BAIN MUSC 525
Post-Tonal Theory

Fall 2024

MUSC 525 | Blackboard | Listening/Analysis

C O U R S E   M O D U L E S
	Pitches, Intervals & Motives (Ch. 1)
2.	Pitch-Class Sets (Ch. 2)
3.	Set Properties & Relations (Ch. 3)
4.	Centricity & Referential Collections (Ch. 5)
5.	Interval Cycles & Triadic Post-Tonality (Ch. 4)
6.	Serialism (Ch. 6)

News

Welcome to MUSC 525!

Quotable

	To analyze music is to find a good way to hear it and to communicate that way of hearing it to other people....
	– John Rahn, Basic Atonal Theory

Required Textbook

Joseph N. Straus, Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, 4/e (New York: Norton, 2016).
Table of Contents; E-book: VitalSource

Course Documents

1. Fall 2024 Syllabus (coming soon...)
   
2. Fall 2022 Syllabus
• Reading & Exam Schedule (pdf)
• Daily Schedule (pdf)
• Links for Students
3. Straus 4/e:
   
• Theory Exercises (pdf)
• Assignments/Activities (pdf)
• Listening/Analysis
• Digital Anthology
• Musical Examples (by chapter & topic)
• Model Analyses
• Guided Analyses
4. Practice Tests
5. Handouts
6. Mathematical Terms & Concepts
7. Bibliography
   
• Articles

Projects

1. Composition Project (pdf)
   Due: Fri., Dec. 9, 11:59 pm; Project proposal due: Wed., Nov. 30, 11:59 pm
   
2. Analysis Project (pdf)
   For graduate students and SCHC H-Option students only
   

Software

1. PC Polygon Assistant, v2.03 (Bain 2016)
2. Tools
• Literal Subsets, v0.14d
• Triadic Transformation Calculator, v0.13d 
3. Twelve-Tone Assistant, v2.4

Chapter/Lecture Overviews

1. Chapter 1  
   • Basic Concepts of Pitch and Interval (pdf)
2. Chapter 2
   • Pitch-Class Sets (pdf)
   • Set Theory (pdf)
   • Normal Form, Set Class, and Prime Form (pdf)
     
   • Segmentation & Analysis (pdf)
   • Model Analyses (Ch 1-2)
     • Ch. 1 Model Analyses (pdf)
     • Ch. 2 Model Analyses (pdf)
3. Chapter 3
   • Some Additional Properties & Relationships (pdf)
4. Chapter 5
   • Centricity and Referential Pitch Collections (pdf)
5. Chapter 4
   •  Motive, Voice Leading, and Harmony (pdf)
6. Chapter 6
   • Part 1: Basic Concepts of Twelve-Tone Music (pdf)
   • Part 2: Varieties of Twelve-Tone Music (pdf)

Set Class Lists

1. Under T_n/T_nI
   • Bain, Set Class List, v2.3 (pdf) (Kostka & Payne 2004)
   • Straus, List of Set Classes, pp. 378-381 (Straus 2016)
   • Walters, Table of pc set classes {www.mta.ca}
2. Under T_n
   • Nelson, Prime Forms Table {ComposerTools}
3. Under T_nM/T_nMI
   • Morris, Set-Class Table {Website}; See also: Morris 1987 Appendix One (Morris 1987)
4. Other
   • Hanson, The Projection and Interrelation of Sonorities in ET {Archive.org} (Hanson 1960)
   • Forte, Appendix 1: Prime Forms and Vectors of PC Sets {GB} (Forte 1973)
   • Carter, Catalogue I: Catalogue of Intervals and Chords, from The Harmony Book {GB} (Carter 2002)

Research Tools

Online Resources

1. Allen Forte Electronic Archive {AFEA}
   
2. Arnold Schoenberg Center {ASC}
• Compositions: A complete works list with recordings {ASC}
3. Digital Scores: Explore twentieth-century and twenty-first century music literature
   
4. Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Explore the Score (ETS)
• Pierre Boulez, Douze Notations {ETS}
• György Ligeti: Piano Works {ETS}
• Stravinsky, Petrushka {ETS}
5. London, et al., Row Forms in the Serial Works of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern {CCARH}
6. Schoenberg, Style and Idea
   • Composition with Twelve Tones (1941) {GB}
7. Straus, Online Analytical Resources
   
• Analyzing Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (2022) {Website; YouTube Channel}
  
• The Melodic Organization of The Rite of Spring, Music Theory Online 28/4 (Dec. 2022) {MTO}
  
• Thirty-Three Graphic Music Analyses {Oxford University Press} (Straus 2022)
• Three Stravinsky Analyses, Music Theory Online 18/4 (Dec. 2012)  {MTO} (Straus 2012)
8. Webern, The Path to New Music (1932-33) {Archive.org}

Bibliographies

1. BAIN MUSC 525 Bibliography & Articles
• Mathematics and the Twelve-Tone System
• Teaching Post-Tonal Theory
  
2. Séminaire MaMuX {IRCAM}

History

Schuijer, Michiel. 2008. Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory and Its Contexts. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. {GB}

Taruskin, Richard. 2010. Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. {GB}

______________. 2010. Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. {GB}

Main References

Babbitt, Milton. 2003. The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt, edited by Stephen Peles, Stephen Dembski, Andrew Mead, and Joseph N. Straus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. {GB}

Forte, Allen. 1973. The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven: Yale University Press. {GB)

Hook, Julian. 2022. Exploring Musical Spaces: A Synthesis of Mathematical Approaches. New York: Oxford University Press. {GB; Oxford}

Lewin, David. 1987. Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (GMIT). New Haven: Yale University Press. {GB}

Morris, Robert. 1987. Composition with Pitch Classes: A Theory of Compositional Design. New Haven: Yale University Press. {GBd}

Rahn, John. 1980. Basic Atonal Theory. New York: Longman. {Gbd}

Straus, Joseph N. 2022. The Art of Post-Tonal Analysis: Thirty-Three Graphic Music Analyses. New York: Oxford University Press. {GB; Oxford; Companion Website}

______________ 2016. Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, 4th ed. New York: Norton. {GB}

Tymoczko, Dmitri. 2011. A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice. New York: Oxford. {GB; Full text: Ebook Central}

LEGEND:
AFEA - Allen Forte Electronic Archive
ASC - Arnold Schoenberg Center
ETS - Explore the Score
GB - Google Books
MTO - Music Theory Online