Institutes | College/Adult Courses | For Young Performers | General Information
Forms and Registration | Contact Us
NEC Summer School: College/Adult Courses
Music Theory, Musicianship, and Composition
- The Art and Practice of Sight Reading
- Introduction to Composition
- Composing for Film and Multimedia
- Intensive Introduction to Musicianship
- Interactive Composition and Performance Workshop
- Form in Tonal Music
- Performer's Time: Early 20th Century Music
- Solfège
The Art and Practice of Sight Reading
Martin F. Gardiner
June 10-July 3 (eight meetings)
TTh: 6:00-8:30 p.m.
For those with initial understanding of music notation who wish to improve in reading musically at sight. The primary focus is on making music (integrating technique, expression, aesthetics and musical meaning) at sight. Group training will be supplemented by individual coaching. The class will be organized in groups based upon participants’ performance level and experience.
Prerequisite: Call 617-585-1126 to request a placement interview with the instructor.
1 SCE credit or Non-credit: $500
Introduction to Composition
Stephen Savage
June 10-July 22 (seven meetings)
Tu: 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Beginning composition students are encouraged to realize their musical conceptions. Basic concepts introduced include pitch and scale organization, rhythm, tone color, motive, phrase, melody, texture, and gesture. Rudiments of counterpoint, harmony, and stand forms are considered, with emphasis on the balance between repetition and contrast. Specific exercises are given, but students are also encouraged to write freely and to develop a style of their own. Compositions are performed in class when possible.
1 SCE credit: $500
Non-credit: $355
Composing for Film and Multimedia
John Mallia, Director, NEC Electronic Music Studio
June 9-25 (six meetings)
MW: 6:00-8:30 p.m.
This project-based course will introduce students to concepts, compositional strategies, techniques and technologies associated with the combination of music, sound and image in film and other collaborative multimedia settings. Stylistically diverse music by a variety of composers, taken from both historical and current film scenes, will be examined for its role in controlling the depth and speed of the viewer/listener’s awareness of shifts in the underlying narrative thread and changes in the psychological make-up of characters. Examples of multimedia collaborations and their treatment of time and space will also be discussed. Sound/image timing and synchronization techniques, MIDI instrumental mockups, and digital sound manipulation will be demonstrated, practiced and utilized in short scene-scoring and multimedia projects suitable for a composer’s portfolio. The class will meet in NEC's Music Technology classroom, and each student will be able to use workstations including all the necessary software (Digital Performer/Reson). A portion of each evening's class time will be treated as a hands-on composition lab.
1 College UG credit: $1000
1 SCE credit: $500
Non-credit: $355
Intensive Introduction to Musicianship •
Mark Ouchida
June 16-July 24 (twelve meetings)
MTh: 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
For those with little or no previous music theory training. Students should be studying an instrument or playing in an ensemble and be fluent with basic note reading in both treble and bass clefs. The course covers major and minor scale construction; ascending and descending intervals from tonic; circle of fifths; major, minor, augmented, and diminished triads; inversions of triads; primary triads of major and minor keys; and harmonizing simple melodies using primary triads and transposition. The class provides historical context through musical examples and videos, and concludes with an individualized evaluation sequence.
Non-credit:$630
• appropriate for adults with general music background
Interactive Composition and Performance Workshop
John Mallia
July 7-16(four meetings)
MW: 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Students will participate in an intensive hands-on study of the real-time interaction between live instruments and computer-based signal processing. Using the software program MAX/MSP, students will learn to evaluate and track live musical input, process the input in a variety of ways, and shape a musical response to that input in real-time. Other forms of input, such as spatial data obtained form sensons will also be discussed. Templates will be provided that allow composers and performers to jump quickly into an otherwise complex and unwieldy environment and to realize sophisticated interaction between a live acoustic or electronic instrument and the computer. A main focus of the class meetings will be the organizational techniques required to realize a formal sequence to trigger discrete events and processing trajectories over the course of a composition. Students will walk away with the knowledge to program a complete performance incorporating diverse means of interaction.
This course is appropriate for any musician, performer or artist interested in real-time interaction between a live source (musical or otherwise) and a computer. the class will meet in NEC's Music Technology Classroom. The software, Max/MSP, is available as a free downloadable, fully-functional 30-day demo (PC/Mac compatible), making it ideal for use with a course like this.
Non-credit: $225
Form in Tonal Music
Deborah Stein
July 7- 30 (8 meetings)
MW: 6:00-8:30 p.m.
This course will examine the principal tonal forms from 18th- and 19th-century music, from small Baroque dance forms and 19th-century instrumental and vocal miniatures to larger sonata and concerto forms. Study will include both written analysis from scores and aural analysis from CDs. Composers will include Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, and Wolf.
1 College UG or G credit: $1000/$2000
1 SCE credit or Non-credit: $500
Performer's Time: Early 20th Century Music
Deborah Stein
July 8 –31 (eight meetings)
TuTh: 6:00–8:00 p.m.
This course explores the temporal aspects of music: rhythm and rhythmic grouping, meter and hypermeter, non-metric musical stress, phrase structure, and issues of notation and tempo. Emphasis is on identifying musical challenges and determining criteria for performers' interpretative choices. We will explore 20th-century innovations in temporality, including more complex use of rhythms, meters, phrase structures, and musical stress. Works of Debussy, Bartok, Stravinsky, Ives and Messiaen illustrate new concepts of time, including influences of folk rhythm, new organizations of temporal elements, and new concept of temporal form.
1 College UG/G credit: $1000/$2000
1 SCE credit or Non-credit: $500
Solfège
Larry Bell
July 8 –31 (eight meetings)
TuTh: 7:00–9:00 p.m.
This course stresses knowledge of tonality as represented by scales and scale-degree functions. Topics: treble and bass clefs; melodies in major and minor keys; rhythms in standard meters; modulations to the dominant, relative major, and relative minor and their functions in small forms. Materials include Dandelot’s Manuel Practique, Danhauser Book I, and Bona’s Rhythmic Articulation. Students must demonstrate sight-singing competency in a final exam to pass the course. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
1 SCE credit: $500