There will be no in-class final exam for Semester 3 Theory. Instead, Unit III will culminate in a final oral exam. These oral exams will take place in my office on Dec. 12–13 (Thursday–Friday before finals week) and Dec. 16–17 (Monday–Tuesday of finals week), scheduled by appointment. In these in-person exams, you will demonstrate your mastery of harmony, text-music relationships, and liberal-arts values. (Of course, this exam will also demonstrate your professionalism.) A rubric is provided below that details how you should demonstrate that mastery, and how you will be graded.

Details

The oral exam will begin with a presentation—such as a performance of a model composition, a read “paper,” a PowerPoint/Keynote slideshow, a video, etc.—that demonstrates that mastery as fully as possible. The remainder of the exam will involve questions from me regarding your presentation topic, focusing on any important aspects of the topic not covered in your presentation (i.e., items on the rubric not satisfactorily demonstrated in your presentation).

Oral exams can be done individually or with a single partner (no more than two people per group). Individuals will sign up for a 20-minute exam time, including a 5-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of questions from me. Pairs will sign up for a 40-minute exam time, including a 10-minute presentation followed by 30 minutes of questions from me. Though partners may divide the labor, each individual must demonstrate full mastery, and I will assess each individual according to the entire rubric.

Sample projects

It is up to each individual or partnership to come up with a project idea that will meet all of the objectives listed in the rubric below. However, here are a few example projects that you can use as a starting point for your planning.

Model composition

Find an interesting poem (i.e., one that uses many literary devices and types of imagery, one that has some ambiguity of meaning requiring tough musical choices, one that has a good back-story of personal or historical significance, etc.) and set it to music for voice and piano in the style of Schubert, Schumann, or Brahms. Perform (live, video, or—if absolutely necessary—MIDI) the piece and explain some of your musical choices at the beginning of your exam (using analytical notation for harmonic structures in key passages), and be prepared to answer questions regarding all of the objectives in the rubric below. Be sure that the composition matches the style of the composers we’ve studied in class, and that it includes enough of the harmonic devices we’ve covered in Units II and III to demonstrate mastery of them.

Mini-lecture/conference talk

Choose an interesting 19th-century German art song by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, or one of their contemporaries. Write a short paper (that you can read in 5 minutes, 10 minutes for partners) to present with PowerPoint slides, musical examples at the keyboard, or both. The paper should have a clear thesis statement, most likely centering on the composer’s interpretation of the theme of the poem and how the composer projects that interpretation through the musical setting. As you write your paper, you will cut many analytical details from the final presentation. Be sure to hang onto your analytical notes, as those details me be important in the Q&A that follows your presentation.

N.B.: Choosing two musical settings of the same poem by different composers often helps direct you to important analytical details. Though it would involve more analysis, a presentation comparing and contrasting two settings of the same text may make it easier to find, understand, and clearly present important analytical insights.

Video

Choose an interesting 19th-century German art song by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, or one of their contemporaries. Make a video following the same guidelines as the lecture/conference talk above. This could be done by recording voice over a slideshow (Keynote for Mac OS has this feature built in, and it is easy to use), or could involve more advanced editing. Be sure to include audio examples (from a published recording or your own performance of a passage or a reduction) and musical graphics (perhaps with analytical notation) as necessary.

The advantage of a video over an in-person presentation is that you know exactly how long it is, and if you are worried about your “performance” in any way—text, keyboard, tech—you get multiple “takes” when making the video. I can also pause it and ask questions as you go through it, without throwing off your concentration, giving us more options for discussing the topic in your exam. The disadvantage, of course, is that you have to go through the trouble of making a video!

Sample songs and texts

Do not bring a song covered in theory class to your oral exam. Your project should center on a song that you are working through on your own. Also, because of our extensive discussion of Die schöne Müllerin as a cycle, do not bring in any songs from that cycle, even if we did not discuss it in class.

Many songs by Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms will work well. Some good places to look would be Schubert’s Winterreise cycle or Schumann’s Liederkreis or Dichterliebe song cycles. Songs with texts by Goethe (Göthe), Heine, Müller, or Eichendorff often have interesting text-music relationships to explore.

Students looking to compose their own song would do well to look at poems by those authors to find a text for their songs. (Recmusic.org is a great place to find those texts and decent translations of them.)

Rubric

For each conceptual category (harmony, text/music, liberal-arts values), there is a list of specific objectives below. Each objective will be assessed yes/no during the exam. The number of objectives met for that category during the exam will determine your grade for that category (with the exception of liberal-arts values, which has been ongoing throughout the semester). Read each objective beginning with “I can …”.

For each category, students meeting every objective will receive an A, students meeting all objectives but one a B, all but two a C, all but three a D, all but four an F.

As you prepare for your exam, make sure that your presentation satisfies each of these, and be prepared for deep questions from me regarding each one. My questions will be grounded in the specific work/topic you present.

Harmony

“I can …”

• Perform a harmonic reduction (in thoroughbass texture).
• Analyze the harmonic functions of diatonic chords.
• Analyze the harmonic functions of chromatic chords (applied dominants, chromatically altered subdominants, chords of modal mixture).
• Explain (verbally) the syntactic structure of harmonic progressions within a musical phrase.
• Visually present that analysis (using interpreted functional bass).

Text-music relationships (for those doing analysis projects)

“I can …”

• Articulate the theme of a poem.
• Articulate (and support with musical evidence) a composer’s interpretation of the theme of a poem. (For example, what does the composer do with ambiguous parts of a poem?)
• Identify common poetic devices in a poem (imagery, sound devices, structural devices, etc.).
• Identify musical correlates to those poetic devices (text painting, etc.).

Text-music relationships (for those doing composition projects)

“I can …”

• Articulate the theme of a poem.
• Project a viable interpretation of the theme of a poem through music. (For example, what do you do with ambiguous parts of the poem? Are your decisions consistent throughout?)
• Identify common poetic devices in a poem (imagery, sound devices, structural devices, etc.).
• Employ appropriate and creative musical correlates to those poetic devices (text painting, etc.).

Liberal-arts values

“I can …”

• Communicate effectively.
• Appreciate diversity.
• Perceive globally.
• Respond to complexity with nuance.