Interdisciplinary Approaches to Musical Time
MIT OpenCourseWare offers the materials for this seminar examining how music relates to time from three angles: Music as Architecture, looking at how musical shapes are built across a timespan; Music as Memory, examining how listeners rely on recall and reminiscence to follow musical structure; and Time as the Substance of Music, bringing in philosophy and neuroscience to consider how different disciplines understand musical temporality. Classroom analysis is paired with three weekend concerts and pre-concert forums presented jointly by the Boston Chamber Music Society and MIT Music and Theater Arts, giving students a live counterpart to the seminar readings and discussion. The course materials include syllabus, readings, and assignments from MIT's Music and Theater Arts department, free to access under an open license, with no certificate offered.