In this week's episode, Brent Ferguson talks about a pedagogical approach he implemented with his undergraduate students, an approach he calls the "buffet-style grading system." Let's begin with a student composition from this class.

This episode was produced by Jennifer Beavers along with Team Lead Lydia Bangura.

SMT-Pod Theme music by Zhangcheng Lu; Closing music "hnna" by David Voss. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season03/

[Intro Theme: Zhangcheng Lu, “BGM Scales,” followed by producer intro.]

Welcome to SMT-Pod, the premier audio publication of the Society for Music Theory. In this week's episode, Brent Ferguson talks about a pedagogical approach he implemented with his undergraduate students, an approach he calls the "buffet-style grading system." Let's begin with a student composition from this class.

[Slideshow by Nykia Osborne]

My name is Brent Ferguson.

My name is Carter Falkenstein.

My name is Nykia Osborne.

My name is Alani Pranzo.

And we will be discussing agency and practical model composition in the music theory classroom. In recent years the College of Southern Maryland sponsored a grant for pedagogical improvement in the music theory curriculum. The result of this research is the buffet-style grading system. Which gives students the agency to choose what type of assignment they complete. All work is presented as low stakes while working towards a larger practical project. Students were empowered to professionally develop. In a safe and comfortable space. This podcast provides a discussion between the instructor, me, and my students. After these students finished the theory curriculum. In the previous spring of 2023. We discussed their thoughts and feelings on the assignments, and how their work manifested outside of the classroom.

Giving students a choice in their assignments is part of universal design learning. Music pedagogues, analyzing choice and agency in the classroom include Meghan Naxer, Patricia Burt, and Philip Duker. The routes I provide include lecture recitals for performers, model compositions for composers, which we will discuss in detail, a reading response essay based on readings throughout the term for scholars, and workbook assignments for those more comfortable with the regular workload.

The podcast centers on the model composition route, my students discuss their experience with the model composition route. Music Theory III presents practical compositions each week centering video game cues and concepts learned in the classrooms. After completion, students have an entire soundtrack for their portfolio. In Theory IV compositions included weekly art song assignments utilizing concepts learned the previous week, cumulating in a short song cycle. These students were able to put theory into practice while simultaneously growing their portfolios. All the students created a composers club and premiered their works and others from over the year with the instructor, me, again sponsoring the club and event. This podcast serves as an informal evaluation of these techniques and how the curriculum affected their potential careers with the instructor performing interviewer and students performing interviewees. All music you would hear throughout the podcast is music by these composers.

[Theme in Yellow by Carter Falkenstein]

During our music theory classes, I gave students the choice to have a variety of assignments to complete depending on their strengths. One of the assignment routes is to composition route. That's what we'll be discussing primarily today. A lot of the music theory world knows this is model composition or modeling or composition after some concepts or after a composer to show that you have mastery over the subject. Let's begin with an interview with three students, Carter, Nykia, and Alani, that I recorded shortly after they completed my class using the buffet style.

I guess I'll ask what your thoughts were on the following composition assignments. So for Music Theory III I know that almost all of you were interested in video game music. So for Music Theory III I decided to give you a video game soundtrack project where each week you were taken through a different cue and you compose for it. And I just wanted to get first, what are your thoughts on this soundtrack project? We'll start with Alani.

Well, my thoughts were as I thought it was an interesting approach to theory assignments. My first impressions were like, oh, this is fun. I like this. This is engaging. This is interesting. This isn't like anything I've come across before in music theory assignments. So I was like, this is fun. I remember going through the syllabus like on the first day of class and I was like--hyped for the rest of the term. Yeah, I really like video game music, but I never like tried writing it before. I was excited to get into it and learn more about it.

How about you, Carter?

I agree with Alani a lot. Because it felt like something I hadn't encountered in like any of my schooling before being able to apply that directly and I had a lot of fun with it. Especially that one because it felt more like I had like some deadline for a video game that really existed. I was able to really use what inspired me at the time.

Nykia?

So for me, at the time it was really stressful because the composition for video games is like my career goal in trying to stick to the deadline. Which really wasn't hard. It was just, I was overthinking a lot and then I kept restarting and, just overthinking, but it wasn't as much fun, during the time I was doing it but looking back it was really I did like the experience and I like the setup of having a deadline for each section. Every week. Yeah.

And, it is great you bring up the game composition because we were able to get you working on a game project in conjunction with the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive on silent film musical accompaniment. In this case, you were able to apply your practical music created for that project in theory class.

What was the most difficult assignment from this group and why?

It wasn't so for me I didn't do the composition route for theory, I did the workbook route but I was doing things on the side and I know for me personally the hardest one was the silent film main theme because drawing--the creator of the game wanted to have like a ragtime kind of feel, and doing ragtime was really hard like trying to compose it and trying to figure out how to get that feel of like, marching band kind of but like jazzy. Cause for me, when I compose, I like to start playing the piano and then I will take what I played on the piano and then move it to Finale and then expand it from there. But even with the ragtime theme, it was really hard to play on the piano and it was hard to write it out on MuseScore. So that one was the hardest for me.

I think I can't remember what was attached to it, but I think it was the main character theme. We had to use the theory we had just learned in the class prior. But that one I was when I kept going back to it. Even after I'd like turned in the assignment and finished it and everything, I would continue to go back to it because I just never really felt like it was right? Exactly how it was playing my head. And I mean hardest part about all of the things I write is that like I just feel like it's not exactly how I'm picturing it in my mind or hearing in my mind.

To give you a refresher, that was the modulation assignment. So having at least one modulation. Is there anything particular about the modulation itself or was it just writing?

At the time when because we just learned about modulations. I remember being very confused about how they worked, and not entirely sure how to implement it.

In my opinion, I only did like 4 out of 7 of the composition assignments from this term. And out of the ones that I did I have to say that the main menu theme was the most difficult for me. Because that was the one where you had to include a secondary or applied chord. I always kept forgetting what exactly it was and so it's like I tried to make it really obvious at the very last measure just sneak it in, and I probably did it somewhere but just didn't realize it so I had to like make it really obvious for myself and it was just kind of infuriating but overall I liked the end product that I got.

[Wanderers’ Evolution by Alani Pranzo]

Out of Theory III, what was your favorite concept to apply, not only to your compositions here, but out of other compositions as well.

I really enjoyed modulation and it's such an iconic concept within music theory and people who don't know anything about music will be like oh epic key change and it's just like it's just so cool. Yeah, the main character theme, which is the, assignment where you had to apply modulations in the composition was probably my favorite out of all of the compositions from this term. Yes. Modulations are cool.

I don't have a really good explanation for why, but I love applied chords. I don't know, I think like using them just makes like your piece just sound really professional. So that's why I like them.

Onto Theory IV. So for this one, it wasn't a video game soundtrack. I asked you to do art songs. You’re actually working with voice, mainly for voice and piano, and we set public domain lyrics using concepts just like with the video game soundtrack for each one. So, this was a 7-week course like the other one. So there's a composition due each week, which is quite demanding. So it's almost like an art song course. So this is just one route in the buffet again, there was workbooks. There was quick analyses, things like that, but we're just mainly talking compositions. So what were your thoughts going into the art songs and afterwards if you did complete at least one or two.

Right off the bat, I was terrified. Because, yeah…like did not ever work with a voice. Like ever. Yeah, like I don't, I don't even like writing lyrics. I was glad that we didn't have to write our own. But putting them to music has always been like scary and daunting. There was a lot of trial and error for me throughout Theory IV. Just trying to get it to sound nice in my ear. Yeah, like afterwards after I had done most of the songs, I was like okay, go off bard like this is it was fun. I enjoyed it a lot.

I feel like every week I was either in love with the song that I wrote just: What is this? But in the end, I think it was really cool to be able to use these like advanced, sort of advanced theory stuff in these songs, and you know between like two of my favorite and my least favorite ideas in theory came from this whole section of being able to use them like Neoriemannian, I think I'm saying that right, and 12-tone theory being least favorite. It was interesting to see sort of like the range that I had with these concepts, and using vocals is very difficult, and lyrics.

For the CSM composers club we did a composer showcase and we premiered several of our original pieces, some of which we did for our theory classes and then some of which were outside of class. And I don't know, it was a really surreal and really cool experience to be able to play, perform our own stuff that we had written and like hear it being played by other people. It was really, really neat as a composer…like I may have cried. Yeah, so performing it at the showcase. And yeah, that's it so far.

So yes, I did use the silent film…like the main thing, theme. That one again was the hardest piece that I worked on so far. Because ragtime is not easy. One, it is not easy to play, and it's not also not easy to compose.

[Main Theme from Play Your Own Accompaniment by Nykia Osborne]

In my interview with the students, I asked them to define their most and least favorite concepts, as well as asking what they were going to do with the work after finishing the class. Most enjoyed learning about expanding their harmonic vocabulary with secondary chords, or Neo Riemannian transformations. The least favorite came down to serial techniques. They could not put it into context with what they listen to regularly.

What are your final thoughts, especially on the model composition routes that you were given? What did it do for you as composers?

I thought it was a lot more practical than just like trying to do like seventeenth-century chorales all the time. Well, I can appreciate a good chorale, I like to branch out a little bit more. It was, I think, the different scenarios that we got, like the video game ones and the art songs--those two units in particular--Like for those two Theory terms in particular were really interesting. Really challenging. But I feel like we all like we grew a lot as musicians and as composers. And I knew I was able to kind of become enamored with weird music theory concepts that like most people wouldn't even start learning about until like grad school or whatever. It was just a cool intro to all the things that music theory has to offer because it's so wild. Yeah.

I don't know if I could have gotten a better experience with music theory. But now I know a lot, and I think having the composition pathways to apply that was like really like really helpful in retaining the information.

It wasn't what I was expecting, only because I'm used to seeing on TV shows or the research that I did before I started the music course I was expecting a really stuck up environment, very harsh, very, you know, demanding and it was demanding, it wasn't as bad as I was thinking though. It was a very fun environment. I didn't think that I would like music theory as much as I do. Yeah, and I really, really enjoyed music theory.

[Beyond the Beyond by Carter Falkenstein]

Brent

Teaching using the buffet style gave agency for what the student wanted to do. Let them drive the coursework independently. There is much work for the instructor in preparing for the buffet styles, since they have to create assignments for each pathway along with rubrics. However, once it is made for the first time, the instructor only needs to amend it after the initial semester. Students could shift their pathway if it was not to their liking. For example, Alani did mostly the composition route for his last semester but broke away to do some workbook materials to finish the course out when struck with a bit of writer's block. This type of choice is a UDL strategy to play up the students' strengths. And each interviewee primarily worked on the composition pathway. Overall, the composition route was empowering to these students, and they felt that what they produced here could be used in a professional realm. They found their compositional voices while also learning the theory to expand their vocabulary. Additionally, it solidified the concepts learned and drilled in class through praxis.

I would like to thank my students, Alani Pranzo, Carter Falkenstein, and Nykia Osborne for their work on this episode and throughout the school year. I can't wait to see what y'all do. I would also like to thank those at SMT-Pod who made this possible, including Jennifer Beavers and Megan Lyons, as well as the work of Lydia Bangura and Jose Garza. I appreciate y'all.

[Outro Theme: David Voss, “hnna”]

Visit our website smt-pod.org for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. Join in on the conversation by tweeting your questions and comments @SMT_Pod. SMT Pod's theme music was written by Zhangcheng Lu with closing music by David Voss. Thanks for listening!