GRADUATE COMPOSITION
Course Syllabus

Music 212, Fall 2010
Tuesday 6:30-9:20 pm
Music and Media Building, Room 316
University of California, Irvine

Professor Christopher Dobrian
Music and Media 211, x7288
dobrian@uci.edu

Office hours by appointment.

Course Description:

Structured projects in instrumental composition based on studies using specific compositional techniques. The goal is to develop effective personal technique and methodology in composition, while establishing a process of creative experimentation.

Course Requirements:

• Active and informed participation in class sessions. No more than one absence is permitted.
• Completion of readings, listenings, analyses, and presentations as assigned.
• Completion of short technical composition studies as assigned.
• Completion of one movement, approximately five minutes in duration, for violin and piano, with a score produced by midterm and a recording produced by the end of the term.
• Completion of one movement, approximately five minutes in duration, for chamber ensemble (three or more players), with a score produced by the end of the term.

Activities:

• Studies in harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, and style.
• Analysis and "resynthesis": observing characteristics of existing musical models, deriving generative rules from those characteristics, and producing a new example from that generative hypothesis.
• Composing in graphic notation and translating the graphic notation into player's notation.
• Composing from the macroscopic to the microscopic formal structure.
• Composing separate parameters as a multi-dimensional temporal progression.
• Conceiving algorithms for generating new musical structures.

Grading:

Grading for the course will be based on timely completion of all the course requirements. Since every assignment is considered a vital part of the educational experience of the course, serious and high quality work is expected at all times. Grading will be based on:

1. Assigned exercises and analyses to learn specific composing concepts and techniques (30%),
2. Midterm violin and piano composition project, including score and recording (30%),
3. Final chamber music composition project, score (30%), and
4. Participation in class discussion, presentations, and rehearsals (10%).

Important Dates:

Saturday, October 9 - Faculty Chamber Series: Kojiro Umezaki
Monday, November 1 - Midterm violin and piano composition due (score and part)
Wednesday, November 3 - GEMSeries: Pamela Z
Saturday, November 6 - Faculty Chamber Series: Eclipse Quartet
Tuesday, November 9 - GEMSeries: Roger Reynolds
Monday, December 6 - Final composition project due; Recording of solo project due

Final Critique:

The final critique will be held during the final exam week, at a time to be announced. Participation is required.

Regarding Academic Integrity:

Collaboration between students in this course is strongly encouraged. Students are urged to exchange ideas, opinions, and information constantly, and to help each other with the composition and performance of their technical exercises and creative projects. Plagiarism of any kind is in direct violation of University policy on Academic Honesty, and penalties for plagiarism can be severe. In this class you will be expected to attribute due credit to the originator of any ideas, words, or music that you incorporate into your own work.

Christopher Dobrian
September 1, 2010
dobrian@uci.edu