Y3 | Timbre Course Design

Timbre Course Design
Y3 | Workgroup Summary

16 July 2021
11:30-13:00 EDT
Via Zoom

Workgroup Leaders:
E. Dolan (Brown University)

Aims:

What does it mean to teach timbre? In advance of the session, syllabuses exploring timbre were made available. In particular, participants were encouraged to share specific assignments that were particularly effective: these could be individual reading or listening assignments, in-class exercises, creative assignments, etc. The goal of this working group is to create a useful repository of both syllabuses and assignments that others can draw on in their teaching, creating a space to discuss what it means to teach timbre, and share resources and strategies.

Discussion Points:

·      Why Timbre?

·      Lack of standardized vocabulary around timbre (could be a strength or a complaint)

·      Effect of the pandemic on teaching methods: inviting virtual guests, supplementing classes with audio materials (podcast formats etc.)

o   Audio is useful as timbre is such an audible medium

·      Designing group projects that allow for a combination of multidisciplinary approaches, combining the empirical and analytical

o   Involving Composers, Performers, Theorists, Musicologists, Ethnomusicologists, Music Education students, Perception and Cognition students etc.

o   Graduate courses often host a combination of students from different faculties

·      Approach of “discovery by doing” versus assigning pieces versus paper meta-analysis

·      Graphic, artistic interpretations of analyses as opposed to traditional analyses

·      Possibility of the benefit of insisting on particular ways to approach timbres in order to guide students

·      Presenting a smattering of techniques

·      Composing pieces to do studies on timbre

·      Lack of focus on mundane/ordinary moments in timbre

·      How much is timbre a shorthand for performance and analysis? An analytical last resort? Is this a signal to listen differently?

·      Prioritize sound-based approaches to get around the problems surrounding the lack of diversity

o   Get away from the hyperfocus on early 20th century, “teachable” pieces

o   Move away from the white, eurocentric focus

o   Increase women composers and composers of colour (more representation)

·      Problem-solving approach as opposed to searching for rows and pitches

·      Sounds guide intuitive discoveries and connections to other parameters

·      Disadvantage to sound-down approach: students’ skills aren’t as honed

·      Focus on popular genres, finding classical techniques in popular music

o   leading to a crossover between genres

·      Seminars are for discovering together, not for developing a global methodology. Ways and approaches of thinking about the sonic domain. The lecturer might do the projects along with the students.

·      Allowing the students to have a say in the class: content, delivery, etc.

·      What is the skill-based curriculum for a timbre course? Are the students being left with take-away skills?

o   Post-tonal courses are designed around measurable content

o   Potential skills: use of timbre vocabulary (semantics), acoustics, listening skills and the lack of timbre ear training, soundscapes, basic perception and cognition

o   detailed, small-scale listening projects

o   Targeted listening with many examples

o   Development of writing skills

·      Importance of listening to the students’ expertise and specialties

·      Having the students submit (creative) work for publication

o   sometimes in the form of ACTOR web articles/essays

·      Guilt around classes: methodologies, coverage, lack of certain areas, lack in takeaway skills, idea of being an authority figure giving grades. “Timbre keeps us honest”

 Action Items:

N/A

Follow-Up:

·      Revisit the evolution of respective syllabi in a few years, taking from each other’s approaches

·      Potentially have discussions in the slack channel

·      Offer extended to everyone to join ACTOR