Message from the Director

September 22, 2009 

TO: UCLA music community 

Welcome to the new school year. This is our second full year of operation as the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. It will feature the debut of some new facilities and some new courses as well as the continuation of some courses that we offered for the first time last year. 

As for facilities, we have been busy over the summer creating two new laboratories: a dedicated piano keyboard lab for instruction in everything from music theory to improvisation to accompanying to sightreading; and a dedicated computer lab with new equipment and software for sound editing and composition. In addition, we are outfitting four classrooms and the three rehearsal rooms (band, orchestra, and chorus) with projectors and screens to take advantage of computer- and internet-based instruction. 

The School is also sponsoring a number of new courses, including the debut of our new first-year core course: “music history, culture, and creativity.” It takes a universal approach to all music from every place and every time period and is team-taught by three outstanding senior professors who will bring together and connect three different disciplinary perspectives on music: Roger Bourland (composition), A.J. Racy (ethnomusicology), and Robert Winter (music history). 

We are offering one other new course this fall: “Internet Marketing and Publishing for Musicians.” In fact, it will be offered all three quarters with a different emphasis in each quarter. The fall quarter version will emphasize journalism, interviewing, and writing and is taught by a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Jonathan Curiel (see course description below). The winter quarter will emphasize audio and video production and editing for websites, and the spring quarter will focus on internet marketing and branding of musicians and musical institutions. The course is being taught in fall quarter as Ethnomusicology 188, Lec 3, MW 9-11am, Room B544, but undergraduate and graduate students in all three departments are encouraged and welcome to take it. 

We are also bringing back this fall quarter a number of school-wide courses that we inaugurated last year. Students in all three departments are welcome to take them. 

1. “Introduction to Sound Engineering,” Film and Television 188A, Lec 1 Special Courses, F1-4 pm, Melnitz 1410A (see course description below). Instructors: Elizabeth Sweeney and David McKenna. 

3. “Contempo Flux: Contemporary Music Ensemble,” Music C175 Chamber Ensembles, Act 20. F 3-6pm, SMB 1343.

4. “Alexander Technique,” Music 90P, M 12-2 pm (SMB 1100), F 1-3 pm (SMB 1345). Instructor: Jean-Louis Rodrique. 

I hope you will take advantage of one or more of these offerings, if not this quarter, then in the quarters to come, when we will have yet more exciting courses to announce. 

Have a wonderful year (and check out the course descriptions below my signature). 

Timothy Rice, Director

The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music 

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Ethnomusicology 188 Special Courses, Lec 3 MW9-11, B544 (4 units) 

Course title: Internet Marketing and Publishing for Musicians 

Instructor: Jonathan Curiel 

In this course students will learn the basics of music journalism with a special focus on interviewing and writing profiles of faculty performers, composers, scholars, and students as well as of visiting artists and scholars. These profiles will be published on the School of Music website. Students will also learn the basics of still photography and videography so they can augment their profiles with web-appropriate visual content. 

The course will be taught by Jonathan Curiel, a staff reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle for more than twenty years and a freelance writer for many other publications. Over the years he has written profiles of a Who’s Who of musicians from around the world, including India’s Ravi Shankar; composer John Adams; the Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek; Mali’s Ali Farka Toure, Habib Koite, and Oumou Sangare; Pakistan’s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour and Baaba Maal; Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant; Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington; and jazz pianist McCoy Tyner.  

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FILM & TELEVISION 188A / 298A - Introduction to Recording Engineering 

First day of class is Friday Sept 25, 2009
1:00 pm – 3:50 pm MELNITZ HALL 1410

Instructors: Elizabeth Sweeney and David McKenna

A technical course where the importance of studio recording engineering for music is explored through group workshop and practical experience. Topics include understanding basic acoustics and audio engineering, training on proper use and care of microphones, cables and studio equipment as well as in-studio live recording and overdubbing, editing and mixing techniques with Pro Tools 8 and digital control surface mixing boards.  188A/298A is offered thanks to the Arts Initiative Program, an endeavor between the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. 

Due to the physical space of our recording booths and control rooms, the 188A/298A class size is limited to a combined total of 12 students per quarter. Enrollment is limited to students who are actively enrolled in the UCLA School of Music’s programs (composition, musical performance, ethnomusicology, and music history) or the UCLA School of Film’s production programs. The 12 Permission-To-Enroll [PTE] numbers will ONLY be distributed by Professor Sweeney on the FIRST DAY OF CLASS, based on a time-of-arrival sign-in sheet at the door, with UCLA School of Music students having priority before other departments.