Goal

The goal for this unit is to promote musical fluency in the areas of rhythm and melody. This unit will focus on aural recognition of rhythmic patterns, connecting rhythmic “vocabulary” already engaged in performance with its sounds in real musical contexts. This unit will also focus on performance of melody, in order to internalize melodic “vocabulary” (specific patterns), which will aid your ability to perform music including these patterns (with practice and from sight), and to recognize them by ear. Melodic content will include both diatonic elements and chromatic elements within a tonal context (including both non-diatonic tones and modulation).

Video portfolio

Essential to developing fluency in melody is training oneself to perform complicated melodies with minimal or no mistakes. This process leads to a development of good practice habits, as well as an internalization of complex melodic figures that will assist in musical tasks like sight-reading, aural recognition, and performance of musical literature that include those rhythmic figures.

To that end, each student will assemble a portfolio for Unit II including video performances of the following movements from Die schöne Müllerin:

• Der Neugierige
• Der Müller und der Bach

In your video performances, strive for perfection. You can use as many takes of complete songs as you like to get the songs as close to flawless as possible, and you can sing in any key that is comfortable for your range. If you are a pianist, you are welcome to play along with your singing. Others may also play the bass line along with their sung melody. However, no piano performance is required. If you are capable of singing and playing simultaneously, it may aid your ability to stay on pitch, especially when modulating, as well as to assist your internalization of the musical contexts in which the melodic features we are covering tend to appear.

When you make your videos, please encode them in a Quicktime-friendly format (.mov, .m4v, etc.) and share them with your instructor on Google Drive.

Be sure to reference your performance in these videos in your self-evaluations. Your end-of-unit self-evaluation should include working links to both videos.

Sight-singing exam

The unit will end with a short sight-singing exam. On that exam, you will be given a single melodic line to perform after a brief opportunity to look it over. Though this is a high-stakes performance exam, these will be much easier passages than those in your videos.

Collaborative playlist creation

In place of transcription, you will be hunting for pieces of music (classical, folk, pop, whatever) that contain certain complex rhythmic features (listed below). These playlists will be created on Piazza, collaboratively, across all five sections. A passage can only appear once (though a piece/song might appear more than once as an example of multiple features). Following are the rhythmic features you will be seeking (each will have their own prompt on Piazza):

• triplets in simple meter
• duplets in compound meter
• simultaneous triple and duple divisions of the beat (three against two)
• other irregular divisions of the beat (five, seven, etc.)
• switching between simple and compound meter where the division remains the same duration
• switching between simple and compound meter where the beat remains the same duration

As you find examples of these rhythmic features, post them to Piazza, providing the artist/composer, title, link to an online recording (preferably Spotify; YouTube also acceptable), and the timing of the feature in that recording. As your classmates post examples, check them for correctness and comment on Piazza with an affirmation or a (respectful) correction. If you are having trouble finding examples of a particular feature, consult examples already found by your classmates to help train your ear.

At the end of the unit, reference your work finding examples and correcting those of others in your self-evaluation.

Assessment

Unit II will address the following concepts and skills provided on the syllabus: standard rhythms, irregular division of the beat, diatonicism in tonal melodies, chromaticism in tonal melodies, modulation to closely related keys, performance, transcription (aural recognition), and professionalism (all of which will continue on through the rest of the semester).

Students will be assessed individually, according to each student’s self-evaluation. In that self-evaluation, you should make the case, citing evidence from class activity, your video portfolio, your playlist contributions, and your sight-singing exam, that you have mastered the material for each concept/skill or are on the way to doing so by the deadline. Be sure to keep records of anything not automatically recorded (in other words, things done on paper or in-person, rather than on Piazza, Learning Catalytics, or Google Drive). If you have any questions about this process, please consult your instructor early.

Keep in mind that though mastery of the musical material covered in Unit II will be essential to progressing through the remainder of the semester, very little of the final grade will be determined at the end of Unit II. Though there is very little wiggle room musically, there will be plenty of wiggle room in terms of final grades after the unit is over.

Schedule (subject to change)

Meeting 6 (Sept. 16/17):
Singing tonal music with chromatic elements (chromatic syllables).
Assignment: Playlist contributions; read resources on chromaticism.

Meeting 7 (Sept. 18/19):
Chromatic harmonies; modulation.
Assignment: Playlist contributions; begin work on song 1.

Meeting 8 (Sept. 23/24):
Modulation, cont.
Assignment: Submit video performance of song 1; begin work on song 2.

Meeting 9 (Sept. 25/26):
TBA.
Assignment: Playlist contributions; submit video performance of song 2.

Meeting 10 (Sept. 30/Oct. 1):
TBA.
Assignment: Assemble final video portfolio and make final playlist contributions.

Meeting 11 (Oct. 2/3):
Topic; text.