T410, Topics in Music Theory
N399, Honors Seminar in Music

Spring 1998

Interactions--Music, Mixed Media, and Interart Relationships (3 cr.)

Dr. Marianne Kielian-Gilbert

1:00-2:15 PM TR Room M263

This special topics course brings together work on music, interpretation (semiotics, critical theory), and analysis in order to explore the interactions of different "media" in music, mixed media, or interart contexts--situations in which "the construction of meaning. . . does not inhere in one medium or another but emerges from the interaction between media and subject" (Cook, 8). We will consider work in literature, film and visual arts, dance, and interactive media; music and inter-art combinations from classical to popular and commercial contexts; and the ways in which multimedia interactions are central to various musical practices and to the analyses which characterize those practices. Related topics include synaesthesia and association; opera; music discourse, imagery, metaphor, & narrative; music, space, movement, & the body; multiple subject positions, authorship, personal voice & identity.

Text: Nicholas Cook. Analysing Musical Multimedia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

Readings by other writers such as, Abbate, Barthes, Barkin, Boretz, Cone, Cook, Cusick, Feld, Guck, Hisama, Kielian-Gilbert, Kivy, Kramer, Levinson, Lewin, Maus, McClary, Nattiez, Newcomb, Pasler, Solie, Tick, Treitler, Wood. Readings also geared to the interests of those particiapating.

The spirit and structure of the course will be that of a seminar based on readings and discussion, drawing on the interart and cross-disciplinary interests of those participating. In N399 and the special topics courses, students have the opportunity to explore issues not customarily addressed in undergraduate music courses, to approach them from different points of view, and to interact intellectually with other students (and if enrolled in N399, to begin thinking about an honors project, N499).

Requirements: readings, class discussion, short reaction papers or reports on issues arising from the readings, an inter-arts project (sound-text-visuals using music, and/or other arts and media), seminar paper and class presentation.

Enrollment: joint maximum of 12., T410 requires junior standing; N399 requires section authorization. Music honors students also usually enroll in MUS N4999, Honors Project in Music.