MUS 283 - Musical Avant-Gardes

“Piano Piece for David Tudor #3: Most of them were very old grasshoppers.” -La Monte Young (1960). What is an avant-garde? How can music be “ahead of its time?” In this class, students will consider the histories, aesthetics, and sociopolitical contexts of musical avant-gardes and musical experimentalism post-World War II through the lens of critical vanguard studies. While the course focuses on music of the 1950s-1970s (from Fluxus artists such as Yoko Ono and Alison Knowles to the avant-jazz of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane), we will also consider what a musical avant-garde in the 2020s might sound like, look like, or act like.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2023-24
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).