Transcription Project:

This quarter, for the written project you will transcribe approximately 60 seconds/32 bars of a pop song (pop meaning anything non-classical), art song, piano piece, orchestral or other instrumental music of your choosing. For 4B, just the melody, both rhythm and pitch and for 4E, the melody and the bass line, providing roman numeral analysis.

Some examples to get you started:
A prelude from the well tempered clavier
A theme from a Romantic period Symphony (Brahms, Schubert, Mendelssohn, etc...)
Piano piece from Mendelssohn Song without words
Haydn or Mozart keyboard music
Jazz standard (Gershwin, Cole Porter)

If you're really feeling adventurous (4E students only please), a short excerpt from a polyphonic mass or motet (Du Fay, Lassus, Binchois, etc...). In this context, you would not notate bass and melody, but any two voice parts, as each are independent and of equal importance

If you decide to do something non-classical, make sure it has a singable melody that you can transcribe. Stay away from the ambiguous speaking/singing sounds of bands like cake, red hot chili peppers, or modest mouse. That's some good music but not applicable in this context (plus sometimes they're kinda out of tune).

I encourage you to do some listening over the weekend and really spend time deciding on a piece. We're going to spend a lot of time on this so it will be much more interesting for you if you like the music :-)

For Wednesday, the first portion of the assignment is to hand in 3 ideas. I'll sort through them and decide which one will be the best for you.