Music Theory and Composition 4

You will learn more about the essential elements of music theory and composition that will help you build your own musical language. You will further expand your knowledge of harmony and melody and expand your knowledge of scales, chords, and rhythms. 

This music composition course is designed to take you from a strong review of level 3 topics—the standard deceptive resolutions of V7, classical and contemporary analysis techniques, polychord voicings, non-chord tones, approach tones, and approach tone harmonization—to topics like deceptive resolutions of dominant function harmony, contiguous dominant patterns, modal melody and harmony, hybrid voicings, quartal and quintal harmony, exotic scales, 12-tone technique, minimalism and other important twentieth century compositional techniques. We will review the rhythmic elements of Indian, Latin American, and African music and delve into the musical intricacies of the music of Indonesia, China, Japan, and Korea.

We will also continue the unique feature of blending and exploring both traditional and contemporary harmony in order to give you a historical understanding of current topics.

Music Theory and Composition 4 also features a topic called "Rhythm Jam" that will introduce you to many new and exciting rhythmic concepts such as nested tuplets, the Fibonacci series, metric modulation, hemiola, phase, Jahlas, and additive rhythm. Through forum questions you and your classmates will engage in discussions about musical creativity, craft, and inspiration.

Each week you will be asked to engage with your classmates and instructor as you work your way through the topics. Included in each topic are a number of activities and exercises designed to help you more thoroughly experience and understand the material presented. Each week there will be a composition assignment, including many which will give you the opportunity to practice writing to short film cues.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Identify and apply minor and major modal melodic writing concepts with contemporary and classical approaches
• Identify and apply advanced rhythmic and melodic concepts of nested tuplets, Fibonacci Series, metric modulation, hemiola, and Jahlas
• Identify and apply advanced scales types of Lydian augmented, Lydian b7, Spanish Phrygian, Super Locrian of contemporary music and the whole tone and octatonic scale in classical music
• Differentiate and analyze alternative progressions that include deceptive resolutions of the Dominant 7th chord and symmetrical divisions of the octave
• Identify and apply advanced harmony concepts of non-tertian voicings, hybrids and Inversions, polytonal harmony, musical parallelism, and serial technique
• Understand and apply the process for re-harmonizing a given melody in both contemporary and classical styles
• Recognize and differentiate the musical elements various styles of world music