Music and Philosophy assignment.
Topics:
1. As a newly hired director of a famous Concert Hall, you must plan for the grand opening
night. You need to prepare a 90 to 120 minute Concert Program, as well as write up Program
Notes. You need a theme (thought-out reason for your choices); you need to fit the pieces in
the allotted time, with an Intermezzo (intermission). You must select music examples from
Folder 6 (files 1 and 2), or Folder 8 (file 2). You may also choose different music examples that
are not included in these folders, but they must still be from one of the composers listed in the
files. Your Program Notes must clearly describe your reason for the selections, with a touch of
historical/conceptual support for the selected compositions, including dates, information on
the pieces you select, as well as a juicy anecdote or two about the selected musicians. You may
cite from Folder 12, for deeper conceptual issues as well. Here are links to orient you about
Concert Programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_program – as well as Program Notes
https://music.wayne.edu/students/guide_to_writing_program_notes.pdf.
2
you only have four pages for this topic, your Concert Program must be written as your first
paragraph. After that, you may begin your “Program Notes.”
2. Select a passage, statements, terms, or position from my Virtual Lecture # 7 (Parts 1 through
4) that you would like to further develop. It is your task to develop it, by i) explaining the
position, statement, or passage, then ii) adding a specific musical example from Folder 6, then
iii) cross-reference terms/concepts from any of my VLs, and iv) adding further support from
one author that was mentioned in the Virtual Lecture. This can easily break down to the
required full four pages. Using one page per each section (i, ii, iii, iv), will hand you the four
pages. For this topic, you may use footnotes to cite references (primary text, or article) from
the one author you selected (for section iv).
3. Select two authors covered in my any of my solo days that you would agree with on a specific
issue(s) about music. Then, i) track that mention from my Virtual Lectures, and our PDF LAP
readings (in Folder 4), with your added explanations, and development, and then, ii) further
support your choice and reason by citing and explaining parts of a primary text, or article, by
your two selected authors. In the end, your task is to give clear reasons to a future student of
music & philosophy for the need to look into these authors as important theoretical positions.
Using two pages for each of the sections (i and ii) would lend you four pages with ease. For this
topic, you may also use footnotes to cite references (primary text, or article) from the two
authors you selected (for section ii).
Topics 2 and 3 are already broken down for what is clearly required, so that you can plan your
four pages with ease. The issue with these (as it was with Topic 1), is to have read, or listened to
enough of the materials to know where to go fishing for a catch. In the end, as I noted in my
“General Advice” … select carefully what works best for you. I wish there were actually
questions in class on Tuesday (11/24), but, thanks to one of your classmates, and their
wonderful question/concerns, I thought to share this with all of you so that it may help.
Remember, we (as a class) are like an orchestra, we have our shared score, our parts, and our
instruments (think, our voices, concerns, views), and only when this plays in unison (or close to
unison), is music made. If not, well, then there remains only empty, voiceless enclosures, like a
110’00” cage.
Answer preview:
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