Each student must complete a General Writing Assignment. Students may use any material when developing this assignment, but every word (unless expressly quoted with appropriate credits given) must be that of the student submitting the paper. Any use of material written by another person without credit given will be considered plagiarism, resulting in a failing grade.
Students are encouraged to begin notes on how they will respond to the specific essay items required for the General Writing Assignment as they progress through the course including making notations in their class notes or in their journals.
The General Writing Assignment, consisting of at least five pages, double-spaced, with standard one-inch margins. A Works Cited page using MLA style is required but does not count towards the minimum 5 page requirement.
The General Writing Assignment should be a consideration of the guidelines, principles, and concepts students have learned in this course, and an application of those principles, with emphasis on those guidelines that help determine meter, mode, degree of consonance/dissonance, tone color, style, and form of a musical composition based upon careful observation and concentrated listening.
You should begin your General Writing Assignment with a brief introduction that describes your knowledge of music prior to entering the course (Customer note: I had no knowledge about any sort of components of music) and continue with a reflection of the various components of music that you have learned to listen for during a musical experience.
Various components of music learned throughout the course:
•Texture:
Homophonic Texture
Polyphonic Texture
•Structure:
Binary Structure
Ternary Structure
•Variation Forms:
Basso Ostinato
The Passacaglia
The Chaconne
•Fugal and Contrapuntal Forms:
The Canon or Round
The Fugue
Concertó Grosso
Chorale Prelude
Polyphonic Vocal Genre
•Sonata Form:
The Exposition
The Development
The Recapitulation
•Free Forms
Toccata
Prelude
Fantasia and Capriccio
Lament
Etude
Symphonic Tone Poem
•Program Music, Absolute Music
•Baroque Style
•Composers worth mentioning:
Mozart, Beethoven, Johann S. Bach, Joseph Haydn, Tchaikovsky etc..
•Style
•Music periods in history to discuss:
The Renaissance Era =1450-1600
The Baroque Era =1600-1750
The Classic Era =1750-1825
The Romantic Era =1825-1900
The Modern Era =1890-1920
The Contemporary Era= 1920-Present
•Pitch
•Timbre
•Harmony
•Duration
•Intensity
•Quality
•Types of listening:
Referentialism
Expressionism
Formalism
Absolutism
•Musical relationships:
Melodic relationships
Rhythmic relationships
Harmonic relationships
Tonal relationships
The Learning Outcomes for this course should be used as a guideline for what to include in the General Writing Assignment:
Student Learning Outcomes:
I. Describe the use of compositional elements such as form, tempo, dynamics, melodic shape, harmony, and other stylistic components in multiple genres from the five stylistic periods covered in the class.
II. Compare and contrast musical works based on their cultural contexts and composers’ styles.
III. Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of non-western musical world cultures by contrasting the elements, form, and style of a non-western musical genre with a western musical genre.
In addition, students should choose four of the following seven essay items to include in their General Writing Assignment:
(Customer Note: I chose the following 4 essay items)
1.) Write a verbal description of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” Be sure to include the historical background not only described musically by the composer in the composition, but also discuss the event at which the piece premiered. How does the music describe what happened in Russian history in 1812? What devices are used by the composer to express that historical experience?
2.) Why do you think many Americans seem to reject opera? What are the basic components of an opera? Give some composers who wrote operas and made some interesting innovations to this genre through the past four hundred years. Describe nationalism in opera, that is, how operas were different in Italy, France, and Germany. How is an American Broadway musical similar to an opera? How is it different?
3.) Describe Baroque style versus Classical style, which followed it. What was happening in Europe during the Baroque period and in the Classical period scientifically, politically, socially, and culturally? How does the music Handel, who was a Baroque composer, differ from Haydn’s, who wrote during the Classical era? How is their music similar? What types, or genres, of music did they compose? How does their music reflect what was going on around them in the different eras in which they lived?
4.) Explain for each of the style periods in music history how the style of the music that the composers wrote reflected the general philosophy, literature, painting, sculpture, dance and social customs of the eras in which they wrote their music.
The following is the grading criteria for the paper (if it helps):
0 to 4 points (0 being weak and 4 being exemplary)
Accurately describes interdependent relationship(s): 0-4
Analyzes the interrelatedness of units (individuals, groups, systems, etc.): 0-4
Identifies and analyzes multiple factors that influence interdependence of interrelationships: 0-4
Demonstrates how diverse elements come together to create a greater whole: 0-4
