MUTH 6680 "Music and Semiotics"
David Schwarz
* MUTH 6680 Music and Semiotics Spring 2004
* Instructor: Dr. David Schwarz
* Office: MU 346
* Phone: (940) 369-7299
* E-mail: dschwarz@music.unt.edu
* Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:00-12:00
In this class we will study music and / as semiotics (a study of signs). Semiotics is an immense area of study, and the range of applications to music is immense as well. In each class we will focus on one idea and apply that idea to at least one piece of music. We will read primary sources of semiotics in linguistics and literary criticism; our musical pieces will come from the standard classical repertoire, twentieth- and twentyfirst-century music, as well as popular music, film music, performance art, and interactive electronic compositions.
Class members come from disciplines across the college of music: theory, musicology, composition, jazz studies, performance, and conducting. We all bring different musical and intellectual backgrounds to the course. Thus no one should feel disadvantaged in terms of what you know or do not know. I assume plenty of varied musical chops and experiences; I assume varied intellectual backgrounds we well.
I'll determine grades as follows:
*
* Journal = 50%
* Final paper = 50%
Please send journal entries to me as e-mail attachments by 10:00 a.m. on Friday of each week in which we have regularly scheduled classes. Please write "semiotics journal" in the subject heading. I'll print out your e-mails (after having responded to them electronically) and keep them in a folder. The journal is intended as a way for you to ponder the readings and make them your own. I'll grade the journal on consistency and evidence of intellectual / musical curiosity, discipline, and creativity.
You will also write a final paper; it should be around 20 pages in length (having been revised down from 50 or so). It will bring together an idea and a piece of music. The idea must be responsibly grounded in the kinds of scholarship we are reading, and the study of a work of music must be musically precise. The paper must be as well-written and well-documented as an article appearing in a scholarly journal.
I have prepared a substantial reader for the course (an understatment). It contains most of the readings we'll cover in class on semiotics and most of the music, as well. In addition, it contains supporting readings and pieces that are optional.
Rob Tompkins will be working on an ongoing bibliography of music and semiotics this semester. Please e-mail him sources that you find useful. Use proper bibliography form in your correspondece with Rob. Also, if you find books and articles at the library that you think would be good for us, please place them on Janelle's desk in the Music Library with a note "for carrel 402" and she'll mark them as ours.
* 01.12.2004 Bloom: Influence and Music History
* 01.13.2004 introduction to music and semiotics
* 01.15.2004 Culler, Silverman, Saussure
* 01.15.2004 Chopin, Prelude no. 2 in A minor
* 01.20.2004 loops, if-then statements
* 01.20.2004 Chopin, Prelude no. 4 in E minor
* 01.22.2004 Jakobsen, The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles
* 01.22.2004 Schubert, Der Doppelgaenger
* 01.27.2004 Barthes and McCreless
* 01.27.2004 Beethoven, Symphony no. 4, I
* 01.29.2004 Peirce and pointing
* 01.29.2004 Webern, Bagatelle Opus 9, IV
* 02.05.2004 Kant and the Sublime
* 02.17.2004 Foucault and Jameson: What is an Author?
* 02.17.2004 Luciano Berio, Sinfonia, III
* 02.19.2004 Benjamin, Music, and Aura
* 02.24.2004 presentations
* 02.27.2004 presentations
* 03.02.2004 Althusser and Ideological Interpellation
* 03.02.2004 Jimi Hendrix, Star-Spangled Banner
* 03.04.2004 Scarry, Music, and the Body
* 03.04.2004 Diamanda Galas, Plague Mass
* 03.05.2004 journals
* 03.09.3004 Anzieu and the Sonorous Envelope
* 03.11.2004 Silverman and Lacan: the Mirror Stage
* 03.12.2004 journals
* 03.23.2004 Lacan, Zizek, and the Real
* 03.25.2004 opera and stepwise motions
* 03.25.2004 Wagner, Parsifal, Act I: Transformation Music
* 03.26.2004 journals
* 03.30.2004 Guest Lecture: Gottfried Wagner
* 04.01.2004 music and the scream
* 04.01.2004 John Zorn, Bloodduster
* 04.02.2004 journals
* 04.06.2004 music and noise
* 04.06.2004 John Zorn, Kristallnacht
* 04.08.2004 Guest: Anahid Kassabian
* 04.09.2004 journals
* 04.13.2004 The Grain of the Voice: Barthes
* 04.13.2004 Allegri, Miserere
* 04.15.2004 music and trauma
* 04.15.2004 Steve Reich, Different Trains II
* 04.20.2004 journals
* 04.22.2004 music and gender
* 04.27.2004 conferences on final seminar papers
* 04.29.2004 conferences on final seminar papers