Make a WISE Gift
Without some kind of plan or outline in which to gather our impressions when listening to music, we end up mostly at sea. The experience of hearing music, just like that of viewing paintings or reading sonnets, benefits from the opportunity to actually have the experience (the more frequently the better). This course is based on an approach designed by Jan La Rue, late professor of musicology at New York University (and a graduate professor of mine), whose textbook Guidelines for Style Analysis established a useful invented term: SHMRG (pronounced shmerg) to give students and music lovers a handy way to organize their impressions from the basic elements: Sound (or Sonority), Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Growth. Each class session will deal with one of the five elements and their interactions in a wide range of musical examples.
GROUP LEADER: Steven Ledbetter holds a PhD in Musicology from New York University and taught at Dartmouth College. He was a musicologist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1979-1998.
NO REQUIRED BOOKS
Worcester Institute for Senior Education (WISE)Assumption University, 500 Salisbury Street, Worcester MA 01609 wise@assumption.edu 508-767-7513
