The course readings will following the schedule given below. Please note: readings listed in black are required readings (everyone); readings listed in red* (and marked with an asterisk) will be assigned to individual students (for class presentations).
David Temperley, (2001). The question of purpose in music theory: Description, suggestion, and explanation. Current Musicology, Vol. 66, pp. 66-85. [20 pages]
Required reading: 20 pages.
Thorstein Veblen, (1899). "Introduction" (Chapter 1) and "Conspicuous Consumption" (Chapter 4) from: The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Macmillan Company. Text available online in several locations, including: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/VEBLEN/veblenhp.html . [29 pages]
Quentin Bell, (1947). "Sartorial Morality" (Chapter 1) and "Mutation" (Chapter 4) from On Human Finery. London: The Hogarth Press. pp.11-19, 62-73. [21 pages]
Required reading: 50 pages.
Gary Paul Nabhan, (2004). "Introduction" (Chapter 1), "Discovering Why Some Don't Like It Hot" (Chapter 5) from Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity. Washington: Island Press. pp.1-12; 112-123; 126-139 [38 pages]
Richard E. Nisbett, (2003). The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... And Why. New York: The Free Press.
Required reading: 38 pages.
Leonard B. Meyer, (1989). Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 1-65 [65 pages]
*Leonard B. Meyer, (1989). Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. [entire work] [presentation notes]
*Robert Gjerdingen, (1988). A Classic Turn of Phrase: Music and the Psychology of Convention. University of Pennsylvania Press. [presentation notes]
Required reading: 65 pages.
Richard Dawkins, (1978). "Memes, the new Replicators" (Chapter 11) from The Selfish Gene. London: Granada Publishing. pp.203-215. [13 pages]
Aaron Lynch, (1996). Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Throughy Society: The New Science of Memes. New York: Basic Books. pp. vii-x, 1-39.
*Steven B. Jan, (1999). The selfish meme: Particularity, replication, and evolution in musical style. International Journal of Musicology, Vol. 8, pp. 9-76. [presentation notes]
Required reading: 56 pages.
David Huron (2001). What is a musical feature? Forte's analysis of Brahms's Opus 51, No. 1, revisited. Music Theory Online, Vol. 7, No. 4, July 2001. Text available online at: http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto.01.7.4/mto.01.7.4.huron.html [30 pages]
Jose N.G. Binongo & M.W.A. Smith, (1999). A bridge between statistics and literature: the graphs of Oscar Wilde's literary genres. Journal of Applied Statistics, Vol. 26, No. 7, pp. 781-787. Text available online at: http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=6a86yjxwyq6ynrnntdtx&referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,9;journal,43,67;linkingpublicationresults,1:100411,1 [7 pages]
Required reading: 37 pages.
*Cope, David (1992). Computer Analysis of Musical Style. Oxford University Press. [presentation notes]
Cope, David (2001). Virtual Music. Chapter 4: Composing Style-Specific Music. Chapter 5: The Importance of Patterns. Chapter 6: Structure. (pp. 93-108; pp.109-125; pp.127-137) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [37 pages]
Bret Aarden & David Huron, (2001). Mapping European folksong: Geographical localization of musical features. Computing in Musicology, Vol. 12, pp. 169-183. [15 pages]
Required reading: 52 pages.
David Huron, (forthcoming). "Genres, Schemas, and Firewalls" (Chapter 11), "Mental Representation of Expectations" (Chapter 12), from Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. [32 pages]
Required reading: 32 pages.
Andrew Weintraub, (1998). Jawaiian music and local cultural identity in Hawai'i. In: Philip Hayward (editor), Sound Alliances: Indigenous Peoples, Cultural Politics and Popular Music in the Pacific. London: Cassell, pp. 78-88. [11 pages]
Amy Ku'uleialoha Stillman, (1998). Hula hits, local music and local charts: Some dynamics of popular Hawaiian music. In: Philip Hayward (editor), Sound Alliances: Indigenous Peoples, Cultural Politics and Popular Music in the Pacific. London: Cassell, pp. 89-103. [15 pages]
Steven Feld, (1982). "Introduction," "The Boy Who Became a Muni Bird" (Chapter 1), "Weeping that moves Women to song" (Chapter 3) from Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp.3-6; 20-29; 86-94. [23 pages]
Required reading: 49 pages.
No readings in final week.
Total required reading: 399 pages (average of 40 pages per week).