Relevance of the Current Curriculum: Teaching 'The Simpsons' and 'Monsters, Inc.' alongside Beethoven and Wagner
Movie and TV music are generally marginalized with respect to the classical canon taught in music appreciation courses. In this lecture, I show that analyzing the sophisticated compositional techniques found in movie and television music helps students see why truly understanding music (and not just passively consuming it) is relevant in their everyday lives. TV Music allows me introduce complex notions that I subsequently apply to the analysis of the art music repertoire: phrase structure, key relationships, motivic development, among many others. Paper read at the CMS Fifty-First National Conference: “A Changing Profession in a Changing World.” Atlanta, GA, September 25-28, 2008.
'I wouldn't have nothing if
I didn't have you.'
A commentary on the educational value of visual and aural archetypes in Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." (2001). In: Across Cultures: A Reader for Writers, 7th edition. Eds. Sheena Gillespie and Robert Becker. New York: Longman, 2007. Available through Amazon.com.
Trope and Irony in The
Simpsons’ Overture.
Using the initial sequence of "The Simpson"s as a case study, this article analyzes the role of television music in the construction of the medium’s total audiovisual message. The one-minute opening, a luscious symphonic overture complete with sound effects, introduces the five family characters plus the small-town suburban culture that surrounds them. Inscribed within Hollywood’s cinematographic language, the music is a powerful generic marker often projecting absurdity and irony. Notwithstanding the pantomimic effect, these comedic contradictions address the dysfunctional life of the Simpsons, defining the American Dream in ways distinct from other TV shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Read at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Music Theory Society of New York State. New York, April 2007. Forthcoming in Popular Music and Society 31/5 (December 2008).
Dramatic Expression and Form in Mozart K. 282, First Movement.
The score of Mozart’s Sonata in Eb, K. 282, does not allude to any explicit theatrical or programmatic content. But analysis of its melodic articulation, phrase structure, voice leading, and tonal rhythm suggests metaphorical connections with operatic subjects. Charles Rosen defines the relationship between aria and sonata in Mozart as “interplay between dramatic expression and abstract form,” a connection that goes back to an overall preoccupation with “expression” in the eighteenth-century. A hermeneutic interpretation can only go as far as the interpretation of a metaphor, but picturing the first movement of Mozart’s K. 282 as an imaginary operatic scene transforms our way to experience this sonata, both as performers and listeners. Fifth International Conference on Music Theory. Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. September 28–30, 2006.
Formal Conflicts and Metaphor in Scriabin's Op. 22.
Inscribed within the tonal language, Scriabin’s early compositional style features interesting conflicts between harmony, voice leading and phrase rhythm. Separate layers of structure are occasionally out-of-phase with one another, but remain unified through hidden parallelisms and motivic linkages. These formal conflicts project metaphor and allusion. Fourth International Schenker Symposium, New York. March 2006.
Learning as a dissonant act
A true story illustrating some of the risks and rewards of bending the "contrapuntal rules" of student-teacher interaction. About Campus 10:3, September 2005.
From Regis Philbin to Donna Elvira: Using Mass Media as a Bridge to Mozart
In order to engage the kinds of non-Western undergraduate populations that are becoming predominant in American urban colleges, music appreciation surveys must expand their focus to areas beyond the standard literature and integrate its findings with those of other related disciplines. Only then the students can see the relevance of—and make a connection between—the class contents and their overall education. This presentation, integrating popular culture and standard repertoire in the music appreciation classroom, focuses on selected instances of the TV show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?,” examining how music is used at different moments to enhance specific moods or emotional atmospheres. Looking at this contemporary show familiarizes the students with basic tools for music analysis, such as the ability to interpret tempo, melodic and rhythmic design, harmonic language, and motivic development. Once the students are equipped with this basic terminology, they are prepared to deeper experience, and better understand, an aria from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Presented at the 2005 CMS International Conference, Madrid, Spain.
From Folk Song to Art Music: Deconstructing the Metamorphosis
Presented as part of the interdisciplinary symposium "The Status of the Document in the Digital Age: A Multidisciplinary Approach." ED-MEDIA 2005 - World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications. Co-presented with Lori Anderson-Moseman, Megan Elias, Belle Gironda, and Ken Golden. Montreal, Canada, June 2005. Published in the proceedings of the conference.
This is why we teach: Igniting a passion for learning in linked courses
Rote teaching and learning have their place, but not in a music course and an art and design course in which two dozen students at Queensborough Community College enrolled together. Through a shared theme, shared assignments, and a shared commitment to making the content relevant and the process active and engaging, two instructors fashioned a powerful environment for learning. Available for download at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/110430912/ABSTRACT
Dementia within Formal Organization in Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King
This paper searches for consistent principles of formal organization in Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King. The study addresses first the musical-theatrical frame created by the composer and the words provided by Randolph Stow; later, it proceeds to examine the relation of those two components to other aspects of the musical structure. Presented at the 33rd. Annual Meeting of the Music Theory Society of New York State. Baruch College, CUNY. New York, NY, 9–10 April 2005. Published in ex-tempore, Journal of Compositional and Theoretical Research in Music XII/1. Spring/Summer 2004.Watching With Your Ears, Listening With Your Eyes: Layered Semantics in Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis
How can music appreciation & digital art and design be integrated into a learning community? How can one engage a multicultural student population? This is a hands-on forum for teachers of the humanities who are interested in active learning and interdisciplinary ways of knowing. Basic principles of aural and visual designed are explored by analyzing and reinventing a segment of a contemporary anime remake of the silent classic, “Metropolis.” Participants have an opportunity to think about script, screen image, and soundtrack; identifying how music (tempo, dynamics, texture, harmony, instrumentation) and image (line, form, color, light) communicate information and help set the tone and mood in film.Forum lead with Ken Golden and Sarah Standing at the League for Innovation Conference, New York, March 2005.
La Femme Fatale in Queens Boulevard
Paper read at a CUNY Junior Faculty Research Colloquium in Queens College, November 2004.
The Obsolete Classroom
Paper read at QCC's Second College Conference. November 2004
Towards a Community of Practice
Co-authored with Dr. Eduardo Marti, President of Queensborough Community College, and Professor Peter Gray, of the English Department at Queensborough Community College. Published in the Community College Journal. Available for download at: http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Content/ContentGroups/CC_Journal/Apr_May_2004/april20_26.pdf.
Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's Music
Piazzolla’s Tango Nuevo departed from traditional tango in many ways, for instance by featuring new, more aggressive rhythmic gestures. The new style also featured a more sophisticated phrase-structure, independent from the dance or the words. Both aspects of the change, intrinsically related to each other, were in fact rooted in the performance practice of singers (Gardel among them) of the "old style" tango. This paper was presented in the Seminar Tango, Bandoneón, Piazzolla, organized by the Music Department of the Graduate School and University Center of City University of New York in march of 2000. Click here to see pictures and read more about that event. This article was published in Latin American Music Review, Spring/Summer 2002, 23:1.
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