Music 101 class final project

Final Project – you can’t pass without it High Stakes Paper: 1,100+ words

10/29-30 Before class: Your final project piece, elements, & link must be approved. Submit as text through BB (see step 2) (30 points) BEFORE Friday, 12/4 11:59: Schedule appointment with the Writing Center to review your paper

(50 points) Sunday, 12/13, 11:59pm: Final Paper Due – THIS CAN NOT BE LATE. (200 points)

For your final project, you will write a short analysis/research paper for a musical work of your choice. This exercise will allow you to apply the listening skills, terminology, and musical knowledge you’ve acquired over the course of the semester to a specific work of music, one that you enjoy.

Step 1: Post your chosen piece and elements to Blackboard

Choose a work of music you like or would like to know more about (or better still, both).

Guidelines: ♫ It must be at least 3:30 (three minutes, thirty seconds) long unincluding silence, applause, etc.; ♫ You must provide a YouTube link at the top of post (and your paper); ♫ It must be at least something that falls remotely within the scope of this class, e.g. folk, jazz,

movie soundtracks, classical, Broadway, Latino, R&B, gospel, “oldies,” etc. – in other words, no metal, rap, etc. Your piece must have a melody (text, if any, must not be spoken/rapped).

♫ It can not be a piece we talked about extensively in class. You will have almost certainly listened to your chosen work before, but this time, listen with an ear toward the main elements we’ve talked about in class. It will help to focus on only one or two elements at a time. Listen once, for example, for changes in timbre, listen again for the form, and so on.

Listen for aspects of the different main elements (in bold) we’ve talked about – the following are subcategories of those main elements to help guide you:

Melody: antecedent/consequent phrases, contour, a melodic ostinato, cadenza Rhythm: tempo, meter (duple or triple), rhythmic ostinato, syncopation Harmony: cadences, modulation, chord changes, “blue notes,” tonal/atonal, sequence Texture: thin, thick, mono-, homo- or polyphonic, changes in texture Timbre: what instruments there are, solos, changes in instrumentation/timbre Form: strophic, ABA, verse/chorus, bar form, repeated sections, ritornello, rondo, etc. Word-Music Relationships: Word painting (Program music is a genre and instrumental only)

Decide which three (3) or four (4) main elements are central to this work. If an element does not change at any point – for example, if your work has only guitar, piano, and voice throughout, or is always in duple meter – this is not a meaningful basis on which to break down the music. If, on the other hand, various instruments come in and out (e.g. Duke Ellington’s “Cotton Tail”), that may well be a useful parameter to explain how the work is constructed. Make special note of where important changes happen. When the words begin a new section, does the music change as well (form)? Does it modulate (harmony)? Does the timbre shift? Does the texture change markedly? Are there antecedent/consequent phrases (melody)?

Submit your piece, YouTube link, and the three (3) or four (4) elements you’ll concentrate on in your analysis to Blackboard (see due dates).

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Step 2: Make a Listening Guide Grid

Prepare a listening guide like ones at the end of each chapter of your book (use those as a guide). Follow the template given (see Blackboard). This will help you organize your paper. Listen again, following your grid, and imagine that you have never heard the work before. Have you identified the key elements in your work? Have you charted their progression through the work thoroughly and accurately? Does your grid show the piece’s essential features? Are the timings accurate? If you find elements you didn’t expect or list originally, that’s great! Write about them as well.

Step 3: Write Your Paper

Now that you have your grid and know your piece well, write your paper. The top of your paper and grid should include the YouTube link along with your name and section/class time. The body of your paper should be divided into sections as outlined below.

1. Provide a background on the composer/artist and political/social context for your piece. When was the piece written? Was there a certain reason it was written – a reaction to a political or personal event? Was it controversial in any way? If this doesn’t apply to your piece, that’s OK; sometimes a piece is written just “because.”

a. This will require some research, thereby necessitating a properly formatted bibliography with at least two sources. Wikipedia may not be a source. DO NOT just copy and paste from a website; rather, find several sources and put the main points in your own words, with a citation in the paper (inline). The Writing Center or I will help you with this if you are unsure. Use http://www.citationmachine.net/, http://www.easybib.com/, or http://www.bibme.org/ as a guide to help you with your bibliography if needed. Remember QCC’s policy on plagiarism (copy and pasting): http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/Academic-Integrity-Student-notice.html

b. Remember not to refer to the artist/composer by first name – it’s a formal paper and you’re (probably) not on a first-name basis with him/her!

2. Flesh out the analysis in your grid. If something needs more explanation than you could put in the grid, provide it here (for example, fleshing out of examples of word painting, or saying you weren’t sure if a section was B or A’, but you chose A’ because…). Do NOT just repeat the grid in prose. What did you notice? If you weren’t sure of something, that’s OK! Write that here. Cite the minutes and seconds as above (e.g. 2:54).

a. The big question to ask yourself as you write your paper is, “why?” Why did the composer/artist choose to compose the piece as s/he did? When you note something interesting or quirky abut your piece, try to figure out what the composer might be trying to communicate. (Things like word painting are especially fun to notice.)

3. As a concluding paragraph or two, write your ideas and insights into doing the project – what did you discover? How did you choose your work? What are your afterthoughts about the assignment? How many times did you have to listen to your piece? Which was the hardest element to hear and why? Why did you like or dislike the project?

If you have done this assignment carefully, you will almost certainly have gained added appreciation of how music works. What might seem like a simple piece is often far more intricate than it appears on the surface. Most importantly, you will have learned valuable skills that will help you listen to any kind of music, from any time or place, with greater understanding.

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Step 4: Schedule a Writing Center meeting We usually meet at the Writing Center as a class; in lieu of that, you need to make an appointment for a live, 1-on-1 tutoring session when you have finished your paper. You need to have it ready to turn in; proofread, bibliography, etc. (The tutor will let me know if you did not have a complete paper and your grade for that part of the assignment will reflect that.) The place to register for an appointment is here: http://www3.qcc.cuny.edu/CWCWeb/cwcOneTimeReg.aspx and complete the registration form. A link will then be sent to you for entrance into a Blackboard Collaborate with a Writing Center Tutor at the time you’ve chosen. When you’ve made the edits the tutor has given you, you should turn in the project and the grid. If you have done this assignment carefully, you will almost certainly have gained added appreciation of how music works. What might seem like a simple piece is often far more intricate than it appears on the surface. Most importantly, you will have learned valuable skills that will help you listen to any kind of music, from any time or place, with greater understanding.