Music

This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Music.

Studies of various musical topics, with emphasis on relatons between music and cultural context. Taught at the non-major level.

Jazz Improvisation

Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

Introduction to crucial shifts in musical culture that signaled the emergence of a self-consciously 'modern,' self-consciously 'European' musicality over the period 1500-1700; and to the ways such early modern genres as the polyphonic Mass, the madrigal, opera, oratorio, cantata, sonata, suite, and congregational hymnody have been assimilated into 20th-century American ideas about 'musicality.' Specific topics announced in advance. Prerequisite: The ability to read music. MUSI 3310 highly recommended.

Study of selected repertories from the 17th and 18th centuries, emphasizing compositional style, performance practice, and the role of music within social, political, philosophical, and religious cultures of the time. Composers studied may include Lully, Corelli, Handel, J. S. Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, and Mozart. Prerequisite: MUSI 3310 or instructor permission.

Prerequisite: MUSI 3310; or instructor permission.

Study of art music in the 20th century. Examines ways in which the aims and functions of European/US musical art were re-imagined, particularly in association with modernism. Explores the century's radical shifts in musical language and their relationship with the pressing cultural, political, and social concerns of the period. Fulfills part of the 'Critical and comparative studies in music' requirement for majors. Prerequisite: MUSI 3310

Studies the range of music that has flourished since the end of the 19th century including modernist and post-modern art music, popular music, and world music, through historical, critical, and ethnographic approaches. Prerequisite: The ability to read music, or any three-credit course in music, or instructor permission.

This course reviews the history of Motown Recording Company beginning with the Great Migration and examines how Motown helped shape today¿s record industry. We will explore topics around artist social responsibility, law, mental health, and technology. Students will also compare how black social movements influenced and reflected the music of Motown, Stax Records, and Philadelphia International Records.

In our investigation of Black speculative music, film, science fiction and visual art, we will plunge into the nuances of folklore, cosmology, philosophy and ancestral wisdom embedded with themes of liberation in these works. The course will be deepen our understanding of the diversity of Black thought and creativity and transform our own ideas of time, space, place and self. Artists studied include Janelle Monae, Lee Scratch Perry, Octavia Butler, Sun Ra, and more.

Exploration of non-western musical cultures through music-making, movement, listening, and case studies. Issues include how musical and social aesthetics are intertwined, and the connections between style, community, and identity (including issues of race, gender, class, and postcolonial power structures). Field research and ethnographic writing will be the focus of critical inquiry.

Historical and/or ethnomusicological perspectives on folk, popular, and 'art' music in the Americas, with a particular emphasis on 19th-and 20th-century African-American traditions including spirituals, work songs, minstrelsy, blues, R&B, soul, and hip-hop. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

Explores music/dance performance in Africa through reading, hands-on workshops, discussion, and audio and video examples. The course covers both 'traditional' and 'popular' styles, through discussion and a performance lab. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

Introduction to jazz as an advanced field of study, with equal attention given to historical and theoretical approaches. Prerequisite: MUSI 3310 or comparable fluency in music notation, and instructor permission.

To develop intermediate and advanced guitar skills. For students who have taken MUSI 2307 or who have appropriate skills for the course.

Studies the pitch and rhythmic aspects of several musical styles, including European art music, blues, African drumming, and popular music. Focuses on concepts and notation related to scales and modes, harmony, meter, form, counterpoint, and style. Prerequisite: Ability to read music, and familiarity with basic concepts of pitch intervals and scales..

Studies pitch and formal organization in European concert music of the 18th and 19th centuries. Includes four-part vocal writing, 18th-century style keyboard accompaniment, key relations, and form. Students compose numerous short passages of music and study significant compositions by period composers. Prerequisite: MUSI 3310 or instructor permission.

Technical study of popular music, especially from rock 'n' roll onward, addressing harmony, rhythm, form, and semiotics. Instructor permission required.

In this course we read, analyze, and write music in the western classical tradition to learn how it is formed, from its smallest parts (motives) to its largest wholes (sonatas). We focus on music of the High Classical Era: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Prerequisite: MUSI 3310 (Theory 1) or equivalent.

Lab course providing practical experience with many aspects of musical perception and performance, such as accurate vocal production of pitch, musical memory, identification of intervals and rhythmic patterns, and uses of notation in dictation and sight-singing. Students entering this sequence take a test to determine the appropriate level of their first course. Students enrolled in MUSI 3310, 3320 or 4331 have priority; course open to other students as space permits. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

Lab course providing practical experience with many aspects of musical perception and performance, such as accurate vocal production of pitch, musical memory, identification of intervals and rhythmic patterns, and uses of notation in dictation and sight-singing. Students entering this sequence take a test to determine the appropriate level of their first course. Students enrolled in MUSI 3310, 3320 or 4331 have priority; course open to other students as space permits. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

For majors or those in percussion ensembles, orchestra, band and/or done well in Learn To Groove MUSI 2342. Students gain a broad understanding and facility through hand drumming of the rhythmic language associated with West and Central African, Caribbean, Brazilian, and contemporary styles of jazz, rock and funk from the United States.

Exploration of activities that involve listening & making sound, at the intersection of music-making & contemplative practices, drawing on the work of Pauline Oliveros, the Fluxus artists, & other artists & thinkers. Weekly reading assignments in relation to the experiential component; weekly email responses to readings & several brief reflective papers. The course is offered sometimes in person, sometimes in an asynchronous online format.

Develop aural, analytic and creative abilities through songwriting. Learn about rhythm, melodic design, harmonic progression, lyrics and song forms. Develop ear training, so that concepts you learn will be sonically meaningful. Examples considered from blues, folk, tin pan alley, musicals, R&B, rock and hip hop. Students must sign up for a required Lab section.