My second Honors experience was completed this semester, another one down! This experience was, yet again, an Honors Seminar offered by the University. As we were scheduling for Fall Semester 2015, a couple of my friends told me about this seminar they signed up for, which seemed to be a sort-of music appreciation course. I have a bit of a musical background from band, choir, and theatre in high school, so I thought this course would be very interesting, and I dove right in. Now, FAM3000, or Listen to the Music was indeed a type of music appreciation, and although I knew a decent amount about music coming into the course, I learned much, much more than I expected. Our class was small in size, though it included students from freshman to seniors as well as a wide variety of majors. This also meant that our musical backgrounds varied a whole lot, from people like myself who have been performing musically for years and years to a couple peers who could not tell you what notes on a staff represented at all before the course. We began with the basics: What Is Music? Our professor explained the science behind sound waves and vibrations caused by different instruments or voices affecting molecules in the air, thus altering the way our ears and brain perceive sound. We covered musical basics such as melody, harmony, rhythm, meter, mode, and typical symphonic instruments. After we were all on the same page with the most basic terms of describing music, we began to study the evolution of music in the Western World. We progressed all the way from Mozart and his colleagues in the Classical era, learning about their stiff symphonic structures and forms, through Beethoven's revolutionary changes leading to the Romantic era all the way through the birth of American Jazz and the very abstract, modern music of the 20th century. One of the most worthwhile things about this course to me was seeing how music evolved alongside developments of human culture, literature, and art. Just as other art forms are so heavily influenced by modern historical events (like artwork, especially), musical ideas and the breakdown of rigid forms and harmonic demands are able to be traced alongside history's progression. Impressionism in painting (like van Gogh and Monet) developed just as Impressionist composers such as Ravel and Debussy were taking new leading roles in the musical scene. All the same, Jazz developed in a time of huge cultural outburst and new identity for Americans post World War I. It was incredible to see this progression, and see how it can all be traced back. We should always know where we come from so we can progress forward! The main ways our learning was put to the test throughout this course was through our writing about the music we heard. There were three in-class "exams" where our professor would choose three pieces of music we would listen to as a class then write about as we listened. Based on the title, composer, and our own listening to these pieces, we were expected to write detailed descriptions of their historical significance such as what kind of venues they would have premiered in, who the audiences would have been, what period of musical style the pieces fell under, as well as descriptions of the actual music regarding form, modality, meter, instruments incorporated, tone, etc. These exams put to the test our knowledge as well as our listening, making us really think about what the composers were meaning to portray in their music. Still, we were also allowed to share what it meant to us personally, if the music seemed to bring us any emotions or memories or thoughts of certain scenes being played out in our minds; this is important because music is still a form of art, and art will always affect individuals uniquely based upon that individual's own experiences. Another expectation for the class was that we attend three group performances and find one for ourselves to attend. At the beginning of the semester, our professor had a list of different musical performances which we could choose from to attend based on our own schedules; she was going to every one of them, and whichever 3 we chose would count as a "group" listening assignment, on which we were expected to write a one-page summary of the performance we attended. The "individual" assignment could be any we found ourselves to attend and was accompanied by a two-page writing. This semester, I was thus given the opportunity to attend a CCM Faculty Piano Quartet, The Merry Widow Opera, the Ariel Quartet, and a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra performance of Bach's Mass in B minor. Finally, our learning was put to the ultimate test in the form of our final paper. We were allowed to choose basically any extended work or album from nearly any composer of our choice which we would research and analyze in a 2000 word essay. Personally, I was very excited for this project, and I knew based on what we studied and based on my own performance experiences that I wanted to listen to and research some piece from the Romantic period by one of the French composers from the Paris Conservatoire. After much difficulty, I narrowed it down to Histoires naturelles by Maurice Ravel. I have attached my final paper as an artifact of this course at the end of this reflection because I feel it is a very worthwhile representation of the development of my knowledge and analysis skills of music thanks to the expectations of this course. Coming in to Listen to the Music, I had enough musical experience to read and perform music, and I had the ability to identify form and modality when music was in front of me, but coming away from this course, I am able to identify so much more from music. I can listen to nearly any classical piece with the ability to identify what musical era it originates from, listen for modality, meter, tone, and form throughout the piece, and perhaps develop a story to accompany what the composer is portraying through the work. Now, listening to classical music is a different experience for me; it is much more enjoyable as I am able to analyze the music more accurately and successfully, and I know the evolution of music throughout the ages. As I said before, I have a new historical perspective as well, as we learned about how the different styles and eras reflected the world and events which surrounded the birth of each new, cutting-edge era of music. I am very excited about this new personal revolution because music is something that is all around me and from which I do not want to separate myself. I am still a musical performer, in UC's Men's Chorus, and I have new musical insights which I am able to use every day. I want to move forward with this new exciting knowledge and remain an active performer and supporter of music and performers in my community for the rest of my life. This class gave me the opportunity to explore the musical scenes in Cincinnati, and I now know where I want to go and hear new performances and support local artists. It's a very exciting thing to experience art being created, and I am excited to have a new perspective on music, the way it is being created all around me, and the way I can fit into that beautiful narrative. |
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