Download Sound-Music Communication Workshop

Sound-Music Communication Workshop
PROF. DARIO BENATTI
COURSE AIMS
The primary goal of the course is to provide the student with guided experience in
communication through sounds and music. The idea is to enrich their future
professional store of knowledge by increasing their awareness of the features of
this important means of communication and to empower their personal abilities in
the use of their own vocal and musical attributes.
COURSE CONTENT
1. Sound.
Sound sources and the transmission of sound.
The basic features of the sound: pitch (frequency), intensity (dynamic), timbre,
duration.
Noise – noise pollution.
The human audibility range.
Sounds as a means of communication.
The “sound landscape”.
2. The auditory system.
The prenatal sound experience, development of the sensory organs.
The peripheral and central receptive sound structures.
The musical ear: auditory perception and the musical memory.
Hearing and the other senses, a look at intermodalities.
3. The voice
The body and corporality, the tonic substrate of support for the vocal act.
Breathing: the meeting place between information and emotions in the spoken
voice.
Breathing and relaxation exercises for the phonatory organ.
Paraverbal aspects of the voice: speed, intensity, timbre and intonation.
The sound/silence system, the importance of the pause.
Vocal timbre and the four resonance boxes of the human voice: head, nose, throat
and chest.
Exercises and techniques for inducing states of relaxation and activation through
the analogical use of the voice.
Congruent communication, the empathetic relationship, welcoming, through care
of the prosodic aspects of speech.
4. Music and its components
Tempo/Rhythm.
Melody.
Harmony.
Form or structure.
5. Archaic aspects of music
The tempo, rhythm and accents, silences.
The group dance-movement
Natural song
The archetypal sonorous identity
6. Humans and music
The functions of music in the history of the human race.
The functions of music in the life and identity of a person.
“Io sono, io suono” music as a form of communicating emotions.
The Sound Dialogue and improvisation.
The socio-relational aspects of playing music/singing together.
Music as the expression of a culture and of a society.
Guided listening to music of different epochs and cultures.
Music therapy, general aspects, applications, main techniques.
7. Music and Oneself
The personal and social sonorous identity (ISO).
“The sounds, the music of my life”.
READING LIST
C. GIORDANO ET ALII, Biologia della musica, Omega, Turin, 1999.
E.E. GORDON, L’apprendimento musicale del bambino, Curci, Milan, 2004.
R. MURR Y SHAFER, Il paesaggio sonoro, Ricordi, Milan, 1985.
M. SCARDOVELLI, Il dialogo sonoro, Cappelli, Bologna, 1992.
A. TOMATIS, L’orecchio e la vita, Baldini e Castoldi, Milan, 1992.
TEACHING METHOD
Both classroom lectures and guided practical activities in the music lab will adopt
didactic methods that enable:
– the learning of essential theoretical knowledge;
– the development of expressive attributes through the practice of sound-music
language;
–
–
the discovery and management of new expressive dynamics that favour the
realisation of everyone’s potential, collaboration and communication;
the experimentation and verification of the concrete aspects of the student’s own
ability to use sounds and music as a means of communication.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Continuous assessment and final paper.
NOTES
Further information can be found on the lecturer's webpage
http://www2.unicatt.it/unicattolica/docenti/index.html or on the Faculty notice board.
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