New Year, New Composition Blogs!

Hard to believe, but a new year is upon us! Woo hoo! This term (winter, 2008), I will teaching Mu4100, the title of which ("Advanced Composition") is somewhat misleading, because it really isn't very advanced! It's just a follow-up course to the Mu3100 "Introduction to Composition" course, each of which is one semester long.

The format will likely be similar to the intro course: Works-in-progress will be presented (as readings, mostly) every week for the class, with at least one concert, very possibly two. All students are expected to provide feedback to each others' works. The main difference is that the class size will be smaller. There were 17 students in 3100, and while I'm not sure how many will be in 4100, I understand that it will be a lot smaller, maybe about a dozen or so. A smaller class size should allow for slightly more individual attention and feedback, and should hopefully feel a bit less rushed every class. That said, I've had 12 students in 3100 before, and, assuming four students present works in progress every class, it still leaves only about 12 minutes per student presentation, which isn't very much time.

Another aspect of Mu3100 that will be retained for Mu4100 is blogging — both my own blog (the class blog), and student journals. These two aspects of the course were experiments for me last term, and my perspective is they worked extremely well for most students, which is why they will continue to be a part of the Mu4100 course.

My next entry will have more on this.