Unit 7

Unit 7 Musical textures and meter, final composition—sound track

Nov. 28-Dec. 16

Introduction

Objectives

(U7.1) Discern music textures (monophonic, homophonic, and polyphonic) in aural examples. (O3)
(U7.2) Discern simple or compound meters. (O3)
Correctly identify the textures (monophonic, homophonic, and polyphonic) of aural examples.
(U7.3) Critique compositions by colleagues by employing musical terms and concepts. (G2c; O1)
(U7.4) Demonstrate applications of aesthetic principles presented in the course when critiquing compositions by colleagues. (G4a-b; O2-4)
(U7.5) Integrate materials from online creative communities into a composition by using aesthetic judgments. (O3)
(U7.6) Demonstrate aesthetic and cultural judgements by integrating sound with video. The sound track produced by the student will contain voice overs, special effects, MIDI, items from online creative communities, and original sounds. (G3, G4b; O1, O3-4)
(U7.7) Demonstrate best ethical practices with use and acknowledgement of creative products by others. (G4a)

Students in a music class

Materials (Nov. 28)

Meter in Music pdf

LECTURE: Meter in Music (9 min.) Player (cc) | mp4 | wmv (with cc) | transcript | summary (pdf) This video further explains the reading on meter in music above.

The Textures of Music pdf

LECTURE: The Textures of Music (10 1/2 min.) player (cc and searchable) | mp4 | wmv (cc) | transcript | summary
The music discussed in this video is linked below.

Music presented in the lecture (optional listening):

"We Will Rock You" by Queen YouTube
"Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix YouTube | YouTube 2nd video
"Battle Hymn of the Republic" Wikipedia
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nivana YouTube
"Yesterday" by Paul McCartney More Recent
"Imagine" by John Lenin YouTube
"Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dillon (1965) YouTube

Additional music to study. Required, listen to each:

MUSIC: "Bring Him Home" YouTube | Copies: player | mp4 Notice how this is almost entirely homophonic: a solo voice with accompaniment that supports it. There is only rarely a second independent melody in the bass.

MUSIC: "One Day More" YouTube | Copies: player | mp4 This has lots of polyphony. Notice that there are many times when more than one voice is singing at the same time. They are not singing the same melody, rather they have independent parts.

REVIEW, Quiz Test 6. This quiz may be taken as many times as you like. This is a quiz textures and meter. Quizzes do not count towards your course grade. Quiz 1 link | Quiz 2 link

Help improve the course: Use this anonymous form to suggest improvements to Dr. Ewell. Form link

Assignments (Dec. 01)

Test 6. Remember to submit the screen capture of the results to your personal Dropbox folder.
(U7.1-2) Test 6 link Test on Meter, Texture, and Terms (Graded) This test will only provide 13 questions, not 15.

REVIEW LECTURE: Save Test or Exam Results (1 min.) into your Dropbox folder: player | mp4 | wmv | webpage

Dr. E. reviews portions of Student Comments and points out common mistakes in analysis papers.
Be sure to use musical terms introduced in the course in your analysis papers.

Materials (Dec. 02)

PC and Mac: Wondershare Filmora. The trial version will work for this course, but it leaves a watermark on the screen. The watermark is OK. The one year licence for full version is almost $40 as of Dec. 2016.

PC only Download Windows Movie Maker. The trial version is not enabled to save videos in a format to share. The paid version can do this. The paid version, however, does have a 30 day money back guarantee. In Dec. 2016 the software was offered for under $30.

Mac only Download iMovie. Most Macs are installed with this. In some cases you will need to pay $14.95 as of Dec. 2016.

Free alternative. Use the more complicated cross platform (PC, Mac, Linux) video editor Blender. This is recommended only if you have used a video editor before and have technical expertise. Here is a free video series on Blender that is available on Youtube by Mikeycal Meyer: Youtube Link for Blender

Hints and Advice for the Final Project:
Final Project Hints (webpage with practice materials)

LECTURE: Sound Track Demo: examples of video submissions from two students (9 min.) player (cc, searchable) | mp4 | wmv (cc, searchable)| transcript

REVIEW LECTURE: Composition 4 Demo, Part 4: Completing the Project (15 min.) player (cc, searchable) | mp4 | wmv (cc)| transcript

HINT. Follow the same strategies used for Composition 4. Create your musical background in layers which are individually saved. Save your work often!

1) Figure out timings for the video trailer. 2) Find appropriate music and sound files for the segments. 3) Combine the music files in stages with fades and cross fades. For instance, create all of the music first. Then save as one wave (.wav) file. Then import that file into Audacity and add the voice over. Save the file again. 4) then add the sound files (bangs, explositions, etc) in Audacity or in your video editing software.

LECTURE: For MAC: Publishing your Video with iMovie (8 min.) player (CC, searchable) | mp4 | wmv (CC) | transcript

LECTURE: For PC: Publishing Your Video with Windows Movie Maker (9 min.) player (CC, searchable) | mp4 | wmv (CC) | Transcript

Assignments (Dec. 06)

Analysis 3
(U7.3-4)

Analysis 3 Template with instructions and grading rubric (Analysis on Composition 5)

Assignments (Dec. 16)

Final Project
(U7.5-7)
This project features the integration of background and foreground sounds, voice overs, and music with video (movie trailer).

Final Project Report

Don't forget to complete the student survey below at the end of this page.

Movie Trailers for final project (choose 1 below). All of the trailers below are Public Domain and available from www.archive.org. You should not imitate their original sound tracks, create something new.

You must use one of the movie trailers below. They have been reformated and edited for this course. Right click to download and save on your computer.

The avi files are the largest; use them if you can for best results. For iMovie (Mac) choose mp4. For Windows Movie Maker choose wmv.

Some web browsers are restricting downloads of video formats. Try Firefox to see if that will work for you. If not, contact Dr. Ewell and he will share the video you need to your personal Dropbox folder.

1) "Cabin in the Sky" avi | mp4 | wmv

2) “Cyrano de Bergerac” avi | mp4 | wmv

3) “Galaxy Express” avi | mp4 | wmv

4) “Saboteur” avi | mp4 | wmv

5) "Sita Sings the Blues" avi | mp4 | wmv

6) "Three Stooges in Orbit" avi | mp4 | wmv

Posting Your Video TEXT

References for the videos (to be included in your report):

1) https://archive.org/details/TheatricalTrailerForcabinInTheSky
2) https://archive.org/details/cyrano_de_bergerac
3) https://archive.org/details/GalaxyExpressTrailer
4) https://archive.org/details/HitchcockTrailers
5) https://archive.org/details/SitaSingstheBlues_Trailer1
6) https://archive.org/details/Trailer-ThreeStoogesInOrbit

Carefully study these two web pages:

Final Project Hints (given above)

Instructions for Posting the Video. The three options

Trouble shooting:

Saving sound in proper wav formats

Saving mp3 sound files

Student Survey (2 % of the Course Grade) Survey Link

Complete the survey at the end of the course. This is a simple four-question survey through Google Docs. If you wish an alternative method of completing the survey, please contact Dr. Ewell.

MUSC 116