Musical Currents From The Left Coast

Musical Currents from the Left Coast, edited by Jack Boss and Bruce Quaglia, presents a timely snapshot of the analytical concerns and methodologies that have proliferated throughout the current moment in North American music theoretical circles. The repertoire spanned within this volume is extensive. It covers music from J.S. Bach through the late 19th Century and continues finally to the modernist, avant garde, and post-modernist repertoire of the past century. Previously neglected aspects of musical structure, such as rhythm and meter, are presented here on equal footing with the traditional preoccupations of harmony and thematic process. Meter in particular is treated in great depth here: it is explored from the perspectives of both listener and performer and treats repertoire as diverse as Bach, Chopin, traditional African music and the popular music throughout the world that has disseminated from that tradition. The music and ideas of composer Arnold Schoenberg are central to many of the essays presented here. Schoenberg’s oft remarked upon masterpiece, Klavierstuck, Op.11, No.1, forms the focus of an entire section of the book. Four notable Schoenberg scholars of the younger generation revisit this seminal work on the eve of its centenary in order to reflect not only upon the work itself, but also upon the prodigious discourse that has surrounded it since nearly the date of its composition. More broadly, Schoenberg’s compositional and analytical concerns resonate through many of the other essays presented here, too. His concepts of “The Musical Idea” and “Developing Variation” are treated extensively in relation to the music of Anton Webern and Johannes Brahms, respectively. Musical Currents from the Left Coast will be of great interest to any individuals and institutions with an investment in the contemporary discourse of music theory and will be of special interest to scholars beyond that field who are also engaged with the work of Arnold Schoenberg.

This volume draws together papers delivered at the 2018 meeting of the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis. It comprises a wide range of analytical approaches, including those inspired by Schoenberg, his theories and works; methods of applying transformational theory to analysis; and studies in narrative and form. Representing the diversifying discipline of music research, the book pointedly contains several approaches to popular music. It represents the cutting-edge nature of the repertoire under inspection, and the reader will find in this book a compendium of analytic techniques for numerous musical styles.

Analyzing the Music of Living Composers (and Others) is a collection of essays that grew out of the 2010 annual meeting of the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis. The stated purpose was to apply traditional music-analytic techniques, as well as new, innovative techniques, to describing the music of composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The goal was to take steps toward making the music of our time a bit less impenetrable for our colleagues, students and other listeners by showing how it follows, varies, and sometimes controverts the organizational schemes of older music. This collection includes chapters analyzing music of older eras as well, including a number that throw light on the analysis of recent music in unexpected ways, and there are also several chapters that propose innovative analytic approaches to recent popular music and jazz.

"This book consists of analyses of thirty-three musical passages or entire short works in a variety of post-tonal styles. The works under study are taken from throughout the long twentieth century, from 1909 to the present. Within the atonal wing of modern classical music, the composers discussed here, some canonical and some not, represent a diversity of musical style, chronology, geography, gender, and race/ethnicity. Composers studied include Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Bartok, Stravinsky, Copland, Crawford-Seeger, Babbitt, Dallapiccola, Carter, Louise Talma, Hale Smith, Elisabeth Lutyens, Ursula Mamlok, Tania León, Tan Dun, Shulamit Ran, Kaija Saariaho, Joan Tower, John Adams, Sofia Gubaidulina, Thomas Adès, Caroline Shaw, Chen Yi, and Suzanne Farrin. The approach is pedagogical, in the somewhat informal style of a classroom. Musical examples and analytical videos carry the burden of the analytical argument, with relatively little prose. For each piece, the book suggests ways of making sense of the music, using basic concepts of post-tonal theory to tease out rich networks of musical relationships and reveal something of the fascination and beauty of this challenging music"--

Form and Process in Music, 1300–2014: An Analytic Sampler draws together papers delivered at the 2014 meeting of the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis. The conference spanned an unusually wide spectrum of musical styles, including papers on European twelve-tone music after the Second World War, fourteenth-century music, pop music and jazz, the music of living composers, narrative and characterization, and the history of music theory. The title of the book reflects the large span of musical cultures that are represented within, but also accounts for the common thread through all of these essays, a strong emphasis on understanding the forms and processes of music through analysis. The reader will find within it a compendium of analytic techniques for numerous musical styles.

Ted Gioia tells the story of jazz as it has never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Gioia provides readers with lively portraits of great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. 9 photos.

Jack Boss presents detailed analyses of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone pieces, bringing the composer's 'musical idea' - problem, elaboration, solution - to life.

Portrays Schoenberg's atonal music as successions of motives and pitch-class sets that flesh out 'musical idea' and 'basic image' frameworks.