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SYLLABUS FOR FALL QUARTER 2003

Class time and location
Tuesdays, room 222, 8:00–9:50 am

Instructor
Jonathan Leathwood
office number 302
jleathwo@du.edu
303 871 6929 (office)

Lectures & tutorials

It will surely be necessary to hold tutorials individually or in small groups from time to time. We may reserve the second hour of class for tutorials, or they may be arranged for other times in the week.

Assignments and grading

There will be no final examination, though there might possibly be one or two small tests. Otherwise, the final grade will be assigned on the basis of a portfolio of three compositions worked on over the quarter.

The first two will be to some extent set tasks and together will make up 50% of the final grade. The first piece will be a monody for a solo instrument, lasting from 50 seconds to a little over a minute. The second piece must reflect in some way a systematic method of composition: it might be a minimalist work, a ‘process’ piece, an ambient piece, a tone poem, a serial work – a number of different models will be shown in class. The instrumentation will be piano, guitar, or small ensemble.

The nature of the third composition will be entirely up to you in all respects – length, instrumentation, form, style, and so on. Bear in mind, though, that it will represent 50% of your final grade, so it should be fairly substantial.

Submission dates

1. The first composition (monody) is due on Monday, 23 September at noon [week 3]
2. The second composition (systems piece) is due on Monday, 14 October at noon [week 6]
3. The last composition (free choice) is due on Monday, 28 October at noon [week 8]
4. The portfolio (final version of all three pieces) is due on Monday, 18 November at noon [first day of examination period]

NB Keep a copy of all work submitted

These deadlines mean that the piece must be in a complete enough state that we can look at it together and work on it. You may continue to revise all three compositions until you submit the portfolio, when a final grade will be assigned. Earlier in the quarter we shall together assign provisional grades to your work to help you have some idea of what needs to be done to attain the best possible grade for the portfolio.

How to grade an original composition? There is certainly a subjective element in assessing a work of art, but remember that performers do not bother with pieces that are written in ignorance of the conventions of notation, or are impractical for the instruments, or have poorly balanced textures. Getting these things right is crucial for a good grade. Notation will be discussed throughout the course, but we shall devote a class to it, probably the fourth week.

The remainder of the grade will be assigned on the basis of technique and inventiveness, and to some extent on the individual progress you have made over the term together with your level of involvement in class.

Performances

The first composition (the monody) will be performed in the fourth week of class. I want you to take responsibility for finding a performer for this class. Let’s hope that we can hear some performances of the second and even the third work, but again, I want you to make the necessary arrangements. I’ll help if I can.
Lamont has a new music ensemble directed by Conrad Kehn. The ensemble regularly does concerts at the school, and I am sure that Conrad would like to consider anything you want to show him for performance in one of these concerts.

Subsequent quarters

I am going to try to make each quarter follow on from the one before, so that it is worthwhile to take Basic Composition for the entire year. However, students need to be able to join the class for the first time in the second or third quarters, so each quarter will likely have a similar shape, with simpler assignments at the beginning of the quarter, and a free choice at the end. But there will be some variation in the assignments and the topics discussed in class from one quarter to the next, so that anyone taking the class for the entire year should get to try a wide variety of techniques and to examine many representative works.

*

SYLLABUSES are made for people, not the other way round. It may be necessary to make sweeping changes depending on the progress of the course and the people involved. I hope very much that you will find our course together nourishing and stimulating. If you feel that it is proving not to be, I beg you to come and speak with me about your concerns and we will try to address them.