courses>composition

 

 


Com301
Jazz Arranging
3 units

A one-semester introductory course on basic jazz
arranging techniques for the small ensemble. Students
learn ranges and characteristics of instruments,
rules for notating rhythm, how to lay out a
score, how to write for the rhythm section, how to
compose melodies and chord progressions, how
to set a melody to chords, how to voice choralestyle
chords, how to harmonize a moving melodic
line with two to five voices, and various ways of
addressing form. Required texts: Jazz Arranging
and Composing — a Linear Approach, by Bill
Dobbins; Inside the Score, by Rayburn Wright.
Students are assigned three to five arranging
projects. The final project is an arrangement for
five horns and rhythm sections that is recorded.
3 hours lecture


Com380
Counterpoint
Elective — 2 units

Contrapuntal techniques and styles of seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century instrumental
and vocal music, providing a solid foundation
for voice leading. Includes the writing of cantus
firmus, two- and three-part species counterpoint,
and combined species in three voices, in
major and minor modes. Analysis of a range of
important contrapuntal work including the canons,
inventions and fugues of J.S. Bach.
2 hours lecture