Discussion of class readings
Class discussion
Laws
- Human biology based. Things we cannot change because they are based on how our brains work
- Things we cannot change
- transcends cultural bias
- based in physics or acoustics, these are not up for argument
Rules
- Things that we do to make music fit into the laws
- These depend on style and culture
- Listener expectations help inform the rules
- guidelines for a musical style
Strategies
- Which rules to composers like to follow and break
- Play with your listeners expectations
- Providing surprises makes music interesting
Tendencies
- another word to describe strategies
What are we really studying?
- Function of music
- How music is structured is only the first level of understanding
- How one structure relates to others is the goal of this course.