Mexico/U.S. Border Final
Your paper must be a minimum of 3000 words of prose (no outlines, graphics, paragraph titles, or large headings, please). You will need to use outside sources, of your own choosing, to complete the non-music portion of this examination. These sources must be numbered in the text, when cited, and then listed on a bibliography end page.

Do please be certain that you mind the word count stated above. You may exceed but not go under it!

Final Essay Examination Question

From early in the 20th Century until the present we have seen enormous changes in virtually everything that we consider “music”. All the elements or “building blocks” of music get re-configured and re-employed to express an entirely unforeseen (and sometimes, unforgettable) sound. Certainly, there are parallels in the other arts (painting, film, sculpture, literature, etc.). From your text or outside experience choose a composer from either the 20th or 21st Century (from Chance the Rapper to Bach to Mozart to Dylan) to focus on for the main part of your paper. Describe that composer’s work in detail using the items in the first parentheses earier in this question (harmony, rhythm, melody, form, texture). Then, discuss the work of another creative artist from a different medium (painting, poetry, architecture, dance, literature, etc.) and illuminate the commonalities. What makes them both examples of “modernism” in 20th and 21st Century art? What makes them “new” and “revolutionary”? How did they both venture forward away from the familiar and into the unexpected, the unanticipated? You will need to use outside sources, of your own choosing, to complete the non-music portion of this examination. These sources must be both numbered in the text, when cited, and then listed on a bibliography end page.