We invite you to join us in preparing short analytical videos of twelve-tone and/or serial music (defined as broadly as you like). The videos we seek will:
- Last for 5-7 minutes.
- Focus on one passage or compositional element.
- Make reference to charts or compositional sketches as appropriate.
- Provide brief historical context as necessary, but the focus should be analytical
(involving close engagement with the musical score).
- Maintain a pedagogical orientation—comprehensible to students and usable by
teachers in the classroom.
For models, see our Website. But you are encouraged to approach your piece and your video in whatever way seems most appropriate to you.
Editorial process
Using this link, submit a brief abstract (roughly 200 words) identifying the passage you intend to analyze and outlining your approach. Attach a copy of the score of the passage. You may submit as many videos as you wish.
If our Editorial Board asks you to go ahead, we will provide you with technical specs. There is no fixed deadline. We will respond promptly to proposals as they are received.
For any inquires, please email us as twelvetoneyears@gmail.com.
Tech specs for videos
If you are new to making videos with PowerPoint or Keynote, there are very good directions on the SMT-V website.
Our serialism videos all use the same template. This link will take you to a folder with templates to use with your videos. There are two files in the Dropbox folder, which you can choose from depending on which slideshow editor you use.
When you open the slideshow, you’ll see a mock presentation with a few sample slides.
- The title slide is self-explanatory.
- Two slides are available for score analysis or a diagram. One has an orange header and the other has a blue header. We included two only because the visual contrast might be nice. Use both if you can! You can use the bullet points on the side of each score if you’d like, or just use the entire screen for the score and annotate with circles and lines and things as you speak.
- There’s a slide for a photo.
- There’s a slide for a graphic, perhaps a row chart or something similar.
You are welcome to alter these basic slide layouts or create your own. These are merely suggestions so that we all have a similar design language.
Do be aware of readability of the score excerpts used. The size (as in the size of score elements like noteheads) of the score excerpts included in the mock presentation are somewhere close to as small as we will want.
Before you begin creating your slideshow, you should download and install the free “Cooper Hewitt” font linked here. It’s a beautiful sans-serif that is easy to read on screens. All of the slides in the template use this font, and if you are annotating your examples with text, you might consider using it—though it’s fine if you can’t!
Submitting a video
When you are ready to submit your video, please email twelvetoneyears@gmail.com the following:
- Your completed video
- Your final abstract (roughly 200 words)
- A brief bio
Our Editorial Board:
Catherine Losada, Rachel Mann, Brian Moseley, Christoph Neidhofer, Phil Stoecker, Joe Straus