Global Arc

This seminar exposes participants to both canonical and cutting-edge work in ethnomusicology. By the end of the semester, students will have a thorough knowledge of key question animating the discipline. Topics covered include: music, race, and nation; the politics of representation; gender, media, and performance; the production of space through sound. Classes will be run in a seminar-style format emphasizing critical discussion and listening.

This seminar explores a host of questions surrounding music's capacity to convey and shape narratives. Students will engage critically with literature from psychology, musicology, music theory, and media studies to make sense of narrative perceptions of music--when they arise, why, and what it means for broader theories of communication. The class will consider narrative perceptions in a host of different contexts, including instrumental music, song, film music, and video game music.

This course will cover each of the prevailing methodologies for analyzing jazz, epitomized in the improvisations of bebop musicians from the mid-1940s to the 60s. Though these musicians were united by a clear sense of tradition, jazz scholars have proposed a variety of strategies for analyzing the music of this period. Their different approaches are informed by the analysis of classical art music, focusing variously on harmony (Oliver Strunk), voice-leading and counterpoint (Steve Larson), improvisational motives and themes (Gunther Schuller), and chromatic pitch collections (Keith Waters).

MUS 103 is an introduction to Western music, involving works from around 1200 to the present. The course explains the basic elements of Western music -- rhythm, pitch, melody, harmony, form -- and historically significant styles and genres of composition. The course includes lectures on the symphony, ballet, and opera.

An introduction to the fundamental materials of a variety of musics, including Western concert music, jazz, and popular music. Course activities center around interrelated theoretical, compositional, and analytical projects that serve to explore issues of music theory, style, and creativity. Two lectures, two preceptorials.

An introduction to the procedures, structures, and aesthetics of tonal music. Composing, singing, playing, analysis of music such as 18th-century chorale, and 18th- and 19th-century piano music. Emphasis on fluency in handling tonal materials as a means of achieving a variety of formal and expressive ends. Two lectures, two classes, one session in practical musicianship.

An introduction to the procedures, structures, and aesthetics of tonal music. Composing, singing, playing, analysis of music such as 18th-century chorale, and 18th- and 19th-century piano music. Emphasis on fluency in handling tonal materials as a means of achieving a variety of formal and expressive ends. Two lectures, two classes, one session in practical musicianship. Prerequisite: ability to read music.

This course will present an overview of the great conductors of the recorded age, conducting the iconic symphonic repertory for which, in each case, they were most admired. Performance practice style, and its evolution throughout the 20th century will be investigated in detail. The impact of these conductors' out-sized gifts on the musical culture of their time will also be a focal point of the course. Issues of tempo, phrasing, color and handling of structural matters all bear on the larger concerns of the development of musical style. The course will be run as a seminar, with students making presentations each week.

An introduction to the principles of voice leading and linear construction through a series of systematic compositional exercises. Two lectures, two classes. Prerequisite: 106 or equivalent.

An introduction to the syntactic structure of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries through exercises in analysis and composition. Two lectures, two classes. Prerequisite: 205 or equivalent.