The course aims to expose students to various techniques of computer composition. We will stress unique techniques of the digital/computerized medium: use of algorithms, signal analysis and multi-vocality.
We will use the Max / Msp software, which enables relative accessibility to the topics above. Aside from the practical aspect, the course includes an introduction to the world of code- and computer-based electronic music, masterpieces and theoretical ideas.
Instrumental and vocal thought has been the center of the musical action ever since Western culture began to document complex musical structures at the beginning of the 20th century. Throughout history, written musical structures have become an aesthetical and documental cannon, owing to the reciprocal system of language, which created both a coherent organization of the abstract and a technical instruction system for musical players on various instruments – a tonal and formal bank which drew the boundaries of the musical medium. At a later stage, these documented structures became a significant body of knowledge, a basis for novelty, invention and creativity – all founded upon a dynamic instrumental-technical language.
This course aims to survey and deepen this instrumental thought, providing knowledge and proficiency in traditional and modern notation as a prominent tool for writing, organizing and preserving musical ideas, from the single instrument to a large, heterogenous ensemble.
The course provides practical writing tools for the various orchestral instruments and a deep understanding of the nature of each instrument, its limits and advantages, and the employment of these qualities in musical writing. We will stress the way a composer or processor conveys instructions to the executor. We will deal with analyzation and design of musical materials and their compatibility with the various instruments and focus on reduction and expansion of musical ideas by using a changing variety of instruments, from a single instrument to a full ensemble.
Minimalism is perhaps the most important and influential stream in music in the past fifty years. The course will present the inception of early minimalism in 1960s New York and its branching out to a collection of practices and approaches, very different from one another. The course aims to convey the far-reaching aesthetic insights arising from minimalism, exposing students to the development of the tradition of minimalism, which welcomed a new understanding of sound and a radical change in the perception of musical boundaries from a formal and medium-related perspective. The course will survey the decisive influence of minimalism on rock and electronic music, and the link between minimalism and the world of art of 1960s New York.
We will form among the students work teams comprising artist, technician, and producer. Each student will produce material by their own choosing, which will later become a graduation project product. The class will constitute a review group, and in tandem with the instructor, will help each student reach the necessary focus and consummation of the raw material, touching upon various technical\musical subjects and considerations, from the demo to the final product.
The course aims to develop compository thinking, instrumental writing and notation forms. We will get to know, gain a deep understanding of, and practice various compository styles/approaches/aesthetics, work with materials and forms, pay attention to personal expression and fashions of notation, study through listening and analyze sheet music/compositions. The course is composed of four models, each tackling a different subject from a compository perspective. For each model we will present the theme in a wider context, and hold sessions for playing, listening, musical study and discussion, and write a short piece, which will be executed in class and followed by discussions. Each student will end up writing four short compositions concluding each model, as well as one more comprehensive work for the final project of the course, which will be presented at an event concluding the course.
8-session workshop in collaboration with Kelim School of Choreography (Bat Yam)
How do collaborations take place when the language of the medium is different? What does it mean to write music for dance? What constitutes a satisfactory artistic collaboration? In this course, choreographers from the biannual choreography program at Kelim School will share their works-in-the-making with musicians from the New Music Department at Musrara School. The two sides will embark on a shared creative process. At the beginning of the course, the participants will examine works embodying specific and conscious relationships between movement and sound, which will serve as the groundwork for common dialogue and experimentation. The participants will then divide into intimate teams, which will meet on a weekly basis, accompanied by the instructors of the course.
The course aims to introduce to the students the world of electricity and electronics as an artistic platform. In the field of sound, a special encounter with electricity takes place, where the final goal is listening to the ways that different manifestations of the physical electric phenomenon are expressed as sonic phenomena. Students will learn the fundamentals of electricity, listen to electronic phenomena as they appear in electronic works, deepen their understanding of the electronic solfège, be introduced to the basic components comprising the sound-generating electronic circuits, of which synthesizers are built, and learn the craft of forming an electronic circuit and reading schemes. These tools will enable students to take their first steps in the field of electricity as a creative field where they can experiment, improvise, invent, imagine, and listen to the results.
The course offers tools and approaches for dealing with manners of presentation, framing and execution of musical/sound-based compositions. Prior to appearing before an audience, musicians are faced with questions from the world of contemporary art and performance: how will the audience respond to the composition? What will they see, experience, feel, comprehend? What are the additional elements that could support the composition?
The course will start with questions that are beyond musical and technical questions, with the conceptual examination of the essence of the meaning of the musical work. With exercises from the world of performance and art we will think about meaning in the musical context, about the musician fine-tuning his or her intention, about laying the foundations for the listener, and about situating oneself on the axis between the abstract and concrete. The course will include discourse, reading and exercises.
Personal work, supervisor with student, on a work and its development, production, and recording, according to its specific requirements.
For the program’s graduation project, students are required to present a significant work in one of the following media: performance, album, or installation. Every stage of the project, from writing to processing, recording and final editing, will be performed by the student. Students will work on the project throughout the entire final year, and it will eventually constitute their most significant business upon leaving the school.
Practices for nurturing a career, studied in a sonic-arts work group.
Self-promotion is a complex and necessary challenge for independent musicians at large – especially in the dynamic and online present-day world – but for experimental musicians and sound artists, whose work occurs on the borderline of the tonal artistic language, it is even more challenging. On borderlines, that which is usually taken for granted is undermined, and when conventions are left behind, the audience becomes smaller. So which promotional options are left for musicians active far away from the mainstream? The world of new music is paving paths of its own, which require certain work patterns that it is imperative to get to know. The fact that the international community is relatively small has its advantages, and a field so novel offers quite a few opportunities, especially for action, which one must approach creatively.
Schoolwide ensembles – elective course for second- and third-year students
In this course, students will become proficient in playing in a group/ensemble; learn to listen and cooperate; understand composition and their place within it; work with the ensemble as an artist; learn how to convey his or her desires to the group; examine the social, group and mental aspects that occur within an ensemble at work; enter a rehearsal routine throughout the entire academic year.
The ensemble will focus on modern, original, and known compositions, and get to know different and untraditional notation methods.
Schoolwide ensembles – elective course for second- and third-year students
An experimental group exploring the various uses of voice as a source of sound, raw material, and work tool, by practicing singing and processing methods and assembling a repertoire for the end-of-the-year choir performance.
The group will undergo a common and unanticipated journey of collaborative work based on its human dynamics and state of existence, the transition between vocal and physical techniques, and a diversified repertoire. The group will find itself in various situations, exercises, and methods, and will try to dismantle and reassemble mechanisms of presence, texture, listening and action, and eventually compose a mutual performance for an excited audience.
Schoolwide ensembles – elective course for second- and third-year students
Working in a musical ensemble combining second- and third-year students. The ensemble focuses on writing and executing techniques based on graphic notation, improvisation and listening. The repertoire of the ensemble will comprise original works of the students and written works.