Composition Courses and Lessons

Christopher Robert Morgan, Ph.D. Composition
Home * Composition * Synthesis * New Music Ensemble • Audio Electronics

Courses

Introduction to Composition

This course is an overview of twentieth century composition techniques as well as basic composing and notation. The emphasis is on preparing students to be successful at a four-year institution composition program by providing an introduction to the many technical and asesthetic innovations in twentieth and twenty-first century music such as the following:

Atonality - free and serialism (12-tone and total serialism)
Polytonality
Chance Music, Indeterminacy
Minimalism - pairs of students perform Reich's "Clapping Music" and all students compose a minimalist phasing piece with MIDI
Timbre - pieces for solo percussion

Finally, we spend time discussing what it means to compose and tackle some of the aesthetic questions of modernism and post-modernism.

Applied Lessons

Composition Lessons

MUAP 1187 - half-hour acoustic music composition.
MUAP 1287 - one-hour acoustic music composition.

These lessons focus on composing for traditional acoustic instruments. The student learns to develop their ideas formally into a complete composition.
Notation is heavily emphasized. Interested students should have already complete at least two semesters of music theory and the Introduction to Composition class.

Electro-Acoustic Composition Lessons

MUAP 1188 - half-hour electro-acoustic music composition.
MUAP 1288 - one-hour electro-acoustic music composition.

These lessons focus on composing computer music. The student learns to develop timbres using current synthesis techniques such as granular synthesis, FFT-based spectral syntheis as well as algorithmic and interactive techniques.

Recommendations for Movies that deal with Aesthetics of Modernism and Post-modernism.

Helvetica
Origami - The Art of the Fold
"Untitled"

Here are some reviews and commentary on the movie and the composer behind the soundtrack:

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/89442735/david-lang-wins-music-pulitzer

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/movies/23untitled.html