Lineamientos para el diario

Tomé estos lineamientos directamente de la clase M656 que tomé con el profesor Peter Burkholder, autor de "A History of Western Music" publicada por Norton y que a su vez es el texto más usado en las universidades estadounidenses para enseñar esta materia. Pienso que sus orientaciones son muy prácticas y las adoptaremos en nuestro curso.

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Much of your study time will be devoted to listening. Listen to each piece at least twice, perhaps before and again after it is treated in class.

Listening cannot be hurried, so allow enough time for it. Ask yourself how the piece is put together, how it is like other pieces you know and how it is different, and how it fits into the traditions we are studying.

Remember that the music is more important than all the talk about it, even what is said in class. Try not to approach music you have never heard through the fog of what others have said about it (even what is said in class or what the composer says!), for much of what is said and written about music can be misleading until you know the music itself. This is one reason for listening to the music and writing about it in your journal before we discuss it in class.

You may find it helpful to consider what is distinctive or traditional in each of the following aspects: genre, style, rhythm, melody, harmony, phrasing, texture, form, use of voices and instruments, use of text (if any), and meanings or emotions conveyed. But you need not discuss all of these, and should keep your description fairly brief. Here is a sample entry, for Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1, using the guidelines above:

This is a solo piano piece in a made-up genre, an ancient Greek circle dance, and in a very simple style. Its slow triple meter recalls other calm dances. The rhythm is monotonous, with the same swaying left-hand accompaniment throughout and a melody that uses only quarter and dotted half notes. The melodies are diatonic, but seem aimless. The modal harmony reinforces this sense of swaying without much forward motion--for instance, the opening alternates G and D seventh chords. The phrases are somewhat irregular and unpredictable. The texture never changes. The form is ABAB--once again swaying back and forth without getting anywhere. All of this creates a mood of calmness and effortlessness, almost blankness. This seems to be Satie's answer to overblown Romanticism. Nothing is expressed; it just is. This is quite unlike 19th-century music and most 20th-century music, but it anticipates the emotional blankness of some neoclassical and post-WWII music. The simplicity is also untypical, while the modal rather than tonal harmony and the static quality anticipate Debussy and many others.