57-960 Music and Repetition/Musical Repetition
9 units, Carnegie Mellon University
Music works because of repetition. Form functions because of repetition. We remember the music that moves us because of repetition. Music and RepetitionMusical Repetition is a course that centers this omnipresent creative and structural device as a lens for our analytical attention. It rotates the conversation to include repetition in a wide variety of musical parameters and extramusical functions, drawing attention to practices that dont necessarily center pitch andor harmony as the primary point of analysis. Through guided analysis, reading, creative practice, and discussion, we will explore the myriad ways repetition is enacted in music through hyperlocalized repetition and manipulation of the smallest cells of musical material, and how to strengthen the connective tissue within a piece on multiple levels of attention. This course engages with the work of a students own practice across styles and roles having a keen awareness and understanding of how repetition functions within a given piece informs interpretation, how someone might teach or conduct that piece in rehearsal, or even compose a work that uses reused, repeated, and iterated material in any form. We will further explore the complexities of a second and third, and fourth performance of the same work, affordances and limitations in interpretive practice, and contextual performance histories.
Prerequisites: none listed
Offered: Spring 2027
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