Spring 2020

MUS 210: Beginning Workshop in Musical Composition

A composing workshop that fosters students’ individual interests within a community of composer-peers. Our starting point is concert music (i.e., ‘contemporary classical’), but what that means in the current day is open to question. We’ll consider traditional concerns such as syntax, form, and instrumentation, but will also open our ears to experimental approaches, improvised adventures, non-traditional instruments. Perhaps we will discover music in the falling of snow, or in a voice mail message, or somewhere no one has thought of yet. The primary work is composing one’s own music, with a concert of student works in lieu of a final exam.

MUS 206: Tonal Syntax

An introduction to the syntactic structure of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries through exercises in analysis and composition.

MUS 106: Music Theory through Performance and Composition

A continuation of Music 105, with an emphasis on the harmonic and formal principles of Western classical music. Some topics from the 20th century will be covered toward the end of the term.

MUS 103: Introduction to Music

MUS 103 is an introduction to Western art music, featuring works from around 800 to the mid-20th century. The course explains the basic elements of Western music, introducing them in the order in which they developed in history- rhythm, pitch, melody, harmony, form- and the historically significant styles and genres of composition.