Graduate Courses 2023-2024
The following Graduate Courses are being offered in 2023-2024. For further information on course content, please consult the instructor directly.
MUSIC 507 SEM A1: Writing About Music
Fall 2023: Wednesday, 1:00 PM – 3:50 PM
Instructor: Patrick Nickleson
As scholars in music studies, writing is a key part of our discipline – though we often forget to address it as its own point of attention, craft, and practice. Through short, weekly assignments, this course will support students in developing clear, personal, and professional voices for writing about music and sound. We will discuss tactics ranging from reverse outlining and peer editing through to working in different citation styles, details of the peer review process, professional formatting, submitting to journals and presses, and mapping out a productive writing practice. Weekly reading and writing assignments will span a variety of genres including academic writing (ethnography, history, analysis, book reviews), program notes, music journalism, text scores, fiction, poetry and song lyrics, with much of our attention placed on engaging with writing style. The class will involve lots of peer editing with the emphasis on giving constructive and supportive feedback, as well as visits from guests who will speak on their own writing style and practice.
MUSIC 555 SEM A1: Seminar in Music Theory: Theories of Time and Meter
Fall 2023: Wednesday, 1:00 PM – 3:50 PM
Instructor: Maryam Moshaver
This course explores the dimensions of musical analysis and experience that are articulated in theories of meter and rhythm. We will be concerned with the theories of metrical generation, stratification, conflict, flow, and the theoretical and expressive means for conceptualizing and engaging with the various parameters of music that qualitatively impact our engagement with musical works. Repertoire will include music from the common practice era as well as contemporary music and popular genres. Emphasis will be on reading and in-class collective analysis.
MUSIC 603 LEC A1: Piano Pedagogy I
Fall 2023: Friday, 9:00 AM – 11:50 PM
Instructor: TBD
Course Objectives and Expected Learning Outcomes: This course surveys theories and methodologies in music education. It provides an overview of various developmental and learning theories and presents historical influences on pedagogy. All course content will be explored within the context of current piano pedagogy research. Students will be encouraged to evaluate the materials in relation to their own cultural backgrounds and experiences. Besides the strong theoretical foundation, this course also offers a teaching laboratory component. Pedagogical principles (technique, repertoire) and theory are applied to the teaching of the piano. Practical teaching exercises will be explored to facilitate the translation of theory into practice. This class emphasizes the multisensory importance of making music. Issues of performance practice and interpretation will be considered, including observations of various teaching situations. Recognizing the importance of effective communication in all aspects of the musical field, students will develop their teaching skills along with both their written and oral communication skills through assignments, and ongoing participation in classroom discussions is crucial. Course Format: The objectives of this course will be learned from a combination of formal lectures, assigned readings, lab sessions, group discussions and audiovisual materials.
MUSIC 635/638/730/735/738 C1: Graduate Choral Conducting
Fall 2023: Monday, Wednesday & Friday, 11:00 AM – 11:50 AM
Instructor: Tim Shantz
Designed for students majoring in Choral Conducting or anyone with permission of the instructor, this course focuses on the practice and study of conducting technique including musical communication & expression through gesture. Musical scores will be used to build stylistic interpretation skills, develop cultural and historic awareness and knowledge of performance practice in the vast history of choral music. Students will develop rehearsal techniques and methodologies for a wide variety of choral works, in coordination with Music 633/634. The course is taught in lab form with students forming the ensemble. Learning will be enhanced through video analysis, special guest presentations, student presentations, score reading and discussions.
MUSIC 639 SEM C1: Vocal and Instrumental Chamber Ensemble
Fall 2023: Wednesday & Friday, 12:00 PM – 12:50 PM
Instructor: Allison Balcetis
Students intending to take part in Chamber Music must be prepared to clear M-W-F from 12:00-1:00 pm. Despite how it appears in your Bear Tracks schedule, we meet every Wednesday at noon and then you will meet twice more each week with your ensemble at a time of your choosing. There are no auditions. Students are placed with others of similar abilities, in consultation with your private lesson instructor. Students wishing to take part in Chamber Music classes may try to form their own ensembles, but many will be formed by the coordinator and private instructors based on appropriate repertoire available and the skill level of those involved. Admission will be based on availability of teaching resources and viability of ensemble combinations. You will participate in one ensemble with the same ensemble members for the entire school year (Fall and Winter semesters). Please make every effort to register for chamber music prior to our first orientation meeting, held the first Wednesday of the semester.
MUSIC 645 SEM A1: Sound and Interactive Media
Fall 2023: Tuesday & Thursday, 3:30 PM – 4:50 PM
Instructor: Scott Smallwood
In this course students will learn to create adaptive musical and audio experiences in interactive media. Students will learn coding skills in Processing, Unity, and ChucK, as well as other environments, to create their own interactive audio pieces. This course requires basic audio editing and DAW experience, and some programming background will also be helpful.
Music 665 A1: Issues in Ethnomusicology
Fall 2023: Monday, 1:00 PM – 3:50PM
Instructor: Julia Byl
This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of the academic study of world music (broadly conceived), ethnomusicology. We aim to understand how ethnomusicology has developed into its current diverse forms, incorporating popular, traditional, and court music; music of individuals and music of communities; sounds and structures as well as instruments; political and historical as well as cultural contexts. This course moves through some of the major developments in ethnomusicology, including forays into anthropology, linguistics, musicology, and area studies, and pays attention to the different methodological tools used in this field of research. You should develop both a familiarity with some major ethnomusicological thinkers and ideas, and an idea of how to employ their insights within your own research.
MUSIC 569 SEM B1: Music and Islam
Winter 2024: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00 PM – 3:20 PM
Instructor: Michael Frishkopf
This course addresses the sonic practices of Islamic rituals, Muslim discourses about music, and the relation of both to the diversity of religious and musical practices in Muslim societies around the globe. Objectives: 1. To become familiar – experientially and intellectually – with the sounds of Islam: genres, styles, structures, musical-textual content, meanings, social-historical contexts, and spiritual-cultural implications. 2. To become familiar with a range of Islamic discourses related to sound - both oral and written, including primary texts constituting the Islamic tradition. 3. To develop a felt understanding of Islam as a set of social-spiritual systems of belief and practice, through experience and study of their sonic dimensions. In particular, to appreciate the evolution of Islam as a process of constrained ramification, a combination of humanly-mediated (oral/aural) and materially-mediated (literate) transmission (sound more localized, text more globalized). 4. To thereby learn about the interconnections of Muslim cultures and societies throughout history, especially in their affective dimensions, and the ways in which "sound" and "religion" are linked, amplifying, constraining, and otherwise shaping each other, as mediated by social dimensions of each. In particular, to learn about the spectrum of beliefs and practices and discourses labelled "Islam" -- especially Islam's mystical dimension, Sufism. 5. To understand some of the ways in which religion (e.g. "Islam") and sound (or "music") interact (directly or indirectly), at levels of discourse, society, and meaning.
MUSIC 581 SEM B1: Advanced Studies in Avant-Garde
Winter 2024: Tuesday & Thursday, 9:30 AM – 10:50 AM
Instructor: Andriy Talpash
Advanced Studies in Avant-Garde Music -- Topic TBD
MUSIC 587 SEM B1: Advanced Period Studies: Cultures of Romanticism
Winter 2024: Wednesday, 9:00 AM – 11:50 AM
Instructor: Fabio Morabito
“Romanticism” is a contested term. For someone with an English degree, it tends to refer to literature from the 1780s to the 1830s. In music however, unambiguous uses of “romantic” are harder to come by. Neither when conceived as a set of stylistic features, nor as an era of Western art music does the term provide a precise, adequate characterization. Indeed, it would be a stretch to say that most music from that period is about or “has the tone of medieval epics”, which is the original meaning of “romantic”. How can we use the term meaningfully, then? Cultures of Romanticism is a seminar that investigates critically the interests and innovations (technological, social, political, etc.) that instigated new ways of writing/reading literature, creating/watching spectacles or composing/listening to music in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. We will focus on the popular fascination with travel and wandering; nature, science and medical imaginaries; animated statues and the limits of the human; sexual power, irrational desires and vulnerability; urban nightmares; the gothic (watch this short video to get a taste!), uncanny and supernatural; antiquarianism; notions of artistic labor and copyright; poetics of decline, disability and depression; and more. Many of these themes, such as the appeal of fantastic worlds or superpowers, have survived long after the nineteenth century (one need think only about the success of the Harry Potter franchise). Exploring cultures of Romanticism is thus an opportunity to make sense not of a historical period, but of the ways that still make us experience music as an alternative, fabled reality.
MUSIC 604 SEM B1: Piano Pedagogy II
Winter 2024: Friday, 9:00 AM – 11:50 PM
Instructor: TBD
Course Objectives and Expected Learning Outcomes: This course surveys theories and methodologies in music education and builds on concepts and theories covered in MUS303/MUS603. It provides an overview of various developmental and learning theories and presents historical influences on pedagogy. All course content will be explored within the context of current piano pedagogy research. Students will be encouraged to evaluate the materials in relation to their own cultural backgrounds and experiences. Besides the strong theoretical foundation, this course also offers a teaching laboratory component. Pedagogical principles (technique, repertoire) and theory are applied to the teaching of the piano. Practical teaching exercises will be explored to facilitate the translation of theory into practice. This class emphasizes the importance of multisensory elements in making music. Issues of performance practice and interpretation will be considered, including observations of various teaching situations. Recognizing the importance of effective communication in all aspects of the musical field, students will develop their teaching skills along with both their written and oral communication skills through assignments, and ongoing participation in classroom discussions is crucial. Course Format: The objectives of this course will be learned from a combination of formal lectures, assigned readings, lab sessions, group discussions and audiovisual materials.
MUSIC 614 SEM B1: Proseminar in Musicology
Winter 2024: Friday, 1:00 PM – 3:50 PM
Instructor: Fabio Morabito
This is a proseminar studying current debates in musicology. It sets out to survey the history, issues, methodologies and latest directions of research in this field. One of the proseminar aims is to study methodology and epistemology, asking what the study of music should do and be. Another aim is to ensure familiarity with a wide range of approaches and tools used in research on music today. Topics will include: the beginnings of the discipline in the nineteenth century with projects of complete editions of music by a selected group of white-male-European composers of the past; questions of historiography, such as what is a fact of music history; questions of materiality and ontology, such as what is a musical object; debates on the role of (Western) musical literacy in higher education today; methods to study the act of performance – or that of listening – rather than just that of composition; postcolonial perspectives and the project of a global music history; issues of gender, sexuality, race, ecocriticism and social justice; and the future of music studies. 2:50:00 T B-104 of composition; postcolonial perspectives and the project of a global music history; issues of gender, sexuality, race, ecocriticism and social justice; and the future of music studies.
MUSIC 633 SEM B1: Choral Literature I
Winter 2024: Tuesday & Thursday, 9:30 AM – 10:50 AM
Instructor: Tim Shantz
This seminar delves into the vast and varied music written for choir from the Middle Ages to approximately 1800. Representative works are studied with a focus on primary source material in the form of musical scores. Music will be discussed with a particular focus on historical and cultural context, musical influences and the emergence of new forms in choral music. Admission is open to all graduate students and is required for graduate students majoring in Choral Conducting, along with Music 634 (Graduate Choral Literature II, offered in alternating years). The assignments consist of listening assignments, seminar presentations, score study and a research paper.
MUSIC 666 SEM B1: Field Methods in Ethnomusicology
Winter 2024: Monday, 9:30 AM – 12:20 PM
Instructor: Julia Byl
How do we understand the process of engagement with another human in order to understand their worldview, through their music? This course centers on ethnographic fieldwork, as applied to the study of society and culture, with a focus on sound and music. While the course is geared especially for ethnomusicologists, its broad coverage of fieldwork techniques, the history of ethnography, a pedagogy of learning-by-doing (from proposal writing, to field notes, to shooting video) and of theoretical and ethical issues will prove useful to students in a wide variety of social science disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, education, and political science.