Music

New Ways of Conceiving Sound: Advanced Concert Music from 1950 to Present

Final Listening Report

You are going to choose one piece of music from the list below and listen to it (a lot), read about he composer and the style, and write a report about your experience. Please follow the methodology closely, taking notes for each step as you go, and write your report (after) in clear, correct prose.

Recommended length: 5 pages (4 – 7 range) double spaced, Times font, size 12, etc. No cover page, citations only when quoting (within paper body, only the sources mentioned), no bibliography necessary. No research outside of the sources given is necessary or expected—this is alistening report, not a research paper.

Methodology:

Preliminary Survey: Listen to the first piece listed for each of the eight composers givenbelow. Listen closely and choose a piece that is interesting to you—not something you like, necessarily, but something intriguing, something you’d like to learn more about through multiple listenings.
“Blind” Listening(s): Listen to your chosen piece without doing any background research. I recommend listening to your piece all the way through to experience the whole, and then listening again in order totake notes of more particular observations. (Many of these works are long, so focus on only one movement or a large section of a longer piece.) There is no limit to how often you listen to your piece, I’d say as much as you feel is necessaryto get “inside” the work. Once you’ve made a number of concrete observations and collected a number of thoughts about it, organize your thoughts and notes into a couple paragraphs of written prose. This will be your first impression(s) of the piece, which will deepen and change as you go through the following steps and continue your experience.
Historical-Stylistic Context of the Composer: Now, do some research on the composer and his/her background. Read the composer’s entry in the Oxford Music Online Encyclopedia (login with your Lehman credentials—the college has a subscription), perhaps find the Wikipedia page of your chosen piece (only). The Guardian also has excellent composer profiles on each of the composers listed (and many others)—find your composer and read the article. Once you’ve assembled your information, write a few paragraphs thatsummarize the composer’sartistic interests, methods, philosophy, and/or work as a whole. Do not write a biography—write about the composer’s place within the context of contemporary music and especiallywhat makes their work interesting/important and unique. Biographical details are welcome, but only those that are relevant to the music and would potentially help the listener understand the music’s significance.
Stylistic Context of the Music (Separate Listening): This is connected to the previous task, but instead requires “listening research.”Listen to other works by the same composer to get a broader sense of the kind of music they write. Start by listening to the other work included on the list, but also pull up at least one additional work of importance on Youtube (perhaps one mentioned in your research). This step will give you more insight into the composer’s “sound world,” and it will help you hear your chosen work in a different light. The more pieces you explore, the clearer this world will appear to you.
Second Listening(s):Listen to your chosen piece again, once or a number of times. Take notes again. Now having done some research and listened to other pieces, are you hearing/understanding this work differently? Do you hear more? Pay careful attention to how your thoughts and observations have changed since your “blind” listening, now that you have more knowledge of and experience with the music.Report yournew observations and new thoughts in a paragraph or two.
Description of the Piece: Your previous notes and observations should be of a general nature. Now, try to describe what “happens” in the piece from beginning to end of the whole or section of a longer work. You’ll have to listen to it a bunch of times. The purpose of this exercise is to get a general picture of the large-scale shape of the work, which is important because we can often get lost in the moment-to-moment details. Your “description” can be schematic and incomplete, also non-technical, and as detailed as you feel is necessary to “capture” the large scale. Try your best toexplainhowthe piece moves and changes over time. Write your description using proper terminology.
Final Listening(s): Listen to the piece again, all the way through, without taking notes, without doing anything. Just listen to it closely and take it all in one final time. Do this with “fresh ears”—after some time away from it (maybe the next day?). I’ll bet you are pretty familiar with it at this point—do you find yourself listening more deeply, hearing more intelligently?
Take-Away(s) and Final Thoughts: Lastly, write a couple paragraphs about the work and your experience doing this listening project. What are the important take-away(s) about your piece, about the composer, about the style in general, about the kind of “world” the piece inhabits? What makes this piece interesting, or important, or unique? If you had to tell someone about this composer, or about this specific work, what would you want them to know before listening? Try to be as specific as possible. Finally, write about your experience as a listener. Talk about how your initial impressions of the work changed after spending time doing careful listening, thinking, reading, and writing about it. What did you learn about this music, about yourself as a listener, about what music “is” or “can be” in general? Read everything you’ve written over again, then share your final thoughts.