University of South Carolina
School of Music

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
1. Pitches, Intervals &
Motives (Ch. 1)
2. Pitch-Class Sets (Ch. 2)
3. Set Properties &
Relations (Ch. 3)
4. Centricity & Referential
Collections (Ch. 5)
5. Advanced Topics (Ch. 4)
Serialism (Ch. 6)

News

Reading

Assignments

Quotable

x Twelve-tone composers share a premise – that interesting and expressive music can be written with reference to a precomposed ordering of the twelve pitch classes....
y

– Joseph N. Straus

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 (pdf) Updated
          icon
  2. Handouts
  3. Worksheets
  4. Digital Anthology
  5. Straus 4/e:
  6. Mathematical Terms & Concepts
  7. Bibliography

Projects

  1. Composition Project (pdf) – Due: Fri., Dec. 13, 11:59 pm
  2. Analysis Project (pdf)
    For graduate students only

Software

  1. Bain, PC Polygon Assistant, v2.03 (Bain 2016)
  2. Tools
  3. Walters, PC Set Calculator: I Matrix, v2001
  4. Bain, Twelve-Tone Assistant, v2.4

Chapter/Lecture Overviews

  1. Chapter 1  
  2. Chapter 2
  3. Chapter 3
  4. Chapter 5
  5. Chapter 4
  6. Chapter 6

Set Class Lists

  1. Under Tn/TnI
  2. Under Tn
  3. Under TnM/TnMI
  4. Other

Research Tools

  1. FindIt @ UofSC
  2. Dictionaries: Harvard Dictionary | Grove/Oxford
  3. Articles: JSTOR | ProjectMuse
  4. E-books: Ebook Central | EBSCOhost | Hathi Trust
  5. Wolfram Tools: Wolfram Alpha | Wolfram MathWorld
  6. Scores: CPDL; IMSLP; Alexander Street
  7. Recordings: Naxos | Spotify | YouTube

Online Resources

  1. Allen Forte Electronic Archive {AFEA}
  2. Arnold Schoenberg Center {ASC; YouTube Channel}
  3. Digital Scores: Explore 20th and 21st-century music literature
  4. Justin London, et al., Row Forms in the Serial Works of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern {CCARH}
  5. Ian Ring, Scale Finder {IanRing.com}
  6. Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea (Schoenberg 1950)
  7. Joseph Straus, Online Analytical Resources {JosephStraus.com}
  8. Anton Webern, The Path to New Music (1932-33) {Archive.org}

Bibliographies

  1. BAIN MUSC 525 Bibliography & Articles
  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)

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 Videos: JosephStraus.com}

______________ 2018. Broken Beauty: Musical Modernism and the Representation of Disability. New York: Norton. {GB; Full text: EBSCOhost; Videos: JosephStraus.com; Oxford}

______________ 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 University Press. {GB; Full text: Ebook Central}

Legend
AFEA
- Allen Forte Electronic Archive (University of North Texas)
ASC - Arnold Schoenberg Center (Vienna)
ETS - Explore the Score (Klavier-Festival Ruhr)
GB
- Google Books
IRCAM - Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (Paris)
MTO - Music Theory Online



Updated: December 5, 2024

Reginald Bain | University of South Carolina | School of Music
https://reginaldbain.com/vc/bain/musc525/