Michael Schmidt - Seminars / Workshops / Lectures
MEDIA SOUNDS: Music and Cultural History (3 credits)
Michael Schmidt, Ph.D.
Description: This course explores the clashes and resonances between multiple styles and cultural approaches to music — from classical composition to rap, hip-hop and avant-garde sound collages. Such pioneers as John Zorn, Tan Dun, Michael Nyman, or DJ Spooky are expected to participate. In this course we examine the historical foundations of music and its relationship to technological shifts. We explore concepts of recent sound innovations such as DJing and sampling and their relationship to post modern theory.
Objectives: Students shall gain the essential historical background to enter contemporary academic debates surrounding digital sound. As we explore music we move towards new understandings of philosophy. We aim to create new epistemological and ontological relationships to the material presented. The course is designed for musicians, scholars and artists. As we move through the material this course will inform students dissertation and creative projects.
Class Outline:
Module 1:
History and Phenomenology of Media Sounds
Section A. The invention of sound recording – Musique concrete – Sounds generated electronically
Section B: Determination and Indetermination – Musical process
Section C: Composition and Collage – Soundscapes and Soundbridges
Module 2:
Visualization of Music
Section A: The Aesthetics of Visual Music
Section B: The Aesthetics of Film Music
Section C: Visualization of Music between Art and Intermediation
Module 3:
Philosophy of Media Sounds
Section A: The Sublime of Music
-Wagner’s total work of art – visual and acoustic – high and low
Section B: Ethics and Aesthetics of Music
Section C: Musical Language and Truth
Section D: Minimal Music -Sampling and looping – Reduction, repetition and difference
Section E: Musical Mixes between art and ambient- Adorno’s critical philosophy of music and its transformation into the world of media sounds
Music Selections:
You may listen online or download these mp3 files for this class. The files are in two size and quality settings; 'hi'is recommended to those with a fast (broadband) connection and 'lo' to those with a slow (modem) connection. These files are FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.
There are MP3 (software) players available for all major operating systems, a partial list of over 250 players is available here. You can either listen to the individual tracks or download a zip containing all 21 tracks. Choose from a high quality/large size archive (55.9mb!) or if you have limited bandwidth a lower quality/smaller file (11.3mb). You could even reconstruct the CD from these mp3 files for more information on software to do this is available here.
I. Colours
- Hector Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique, 3'18 hi lo
- Richard Wagner: Rheingold-Prelude, 4'15 hi lo
- Clara Rockmore: Theremin (Tchaikovsky: Valse Sentimentale), 2'08 hi lo
- Oskar Sala: Concertanto, 3'07 hi lo
- Herbert Eimert: Klangstudie II, 2'07 hi lo
- Karlheinz Stockhausen: Kontakte, 2'15 hi lo
- Michael Nyman: Draughtmans Contract, 1'45 hi lo
- Yothu Yindi: Tribal Voice, 1'00 hi lo
- Jan Garbarek: Raga I, 1'22 hi lo
- Claude Debussy: Voiles, 1'13 hi lo
- Toru Takemitsu: November Steps, 1'32 hi lo
- Tan Dun: On Taoism, 1'45 hi lo
- John Cage: Imaginary Landscape I, 1'25 hi lo
- Pierre Schaeffer: Etude Pathetique, 1'57 hi lo
- Murray Schafer: The Vancouver Soundscape, 2'22 hi lo
- Bill Fontana: Soundbridge Köln — San Francisco, 2'57 hi lo
- Klaus Schulze: Melange, 2'00 hi lo
- Brian Eno: Unfamilar Wind, 2'00 hi lo
- John Zorn: Spillane, 1'50 hi lo
- DJ Spooky: Journey, 2'04 hi lo
- John Cage: Roaratorio, 2'48 hi lo
Required Readings:
Schmidt, Michael. Philosophy of Media Sounds. Atropos Press. July 2009, 154 pages, Paperback, ISBN: 0981997260. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Music in the Twentieth Century). Cambridge University Press. October 1999, 210 pages, 2nd edition, Paperback, ISBN: 0521653835. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Cage, John. Empty Words. Wesleyan University Press. November 1981, Paperback, ISBN: 0819560677. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC: Theory and Sound (3 credits)
Michael Schmidt, Ph.D.
Description: Philosophical approaches to music – from Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche to Theodor W. Adorno and Ernst Bloch — prepare for a deeper appreciation of the visual and acoustic dimensions as well as the psychological and political aspects of the contemporary “image acoustic" (DJ Spooky), “imaginary landscape" (John Cage) and “experimental music" (Michael Nyman). We will examine the dimension of music as a communication about the unsayable, as a possibility of the understanding in misunderstanding. The unsayable of music opens doors to the sublime through our ears. Experimental music liberates sound from its context and anticipates new perspectives for our ears. And in this sense there is a strong realtionship between John Cage's indetermination of the musical proces and of DJ Spooky's / Paul Miller's idea of music as a „free floating variable“.
Required Readings:
Schmidt, Michael. Philosophy of Media Sounds. Atropos Press. July 2009, 154 pages, Paperback, ISBN: 0981997260. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Music in the Twentieth Century). Cambridge University Press. October 1999, 210 pages, 2nd edition, Paperback, ISBN: 0521653835. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Cage, John. Empty Words. Wesleyan University Press. November 1981, Paperback, ISBN: 0819560677. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Recommended Readings:
Godlovitch, Stanley. Musical Performance: A Philosophical Study. Routledge. 1998. Paperback, 184 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0415191297. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.
Perloff, Marjorie. The Poetic of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage. Northwestern University Press. 1981. Paperback, 346 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0810117649. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.