This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples--sound art, environmental recordings, music--will be provided and invited throughout the term.

Students will build sensory awareness enhancing their perception and personal connections to the theme of race, power, and privilege in their community.  Students will take notes, build background knowledge, and begin to determine which types of media messages are reliable sources of information. They will research what form of media campaign most inspires them to act on an issue in 2019-20. Students develop media-literacy connections to further inquiry and investigate topics that stimulate their curiosity. The final product will be a 3-minute video essay. 

Students will build sensory awareness enhancing their perception and personal connections to the theme of race, power, and privilege in their community.  Students will take notes, build background knowledge, and begin to determine which types of media messages are reliable sources of information. They will research what form of media campaign most inspires them to act on an issue in 2019-20. Students develop media-literacy connections to further inquiry and investigate topics that stimulate their curiosity. The final product will be a 3-minute video essay. 

Students will build sensory awareness enhancing their perception and personal connections to the theme of race, power, and privilege in their community.  Students will take notes, build background knowledge, and begin to determine which types of media messages are reliable sources of information. They will research what form of media campaign most inspires them to act on an issue in 2019-20. Students develop media-literacy connections to further inquiry and investigate topics that stimulate their curiosity. The final product will be a 3-minute video essay. 

Students create different versions of a known song and listen to contrasting recordings for musical differences and similarities.

"This class explores composition and arrangement for the large jazz ensemble from 1920s foundations to current postmodern practice. Consideration given to a variety of styles and to the interaction of improvisation and composition. Study of works by Basie, Ellington, Evans, Gillespie, Golson, Mingus, Morris, Nelson, Williams, and others. Open rehearsals, workshops, and performances of student compositions by the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. ĺĘ"

A series of progressive composition projects, culminating in a large final projecting, using various types of music hardware and software. Instruction in recording, editing, synthesis, sampling, digital sound processing, sequencing, and interactive systems. Close listening to computer and electronic music from various genres including Varese, Cage, Schaeffer, Xenakis, Lansky, Stockhausen, Tcherepnin, Barlow, Gunter, and Eno. Subject focuses on using the computer as a means of musical creativity and intuition.

 Advertisements can present a biased cultural representation that can affect our perceptions of others.  For example, a television show may show commercials with some groups of people more than others. A magazine may have advertisements and articles representing a certain type of people in a way that reinforces stereotypes.  Students need to be taught to recognize the culture that is being represented in the media they consume as well as the cultures that are absent from the same media.This is Part 5 of a 5 Part Unit: Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying?

What are the roles of analysis, description and performance in developing musical perception and understanding? How are units of perception different from units of description? Bamberger's text "Developing Musical Intuitions" and the accompanying software "Impromptu" are used as environments for composing melodies and percussion pieces. These, in turn, serve as the basis for students to interrogate their musical intuitions so as to expand and develop them. Term projects involve learning to perform a new composition or an experiment in musical perception, or designing multiple representations for appropriate analysis of a significant work. The goal of this class is practical: to interrogate, make explicit, and thus to develop the powerful musical intuitions that are at work as you make sense of the music all around you. Reflecting, we will ask how this knowledge develops in ordinary and extraordinary ways.

Exploring Movie Construction & Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students’ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

Exploring Movie Construction and Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students’ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

Students will develop criteria for determining statements of opinion and fact. Students will practice discerning statements of opinion in advertisements.  This is Part 2 of a 5 Part Unit Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying? 

The goals of this class are two-fold: the first is to experience the creative processes and storytelling behind several of theater's arts and to acquire the analytical skills necessary in assessing the meaning they transmit when they come together in production. Secondly, we will introduce you to these languages in a creative way by giving you hands-on experience in each. To that end, several Visiting Artists and MIT faculty in Theater Arts will guest lecture, lead workshops, and give you practical instruction in their individual art forms.

Introduces students to the basics of musical structure and proficiencies expected of musicians through participation in three integrated hands-on approaches. Lectures introduce students to the basics of music--pitch, rhythm, and its combinations--in a variety of musical settings, including analysis and discussion of students' compositions and of related larger works. Sight-singing lab focuses on developing practical musical skills through oral, aural, and written experiences with rhythms, melodies, intervals, scales, chords, and music notation. Piano lab introduces and continues development of fundamental music skills through keyboard practice.

Using their new skills in deconstructing advertisements, students will look at advertisements through the lens of gender.  Students will be encouraged to critically analyze the cultural stereotypes for men and women. Students will deconstruct advertisements based on gender representation.Rationale: Students will begin to see how believing in stereotypes can lead towards a negative self image for men and women.  This is Part 4 of a 5 part Unit: Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying?

The topic for Fall 2006 is short film and radio plays. This course investigates current trends and topics in German literary, theater, film, television, radio, and other media arts productions. Students analyze media texts in the context of their production, reception, and distribution as well as the public debates initiated by these works. The topic for Fall 2006 is German Short Film, a popular format that represents most recent trends in film production, and German Radio Art, a striving genre that includes experimental radio plays, sound art, and audio installations. Special attention will be given to the representation of German minorities, contrasted by their own artistic expressions reflecting changes in identity and a new political voice. Students have the opportunity to discuss course topics with a writer, filmmaker, and/or media artist from Germany. The course is taught in German.

A continuation of Harmony and Counterpoint I, including chromatic harmony and modulation, a more extensive composition project, keyboard laboratory, and sight-singing laboratory.

Basic writing skills in music of the common-practice period (Bach to Brahms). Work includes regular written assignments leading to the composition of short pieces, analyzing representative works from the literature, keyboard laboratory, and sight-singing choir. It is recommended that entering students have some concert music listening or playing background. Enrollment may be limited.

SPARK follows Jared "Choclatt" Crawford as he prepares for his foot-tapping new musical theater production "Hit It!" at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. This Educator Guide is about the history of drumming, street performers, and African American musical theater.

This course examines the production, transmission, preservation and qualities of folk music in the British Isles and North America from the 18th century to the folk revival of the 1960s and the present. There is a special emphasis on balladry, fiddle styles, and African-American influences. The class sings ballads and folk songs from the Child and Lomax collections as well as other sources as we examine them from literary, historical, and musical points of view. Readings supply critical and background materials from a number of sources. Visitors and films bring additional perspectives.