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MUSI3036 Chromaticism and Post-tonal Techniques
Course Type: disciplinary elective for music majors/minors, free elective for others
Prerequisite: MUSI2070 Fundamentals of Tonal Music
Instructor: Dr. Joshua CHAN
Semester: First Semester 2022/23
Time: 12:30pm-2:20pm, Wednesday
Venue: CRT-11/01 Seminar Room
This course is a continuation of MUSI2070. It firstly examines chromatic harmonies and larger forms in classical music, showing how classical composers organized their materials in context. The course then discusses the key aspects of pitch-class set theory and its applications in composition, helping students to analyse post-tonal music rationally.
Course Learning Outcomes
Assessment Methods
Topics
Text & Resource Materials
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
  • examine the harmonies of classical music with systematic, logical interpretations;
  • demonstrate an appreciation of the complex structures of large forms in classical music;
  • elaborate and arrange tonal music with diatonic and chromatic harmonies;
  • explain the harmonic qualities of various kinds of pitch organisation in modern writing;
  • investigate the structure of atonal music with post-tonal theory.
Attendance and Participation 5%
Weekly Tasks 50%
Analysis of Beethoven Violin Concerto (first movement) 15%
Final Exam (take-home) 30%
  • augmented sixth chords
  • further elements of the harmony vocabulary
  • tonal harmony in the late 19th century
  • chromatic voice-leading techniques
  • chromaticism in large context
  • structural analysis of a concerto
  • basic post-tonal theory
  • atonality of the Second Viennese School
  • combinatoriality
  • Aldwell, Edward, and Carl Schachter. Harmony and Voice Leading. 4th ed. Boston, MA: Schirmer/Cengage Learning, 2011.
  • Forte, Allen. The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973.
  • Kostka, Stefan, Dorothy Payne and Byron Almen. Tonal Harmony: with and Introduction to Twentieth-century Music. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013.
  • Kostka, Stefan. Materials and Techniques of Post-tonal Music. 5th ed. New York: Routledge, 2018.
  • Salzer, Felix. Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music. 2 vols in 1. New York: Dover Publications, 1962.
  • Straus, Joseph Nathan. Introduction to Post-tonal Theory. 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2016.