Pass it on

Okay, homework assignment for Wednesday! (counted as a quiz)

Listen to this piece by my friend Mark Shilansky.



I want you to write out the theme to this song, as played in the first iteration. (You may omit notes that are ornamental in nature. Figure out for yourself what is central to the theme. It may help to listen to how it is used in the rest of the song.) Write it out in solfege first, without rhythm. Then consider how you might frame it rhythmically. Write it out, transposed to the key of C Major. There is no single right answer, so I'm interested to see how you interpret it.

It should go without saying, but do this all by ear, not with the aid of an instrument, and do your own work.

Then, identify ways in which the theme was altered in subsequent sections. What other techniques were applied?

Come on Wednesday with your written theme (solfege and notation) to hand in, and ready to discuss the other usage you heard. (Write down the time in the video you heard something, so we can listen as a class.)

New School Year!

It's a new school year, and an updated blog post.

This site will now be serving both my Fall MUS 243 course, and the Spring MUS 244 course.

Course info will be available on the relevant pages linked in the header above.

This will also remain the best portal to my Ear Training Songs.

The course info page for MUS 243 will get fleshed out as the year continues, but there will be a few links up there shortly for those who really want to get started.

I've also changed the home page so that it only shows one post at a time, so that media heavy posts like the rhythm trainers don't make the page take forever to load.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2014-15 school year!

David