Writing prompt:

Three musical works are posted here as listening assignments. They are each quite different from one another: in the resources they use, in their aesthetic approaches, in their musical objectives, in their formal shape as artworks.

In this writing, I ask you to choose three of these pieces to concentrate on. And then your assignment is to pair each of the three pieces you have chosen with another piece from earlier in our course, and to write about how the piece from this assignment relates to that other piece. So, this assignment asks you to review and re-listen to earlier works from the standpoint of a new piece that you are now listening to for the first time.

(Note: all of the music from earlier in the course is still posted, and I have added a few that we listened to only in lecture.}

Thus you will write three sections, each one based on a pairing of one of the works above with one of the works from earlier in the course. Each section should be around 1000 words, but can be more.

The earlier pieces you choose could be based on contrast or similarity; it could be a piece that one of these pieces simply reminds you of; it could be a piece that gives you a similar listening experience. Try to avoid pairing pieces just based on “style” or “genre”. Try to look through the superficial categorization of pieces (“classical”, “pop”, etc.) and treat the pieces as ways to build an aesthetic experience through sound and music. Describe the pieces, especially the materials used (to the best of your ability) and their formal shape. Describe the logic of your pairing, the reasons you made that particular choice. And step back and consider the experience for the listener that the piece seems to propose.

No references, no outside information, no judgements

1.Terry Riley, Purple Modal Strobe Ecstasy with The Daughters of Destruction, All Night Flight (1968)

2.Miles Davis, Zimbabwe (1975)

3.Mark Hollis, Watershed (1998)