STC204: Musical Instruments, Sound, Perception, and Creativity
Juri Seo
Dan Trueman
Musical instruments reside at the intersection of varied topics: sound, perception, embodiment, music theory, social values, and more; how has their design influenced the development of music and how might they be reinvented to spur new ideas?
MUS548: Creative Practice in Cultural Perspective: Humanity and Dominance in the Arts
Barbara White
An exploration of the tension between humane and dominant tendencies in the arts. The creative arts are often idealized for their virtue and transcendence, for their ability to enrich and inspire us.
MUS545: Contexts of Composition: Composing concertos: the individual and the group
Steven Mackey
This seminar is a follow up to composing for Orchestra and covers some of the same issues of writing for a large conducted ensemble, but now that ensemble shares the stage with a soloist or small group of soloists and the focus is on the relations
Our focus is on writing new works for percussion quartet, with a level and depth of engagement which resembles So's process of commissioning major new works.
MUS525: Topics in Music from 1400 to 1600: Polyphonic Mass Composition in Europe,1440-1540
Rob Wegman
Chronological survey of the changing styles of Mass composition in the period 1450-1550,
beginning with the anonymous English Missa Caput and Petrus de Domarto's Missa Spiritus
This seminar examines the role of key controversies and debates within music studies over the past few decades. What leads to scholarly confrontation, and what comes out of it? How do bouts of discord shape the field?
MUS312: Jazz Theory through Improvisation and Composition II
Ralph Bowen
An examination of the theoretical principles found in modal jazz through analysis of representative works by such composers as Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, and Herbie Hancock.
A composition course for independent, self-directed composers working in any style. The primary requirement is to compose a substantial piece and present it at our class concert at the end of the semester.
In this course we will try to understand the complex phenomenon of "tonality." We will theorize about harmony, voice leading, and scales, studying works by Gesualdo, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Reich, and cont
We examine the music of the Baroque period in its cultural context, exploring works by such composers as Monteverdi, Cavalli, Purcell, Bach, and Handel, considering such topics as the birth of opera, the voice of the castrato, the musical conseque
A history of ballet from its origins in the French courts through its development into a large-scale theatrical spectacle in the 19th century and its modernist deformation.
To lay the foundation for a thorough understanding of the principles of linear structure and voice-leading through the study of 16th-century counterpoint. Includes weekly composition and transcription exercises.
Music 103 is an introduction to Western Art Music (works from 1100 to the present). The course defines the basic elements of music - pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, and form - and the historically significant styles and genres of composition.
