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MUTH 3613 – Form & 20th Century Techniques (a.k.a. Music Theory IV)
Fall 2020

Instructor: Joon Park (joonpark@uark.edu)

Course Meeting Schedule:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:40-10:30 am
(Refer to the last page for the Zoom invitation information)

Prerequisite:
MUTH 2603 (With a grade of “C” or better)

Course Objectives:
Music can make us feel similar things. For example, if you hear a suspended synth sound in the
middle of electronic dance music followed by a marked reintroduction of bass and drum, you would
more likely describe this moment as a “drop.” (It is also the industry term for this type of
techniques.) How can a sound be dropped? What musical features in this example make us agree
that the word drop is an appropriate term? Can we explain the way we feel about music using the
music analytic terms that we have learned so far?

In this course, we will explore different ways a musical meaning can emerge. Taking our music
theoretic knowledge as a background, we will learn different ways to explain musical meaning draw a
connection between musical sound and our everyday experience. By the end of this course, you will
be able to (1) explain that you hear a musical passage as expressing a specific idea and (2) provide
the evidence for your interpretation. By doing so, you can also make sense of other listeners’
interpretations.

As we shall see, our musical expectation is formed by various recurring musical gestures. We will
learn various formal structures in this context, as the expression of “default mode” of musical
progression. Throughout this course, we will get accustomed to verse-chorus form, binary form,
ternary form, sonata form, and other formal structures used in post-tonal compositions.

Required Equipment:
Soundtrap free account ( https://www.soundtrap.com/)
Musescore software (https://musescore.org/en)
A laptop with Windows or MacOS
Staff paper, pencils, and erasers
Working internet connection
A digital camera or a cell phone
(Contact me if you do not have a laptop and/or internet connection.)

Grading Criteria:
Lecture Quizzes 40%
Composition Assignment 30%
Large Projects 30% (3 at 10% each)

Communication Channel:
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In this class our official mode of communication is through uark.edu email. Students are responsible
for checking their UARK accounts regularly. All communication between student and instructor and
between student and student should be respectful and professional.
In addition to the email, you can use GroupMe to communicate with your peers and the instructor.
Keep in mind that this is still considered an academic conversation.
GroupMe link: https://groupme.com/join_group/61092129/5K22Gbbs

Online Lecture Platform:

This course will use Blackboard’s Collaborate Ultra for synchronous (“real time”) class meetings.
Meeting dates and times is listed on the first page of this syllabus. Please take the time to familiarize
yourself with Collaborate Ultra by visiting <https://learn.uark.edu/webapps/collab-
ultra/tool/collabultra?course_id=_269550_1&mode=cpview>.

The online video lecture sessions will be recorded if needed. Improper classroom behavior is not
tolerated and may result in a referral to the Office of Student Conduct. You can contact the Help
Desk at help.uark.edu or 479-575-2905 if you have any technical issues accessing Collaborate Ultra.

If you lose internet connection during the synchronous meeting, try re-connecting over the phone
with the phone number provided. If you are not able to re-connect, email the instructor for the
lecture summary or ask your peers.

As remote learners, students must be proactive in their studies, able to balance academic
responsibilities with life events, and able to dedicate an appropriate amount of time to a course. The
most crucial skills are communication, time management, and staying organized.

Attendance Policy:
“Student absences from illness, family crisis, university-sponsored activities involving scholarship or
leadership/participation responsibilities, jury duty or subpoena for court appearance, military duty,
and religious observations are excusable according to the university rules. The instructor has the
right to require that the student provide appropriate documentation for any absence for which the
student wishes to be excused. Moreover, during the first week of the semester, students must give to
the instructor a list of the religious observances that will affect their attendance.” (Academic
Regulations, University of Arkansas Catalog of Studies)
Each unexcused absence after your first two will deduct 2.5% from your final grade. Students
arriving after class begins will be considered late, and two lates will count as an unexcused absence.
Students with 6 or more unexcused absences will automatically receive an F for the class. If you miss
a quiz because of late arrival or unexcused absence, you will get a zero for the quiz until you setup a
makeup quiz date/time on the day of the quiz.

Participation:
Your participation grade will reflect both your own contributions to class discussions and that you
do not disrupt the learning process for others. Computers and cell phones should be stored out of
your sight during class.

Homework Assignments:
Homework is due at the beginning of class. Late assignments will not be accepted even in the case
of excused absence. If you will be missing a class, be prepared to submit the assignment before the
due date.
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Grading Scale:
90–100% = A, 80–89% = B, 70–79% = C, 60–69% = D, 59% or lower = F
Grades will be rounded to the nearest integer.

Academic Honesty Syllabus Statement:

As a core part of its mission, the University of Arkansas provides students with the opportunity to
further their educational goals through programs of study and research in an environment that
promotes freedom of inquiry and academic responsibility. Accomplishing this mission is only
possible when intellectual honesty and individual integrity prevail.

Each University of Arkansas student is required to be familiar with and abide by the University’s
‘Academic Integrity Policy’ which may be found at honesty.uark.edu/policy. Students with questions
about how these policies apply to a particular course or assignment should immediately contact their
instructor.

Disabilities:
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal antidiscrimination statute that provides
comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with disabilities. Among other things, this
legislation requires that all students with disabilities be guaranteed a learning environment that
provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities.  Moreover, the University of Arkansas
Academic Policy Series 1520.10 requires that students with disabilities are provided reasonable
accommodations to ensure their equal access to course content. If you have a documented disability
and require accommodations, please contact me privately at the beginning of the semester to make
arrangements for necessary classroom adjustments. Please note, you must first verify your eligibility
for these through the Center for Educational Access (contact 479–575–3104 or visit
http://cea.uark.edu for more information on registration procedures). 

Course Schedule
Unit 1: Blues and Verse-Chorus forms
Week 1 8/24 Course introduction; Process of formalization; Introduction to Blues
Progression: “Kind Hearted Woman Blues,” “St. Louis Blues,” “Back Water
Blues,” “Driftin’ Blues,” “Backlash Blues” “Death Letter Blues”
8/26 What is the “blues progression”? Thinking about the songwriters who sang
these songs and their compositional process; Blues without words: “Juke”,
“Hide Away,” “Strollin’ with Bones”; jazz blues (Freddie Freeloader, C Jam
Blues)
8/28 Composing a blues song: textual concern, harmonic/melodic concern,
attitude/mood concern, subject matter
Week 2 8/31 Type-Token relationship: Robert Hatten, “Types and Tokens,” Musical Meaning
in Beethoven, pp. 44-50. Can you form a type-token relationship between blues
and each song we have looked at? How does a blues become a type?
9/2 Markedness: Robert Hatten, “Correlation, Interpretation, and the Markedness
of Oppositions” from Musical Meaning in Beethoven, 34-38.
9/4 Wittgenstein reading: Philosophical Investigation, §§. 65-70, when reading the
sections, replace the word “game” with “blues.” Based on the reading, how
would you answer the question “what is blues?”?
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“Maggie’s Farm” (Dylan), “Maggie’s Farm” (RATM)

Last day to drop without a mark of “W” or change from credit to audit
Week 3 9/9 Verse-Chorus form: “Shake Rattle and Roll,” “Johnny B. Goode,”; What are
the markers for the verse-chorus designation?; What does it mean to be
influenced? Can you explain the influence?
9/11 Non-blues inspired verse-chorus songs: “Eres Tu,” “Linda Linda,”; Verse-only
form: “Pu-Hut,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Jailhouse Rock”; Analyzing
“Satisfaction” Covach reading: “Form in Rock Music: A Primer”
Week 4 9/14 Prechorus: “Fireworks,” “Zombie,” “Killing in the Name”; Formal ambiguity
in pop/rock forms; DeClerq reading: “Embracing Ambiguity in the Analysis of
Form in Pop/Rock Music, 1982–1991,” Music Theory Online 23/3
9/16 What underlies the theorists’ impulse to create new formal terms and subdivide
a category?; Does the similar phenomenon happen in non-musical context?;
Idea and its underlying material condition; Marx reading: “The Essence of the
Materialist Conception of History: Social Being and Social Consciousness,”
German Ideology
9/18 Bowen reading: “History of Remembered Innovation: Tradition and Its Role in
the Relationship between Musical Works and Their Performances,” The Journal
of Musicology 11 (2)
Unit 2: European Classical Forms
Week 5 9/21 Binary Forms: Simple and Rounded/Continuous and Sectional; Jean-Féry
Rebel, “Les Caractères de la Danse” (watch the video with tapping to the most
reasonable beat), how many of the dances are in binary form? Which dances
are in two (i.e., a beat divided into two) and which are in three (i.e., a beat
divided into three)? Which dances has an emphasis on the downbeat which one
begins with upbeat?
9/23 Types of binary forms: Rounded/Simple and Sectional/Continuous; Tokens of
binary forms: Baroque suites, Classical sonata’s middle-movement
9/25 What work does the concept of binary form do for composers?; What work
does it do for the listeners?; The binary convention as “unmarked” event
Week 6 9/28 Analysis day
9/30 Feeling the process of abstraction: “Is Verse-Chorus form a binary form?”
Prototype Theory: Michael Spitzer reading
10/2 Sentence and Periods: musical expectation from regularity; Watch Monahan’s
Lecture;
Week 7 10/5 Sonata Theory a la Hepo-Darcy: Sonata form as a whole, Chapter 2
(Exposition, Development, Recapitulation)
10/7 Sonata Theory a la Hepo-Darcy: Two-part exposition, Chapter 3; Where’s the
MC?
10/9 Analysis day: Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Symphony Op. 11, No. 1
Week 8 10/12 Composing sonata exposition: Composing primary and secondary themes
10/14 Composing sonata exposition: Transition strategy (modulation,
dependent/independent transition, energy gain)
10/16 Composing sonata development: reusing the earlier themes and modulation
strategy
Week 9 10/19 Other types of sonata: continuous exposition, sonatina, sonata rondo
10/21 Drop-in session (office hour)
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10/23 Sonata composition project due

Unit 3: Pitch-Class Set Theory
Week 10 10/26 “I don’t like this music” argument; What is a “-class”?; Chordiness of a chord;
Integer notation
10/28 More practice on the integer notation; What is set-class?; What is interval
vector?
10/30 Finding the set-class; How to do the set-class analysis
Week 11 11/2 Analysis day
11/4 Analysis day
11/6 “But can you hear it” argument;
Week 12 11/9 Basics of composing with twelve tones; Combinatoriality
11/11 Hexachordal (Inversional) Combinatoriality
11/13 Composing a short twelve-tone composition
Unit 4: Embodiment Theory
Week 13 11/16 Historicizing musical regularity: a case study of “Stabat Mater,” Grave reading:
“Abbe Vogler’s Revision of Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’,” JAMS 30 (1)
11/18 Music as flow versus music as structure; Conceptual metaphor theory; Musical
Concepts are Conceptual Metaphors
11/20 Musical Embodiment; Analyzing music without labels; Cox reading: “Pitch
Hight,” from Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking
Week 14 is Fall + Thanksgiving break
Week 15 11/30 What does spring sound like? “Spring-ness” of Vivaldi’s “Spring” from Four
Seasons, Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata, Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song”, “Joy
Spring,” “Up Jumped Spring,” “It might as well be spring”
12/2 Analyzing with our body: Carolin Shaw, “Partita for 8 voices”
12/4 Analysis day: Grieg, “Homesickness”
Week 16 12/7 Exemplary and Immanent reading, Coffeen “The Making of Sense, or
Exemplary Reading” and “Making New Sense, or Immanent Reading” from
Reading the Way of Things
12/9 Analyzing the unanalyzable: Ann Southam “Glass Houses No. 5”;
12/11 Analyzing the unanalyzable: Ryoji Ikeda “Headphonics” (try to listen at least
until 5:00 minute mark with a headphone); Glitch art
Final Project Due Wednesday, 12/16/2020 by 5 pm

Zoom Link
Topic: MUTH 3613 - FORM & 20TH CENT TECHNIQUES (1209-THEUA-MUTH-
3613-SEC002-2422)
Time: Aug 24, 2020 09:40 AM Central Time (US and Canada)
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