MACRO Circular Opus 3

Winter 1997

Introducing New Members

Michael Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Music at Dana College in Blair, Nebraska which is just north of Omaha. He teaches first year musicianship, applied high brass, brass methods, jazz appreciation, music technology, and directs the brass and jazz ensembles. He also team-teaches a course in the General Education Program called Foundation For Lifelong Learning. In his spare time, he is active as a professional trumpet player in the Omaha and Lincoln area. He directs the Omaha Big Band and the Omaha Youth Jazz Project. He is the founder of the Trumpet Player’s International Network, the leading source for trumpet players on the internet, and is the Director of the International Trumpet Guild’s WWW Site housed at Dana College. He is presenting a session on music technology at our Summer Workshop.

Paul Sayre is one of our new student members. He is currently working on a Master of Arts degree with an emphasis in composition at Eastern Michigan University, where he studies with Marilyn Saker, Sylvan Kalib and Anthony Iannaccone. His talents have earned him additional teaching duties not normally awarded to graduate students. He teaches theory and aural skills classes. He completed his undergraduate work with a full award at Ohio State University as a piano performance major.

MACRO News

The field of mud that surrounded the new house of Warren Gooch last spring has turned into a real lawn! The Gooch family is now enjoying such amenities as sidewalks, stairs leading into the house, etc. Compositions by Gooch have received performances at new music conferences in Tampa (Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano), and at Arizona State University and other locations. At his "home base" (Truman State University), four works were performed in the span of a week: Te Deum for chorus and orchestra was premiered, Labyrinthodontia for trumpet and piano received its North American premiere, one movement of Gooch's new 40-minute monsterpiece The Stones Speak of Eternity was premiered, and a choral work (Three Reflections from the Psalms) was performed. Friends and faculty were known to ask Gooch, "... and what piece of yours will we hear on the NEXT concert?!" Dragon Music for piano, A Song of Night for treble chorus, and Out of the Primordial Ocean for percussion ensemble were published by Alliance Music Publishers.

Dan Sommerville presented a session at the annual conference of the Conductor's Guild, in Chicago, January 9-11. The session involved the analysis-critique-review of Michael Torke's "Javelin," a piece he composed in 1994 for the Atlanta Symphony. Dan used the session to familiarize the audience with the piece -its structure, style and materials-and to enumerate on the specific rewards and challenges of conducting the piece.

Dan will again be teaching the Senior capstone course at the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College next semester entitled "Style Analysis." He uses macro analysis quite a bit in this course.

New Features

We are introducing a new feature called "Favorite Music Examples." This feature was suggested by Philip Kern, who has graciously provided us with the first column. We thought this was such a good idea that we decided to expand on it and add another feature "Favorite Assignments." We have developed "Teaching Hints," "Favorite Music Examples," and "Favorite Assignments" to provide all of us with opportunities to make our jobs a little easier and a chance to communicate with each other in a quick and easy fashion. Remember, this newsletter is an informal document. Jot down a short paragraph and send it in, we’d love to hear from you! And students, we’d love to hear about all of these things from your perspective! Here’s a chance to let us know what YOU need. Authors can choose to remain anonymous. Teaching Hints

Note: Submissions for this feature can deal with any subject related to music instruction, and do not need to be limited to macro analysis.

Non-Circle Areas

Remind your students that in tonal music, most non-circle-progression chords in a musical work are connected via linear harmonic motion: stepwise voice leading between notes of adjacent chords. I ask my students to notate the chords in their analysis work on a separate staff line below each system of the score. They then draw lines connecting notes between chords demonstrating linear motion rather than circle motion, and this helps to provide a visual impression of the relative importance of circle progression chords vs. linear harmonic motion in that piece. As might be expected, there are more slurs than lines in most music analyzed from earlier in the Common Practice Period, but there are more lines than slurs in most music analyzed from later in the Common Practice Period.

Hint from Warren Gooch

Macro Analysis and Modulation Identification

When asked to prepare an analysis of a tonal composition, beginning theory students sometimes encounter difficulties identifying key centers in areas of modulation. Secondary tonal centers can be unclear to the novice analyst because of the inclusion of minor scale accidentals, chromatic chords, and chromatic nonharmonic pitches within a composition. Some students will dutifully study the recurrence of specific accidentals within confined areas of a composition, and are fully aware that modulation is occurring, but find themselves unable to determine the precise tonal center.

Macro analysis can be used to help theory students identify secondary tonal areas. The letter-based symbols associated with macro analysis help students locate recurring chords and chord patterns. The slur symbols used in macro analysis help to reveal fifth relationships in root movement; once fifth relationships have been identified, students may then search for circle progressions that include major-minor seventh chords, thereby revealing dominant function chords within a progression. Recurring statements of major-minor seventh chords with circle progression resolutions are often excellent indicators of the specific key center, particularly if they coincide with cadence points.

Hint from Marilyn Saker

Introducing a New Feature "Favorite Music Examples."

Dear MACRO friends:

Several weeks ago, I asked Jamie Henke about starting a new feature where we could share our most useful musical examples. Eventually, we hope to provide this service on our web site. But for now, we can rely on our newsletter to provide fresh ideas for our classrooms. For adventurous students, these examples could be interesting challenges to expand their harmonic vocabulary. We all have students like that, don't we? Anyway, Jamie thought it was a good idea and then suggested I go first. Me and my big mouth. (Editor’s note: no good deed goes unpunished!)

What follows, then, are a few excerpts which include some chords we've all come to know and love.

9th, 11th and 13th chords: Claude Debussy- Golliwog's Cakewalk (from "Children's Corner")

Alexander Tcherpnin-Bagatelle No.1, Op. 5

Neapolitan Sixth: J.S. Bach-Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582 8 measures before the end (at the fermata)

French Sixth: Sir Arthur Sullivan-H.M.S. Pinafore #4 - "My Gallant Crew" at measure 50 (The second time the men sing, "What never?")

German Sixth: Harry Warren-Forty Second Street In "Lullaby of Broadway" ("Let's call it a day") In "Forty Second Street" (On the avenue I'm taking you to")

George M. Cohan-"Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway" measures 10 and 12 (This would be found in the verse on the words "say" and "jay" in the lyric: "The West so they say is the home of the jay...")

I look forward to seeing other examples by fellow MACRO-ites. Have a wonderful 1997!

Favorite Music Examples from Philip Kern

Please send or e-mail your favorite examples to Jamie Henke by March 15 for the April 1 newsletter.

Student Notes

Congratulations!

Brandy Gerber will be our first student member to have an article featured in our first journal, Musical Insights, due to be released late this spring. Brandy attends Eastern Michigan University and is nearing completion of a Master of Arts degree in theory/literature and harpsichord performance. She holds a graduate assistantship in the theory area.

Student Opportunities in MACRO

Please encourage your students to become involved in MACRO. We provide opportunities for publication in either the newsletter or journal. Students are welcome to participate in the MACRO workshop, and included in all contests and other activities. We also offer the Robert Fountain Memorial Scholarship. Applications for the award must be received by March 1, 1997 to be considered.

Intervals!?

Are you faced with blank stares when you tell your students that "Born Free" starts with a descending perfect fourth? "Theme from Love Story" doesn’t ring a bell either? For our next newsletter we would like to assemble a list of interval tunes that people use to help students sing and/or identify various different intervals. As always, e-mail and/or send your interval tunes to Jamie Henke and she will compile the list for our next newsletter. Submissions are due March 15.

Reminder

Submissions for the April 1 newsletter are due March 15. e-mail to: jamie.henke [at] wisc.edu If you do not have e-mail access mail your submission to the address found on page one of the newsletter.

MACRO Workshop 1997

All of the flyers have gone out for the 1997 MACRO workshop. Please encourage your students and colleagues to attend. We are providing travel money on a first come first served basis, and a rebate for people who bring someone else along. Highlights of this year’s workshop include a session on conducting and MACRO, a session on the student’s perspective featuring a real live (really live) class of area music students, and a special session on MACRO and performance injuries. While macro analysis is still the backbone of the workshop, we feel we have come a long way toward providing a workshop that really fits the eclectic needs of all musicians and all aspects of music. We hope to see you there!

On a Humorous Note- Great Moments in Musical History

Here is a selected list of quotes from grade school essays on classical music. For a complete list, check out http://www.winn.com/pwinn/humor/ There is something for almost anyone in this web site.

"Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music."

"Refrain means don’t do it. A refrain in music is the part you better not try to sing."

"Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was rather large."

"An opera is a song of bigly size."

"A harp is a nude piano."

"Aaron Copland is one of our most famous contemporary composers. It is unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are dead."

"A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals."

"I know what a sextet is but I’d rather not say."

"My favorite composer is opus."

"My very best liked piece is the bronze lullaby.

from the Barking Spider, a Winner’s Circle production by Phillip Winn. Mr. Winn allows the free use of these materials as long as people are encouraged to visit his site.

RESEARCH GRANT POSSIBILITIES

"Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I’m doing." Wernher Von Braun

We hope you know what you are doing, but we want to know, not only what you are doing, but what you would like to do. For those who did not carefully read the letter from the MACRO chair, hopefully this title in bold caught your eye. Since we have decided to do a journal every other year, this will free up intervening years for MACRO to fund various research projects. Start thinking about ideas you might want to submit for 1998. We would like to fund projects that would result in one of the following:

1. a journal article

2. a newsletter article

3. a workshop session

4. other?

We are in the process of creating an application and guidelines for research projects. If you have any suggestions, please share them with members of the MACRO board.

Letter from the Chair

Please read this letter carefully. It contains important information regarding the MACRO organization.

Dear fellow MACRO members,

In many of the materials you have received over the past two years regarding MACRO you may remember reading a statement that MACRO is a nation-wide organization not directly associated with the School of Music (UW- Madison) and that the organization is supported in part by funds from the UW-Foundation. I, as MACRO chair, am now in a position to inform you about the exact nature of these funds.

MACRO has received a award in the amount of $200,000 that is housed at the University of Wisconsin Foundation. This amount functions as a principle, and will remain with the Foundation. However, every year the MACRO organization will be able to use the interest accrued from this principle to support its activities. The award is written so that the principle will increase over time as well. Eventually we will be looking at a quarter of a million dollars. This is an impressive amount of money, and while we have stressed openness, humor and camaraderie as a part of this organization, we can also do a lot of very useful and important things with this money if we can all spare the time to be active members in the organization.

You may be wondering why we are charging any fees at all with this kind of financial support in the background. While we do have a large principle, it will take some time for the interest to build. In order to have enough money to pay for our first journal, we have had to charge small fees to offset printing, paper, and mailing costs. However, we will be decreasing fees this year (when was the last time a fee for anything went DOWN), and we hope to eliminate all fees in the near future. Member fees for this year will be $10, and student fees will be $5. We are still providing fee waivers when requested. We will also take just one student fee for multiple students if all materials can be mailed and distributed at one address.

People joined MACRO through out the year. We would eventually like to develop a schedule whereby everyone renews their membership in January. As it will be February by the time you receive this newsletter we won’t quite be on this schedule yet, but hope to be by 1998. As each of you knows when you joined, we are leaving it up to each individual to decide how much of the membership fee he/she should pay, if at all. For example, there are at least three people who joined this fall who should not pay a renewal fee. We do, however, want you to submit the membership form included with this newsletter. Please make copies of this form for students and colleagues.

Enough about fees and forms, on to the more interesting items. The MACRO board has decided to create a journal every other year. A recent study reported that only 10% of academicians who received journals opened them up, 10% looked at the table of contents, and OF THAT 10%, only 10% read the articles. While we feel that it is very important for MACRO members to have a vehicle for publication, we also feel that our money will be better spent by doing a journal every other year. As a result, we will be offering research awards each year that we are not putting together a journal. This is an exciting opportunity for MACRO members to have access to research dollars that would otherwise be unavailable.

This is an exciting time to be a part of MACRO. Please take advantage of the opportunities provided, and encourage your students and colleagues to do the same. I know all of us are too busy doing too many things. For this reason, we are trying to develop ways for MACRO members to communicate that require a minimal amount of time. We have three newsletter features now, "Teaching Hints," "Favorite Music Examples," "Favorite Written Assignments," and other short special interest items for members to address. In this issue the topic is "interval tunes." All of these features require only a paragraph or two; take a few minutes to write one, we want our members to share their ideas through out the year. Newsletter submission deadlines are as follows:

October 1 newsletter submissions due September 15 February 1 newsletter submissions due January 15 April 1 newsletter submissions due March 15

We are still working on a web site. With the help of some of our new members, we hope to make this idea a reality soon. We welcome all of your ideas and suggestions. Take the initiative, we can’t possibly have thought of everything! There is something in everyone greater than he/she had begun to dream of. Let’s start dreaming!

Jamie L. Henke, MACRO Chair jamie.henke [at] wisc.edu 610 Langdon St. 613 Lowell Hall Madison, WI. 53703 608-263-6822