The business-end of things…
The Course Web Site
If you made it here, you found the course web site. You can simplify things by using the “Classes/Categories” drop-down menu on the right to search for musicTheory4 posts, or more specifically, lecturenotes_musth4 or assignments_musth4. You can also use the Search box to look for a more specific term or topic. The front page and any page returned by a class choice or search term just shows post titles and the beginning of posts. Click the post title for the full post.
Printing posts has been significantly improved from the previous incarnation of this blog. The header image and right-hand links are automatically eliminated from printed posts.
You can follow the posts for the course in a number of ways through RSS feeds. Links are in the right-hand column under the heading “.rss.” All entries will give you a feed of everything, from every course I teach, that I post to the blog. A more filtered way is the subscribe to musictheory4 posts. You can also subscribe to all the comments on the blog, or to comments on a specific post. (Each post has a link to subscribe to comments at the bottom of the post.) RSS feeds do not work in Google Chrome. You either have to use a reader app, or another browser. If you like Chrome a good option is try Rockmelt. It’s billed as integrating social media into the browser, but the biggest advantage is that it lets you use RSS feeds with Chrome. The browser is built on Chrome. The right sidebar lets you bookmark RSS feeds.
Also note that a link to my Google Calendar is on the right of every blog page. It can be useful to find times to meet with me.
Addtional Help
Two music theory graduate assistants are specifically assigned to help with 100- and 200-level theory classes. They are Andrea Luther (abluther) and Samantha Wagner (sjwagner). Please make use of them if you need ongoing help with understanding and keeping up with course material. Contact them via email to set up an appointment, or to find out when they hold their regular office hours.
Attendance and Homework
Remember the attendance policy: six absences for any reason are allowed. A seventh absence means you fail the course.
Keep up with homework and turn it in on time. I won’t accept late homework if we’ve talked about the assignment in class, and I’ll only accept two late homeworks from any student.
When you use the Anthology for homework it will benefit you greatly if you turn in a copy of your work and keep the original in your book for future discussion. You can scan pages and email them to me if you like. Use my gmail address, please, for sending email with file attachments.
Textbook and Anthology
If you haven’t sold your Roig-Francoli textbook back to a bookstore, it will be helpful at times for the beginning of the semester.
You should plan on bringing your textbook and anthology to every class. While I’ll try to let you know ahead of time when you won’t need it, I will make no guarantees.
Terms are Important
Reading will take on greater importance this semester. You will need to do assigned reading ahead of class, and quizzes will usually contain terms for definition/explanation. Most of you are familiar with the terms of tonal music through years of practice and performance on your instrument. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century music greatly expand the musical lexicon, and your ability to understand and analyze the music will depend on your understanding of new terms.
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