Undergraduate Theory and Ear Training Guidelines at a Glance for Spring 2013:

Please read on for important information on placement, enrollment restrictions, scheduling and advising for all students taking basic Music Theory classes ("Fundamentals of Music," MUSI V1002; "Diatonic Harmony and Counterpoint," (V2318 - 19); and "Chromatic Harmony and Counterpoint," (V3222 - 23), and for students  planning to enroll in Ear Training at any level (Intro, I, II, III, and IV) this Spring.

Some of these policies are new for 2012-13.  If you are a music major, minor, or concentrator, or otherwise planning to enroll in basic theory or ear training courses this year, please familiarize yourself with these policies.

Please note that in the document below, the acronym "MMC" stands for "Music majors, minors, and concentrators."

For more information contact:
Prof. Peter M. Susser,
Director of Undergraduate Musicianship
pms3@columbia.edu

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Musicianship/ET First Day of Class for Spring 2013

• All students who were enrolled in Fall 2012 ET classes advance to the next level for Spring 2013.
• Students new to the ET sequence regardless of experience must attend Intro ET or ET I to take a diagnostic exam for placement into the appropriate ET level.
• Students are REQUIRED to attend one of these sections for placement if you have not previously taken any Ear Training at Columbia and wish to do so this year:

1.  Tuesday, January 22, 3:10 – 4PM, Dodge TBA

2.  Tuesday, January 22, 12:10 – 1PM, Dodge TBA

The Music Theory area of the Department is pleased to announce the following news and offer congratulations to the following affiliated students, faculty, and alumni of the Theory program.

Students
PhD candidate Dan DiPaolo successfully defended his dissertation proposal, “Analyzing the Music of Steely Dan,” in January 2012.

PhD candidate Scott Gleason successfully defended his dissertation proposal, “Princeton Theory’s Problematics,” in January 2012.

PhD Candidate Kate Heidemann presented “Remarkable Women and Ordinary Gals: Performance of Identity in Songs by Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton” at the annual meeting of the Society for American music conference in Charlotte, NC in March 2012.

PhD Candidate Caleb Mutch successfully defended his dissertation proposal, “A History of Cadence in Tonality and Its Precedents” in February 2012 and delivered two papers: “A Major Step Forward: Changing Conceptions of Whole Tone and Scale Step in Ancient and Medieval Theory” at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory in Minneapolis in October 2011 and “Towards a Freer Form of Interruption” at Mannes College’s Second Graduate Student Theory Conference in January 2012.

PhD Candidate Max Schmeder delivered the paper “At One with One’s Instrument: Transcending the Body-Instrument Divide” at the annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Philadelphia in November 2011, and defended his dissertation proposal successfully in May, 2012.

PhD student Maeve Sterbenz read “Possibilities for the Analysis of Noise Music from a Listening Perspective” at the Yale Graduate Music Symposium in March 2012 and at the Second International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music, held at the University of British Columbia in May 2012.

Fall 2012 Music G6333
PROSEMINAR IN MUSIC THEORY
Section 001 Call Number: 19806 Points: 3
Day/Time: T 2:10pm-4:00pm
Location: To be announced
Instructor: Prof. Joseph P Dubiel  (bio)

Introductory graduate seminar in music theory.  Required of all graduate students in Music Theory and fulfils second proseminar requirement for music PhD students in other areas.
 

Enrollment by permission of instructor only.

Fall 2012 Music G6300
HISTORY OF MUSIC THEORY FROM RAMEAU TO RIEMANN
Call Number: 28991 Points: 3
Day/Time: M 10:10am-12:00pm  [NB: change of time]
Location: 620 Dodge
Instructor: Prof. Benjamin Steege (bio)

Survey of European music-theoretical perspectives from roughly 1720 to 1920.  This period witnessed the consolidation of the field of “modern” theory that continues to inform contemporary discourse.  In addition to tracing the emergence of novel theoretical topics—from “form” to “function”—we will address the relation of music theory to the new or modernizing fields it productively interacted with: physics, aesthetics, historiography, hermeneutics, physiology, psychology, and so on.  Texts will be read in connection with the analysis and interpretation of relevant musical repertories.

Readings are drawn from translation, but knowledge of French and/or German is very useful.  Presentations and final paper.