more information. Thoughts, comments, and suggested repertoire/resources would be welcome via the comments...
My frustration with available post-tonal ear training materials led to my article in Indiana Theory Review a few years ago, but even that is not entirely adequate for a good bit of repertoire.
The ubiquity of set theory and related tools as well as our general dependence of the score coupled with the inadequate post-tonal ear-training materials has me thinking about a "listening to 20th- (and 21st-) century music project.
As I am currently envisioning it, this would be an online modular resource that takes advantage of everything the internet does well as far as delivery of multimedia and availability of recordings and score (the prohibitive cost of scores and/or licensing is another factor under consideration here, too). I envision a curriculum of mostly so-called "art" music, with some popular music and jazz interspersed.
Another fundamental change here would be asking students what they hear, not telling them what to hear (or, what notes to circle). A graded set of questions about the piece as heard would be provided, enabling the materials to be used for any population, ranging from undergraduate non-majors to graduate students. Hyperlinks will be available to related biographical materials and ancillary sources.
I intend to start another (!) blog to roll out this project--stay tuned here for more information. Thoughts, comments, and suggested repertoire/resources would be welcome via the comments...