Courses & Curriculum

MUSI BC1001 AN INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC I. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: no previous knowledge of music is required. A survey of the development of Western music from 6th-century Gregorian Chant to Bach and Handel, with emphasis upon important composers and forms. Extensive listening required

MUSI BC1002 AN INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC II. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: no previous knowledge of music is required

MUSI BC1501 VOICE INSTRUCTION. 2.00 points.

Entrance by audition only. Call Barnard College, Department of Music during registration for time and place of audition (854-5096)

MUSI BC1502 VOICE INSTRUCTION. 2.00 points.

Entrance by audition only. Call Barnard College, Department of Music during registration for time and place of audition (854-5096)

MUSI UN1593 BARNARD-COLUMBIA CHORUS I. 1.00 point.

Prerequisites: auditions by appointment made at first meeting. Contact Barnard College, Department of Music (854-5096). Membership in the chorus is open to all men and women in the University community. The chorus gives several public concerts each season, both on and off campus, often with other performing organizations. Sight-singing sessions offered. The repertory includes works from all periods of music literature. Students who register for chorus will receive a maximum of 4 points for four or more semesters

MUSI UN1594 BARNARD-COLUMBIA CHORUS II. 1.00 point.

Prerequisites: auditions by appointment made at first meeting. Contact Barnard College, Department of Music (854-5096). Membership in the chorus is open to all men and women in the University community. The chorus gives several public concerts each season, both on and off campus, often with other performing organizations. Sight-singing sessions offered. The repertory includes works from all periods of music literature. Students who register for chorus will receive a maximum of 4 points for four or more semesters

MUSI UN1595 BARNARD-COLUMBIA-CHAMBR SINGER. 1.00 point.

Prerequisites: auditions by appointment made at first meeting. Contact Barnard College, Department of Music (854-5096). Membership in the chorus is open to all men and women in the University community. The chorus gives several public concerts each season, both on and off campus, often with other performing organizations. Sight-singing sessions offered. The repertory includes works from all periods of music literature

MUSI UN1596 BARNARD-COLUMBIA-CHAMBR SINGER. 1.00 point.

Prerequisites: contact Barnard College, Department of Music (854-5096). Membership in the chorus is open to all men and women in the University community. The chorus gives several public concerts each season, both on and off campus, often with other performing organizations. Sight-singing sessions offered. The repertory includes works from all periods of music literature

MUSI BC3139 INTRODUCTION VOCAL REPERTOIRE. 3.00 points.

This course is designed for developing singers. Group vocalizing, learning of songs and individual workshop performances are aimed at improving the students technical skill and the elements necessary to create a meaningful musical and dramatic experience. Attention to text, subtext, emotional and psychological aspects of a piece and the performers relationship to the audience are included in the work. Repertoire is predominantly in English and comes from both classical and popular traditions Individual coaching sessions are available with the class accompanist and help strengthen the students confidence and skill. The class culminates with an in-class performance

MUSI BC3140 VOCAL REPERTOIRE, TECHNIQUE. 3.00 points.

Vocal exercises and exploration of wide-ranging repertoires, styles, and languages of the Western European song tradition. The rich variety of English, French, Italian and German poetry and music from the Baroque period through the Twentieth Century allows the student to experience both the music and the cultural environment of each of these styles. Attention is given both to meaning oftext and musical interpretation. Individual coaching sessions are available with the class accompanist and help strengthen the students confidence and skill. The class culminates with an in-class performance

MUSI BC3145 WORLDMUSE ENSEMBLE. 3.00 points.

Worldmuse Ensemble delves into compelling music from many genres such as world music, gospel, classical--old and new. We perform without a conductor, increasing awareness and interaction among ourselves and our audience. We collaboratively integrate music, dance, and theatre traditions (masks etc.). For experienced singers, and instrumentalists and dancers who sing

MUSI BC3990 SENIOR PROJ:RESEARCH FOR MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Working with her advisor, a student will expand the research project initiated in the Fall Senior Seminar for Music Majors (BC3992x). In order to satisfy the requirement, the student will complete a fifty page research paper

MUSI BC3991 SENIOR PROJ: MUSIC REPERTORY. 3.00 points.

Working with her advisor, a student will develop a vocal or instrumental recital program with representative musical works from a variety of historical periods. In order to satisfy the requirement, the student will present an hour long public performance of the recital program. Students may also satisfy this requirement by composing original vocal or instrumental works

MUSI BC3992 SENIOR SEM FOR MUSIC MAJORS. 4.00 points.

The goals of this seminar are a) to introduce senior music majors to ethnographic, bibliographic, and archival research methods in music and b) to help the same students develop, focus, implement, draft, revise, and polish a substantive, original piece of research (25-30 pages) which will serve as the senior project. The course will begin with a survey of academic literature on key problems in musicological research and writing, and will progress to a workshop/discussion format in which each week a different student is responsible for assigning readings and leading the discussion on a topic which s/he has formulated and deemed to be of relevance to her own research

MUSI UN1002 FUNDAMENTALS OF MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Introduction to music, including notation, written and aural skills, and basic conceptual resources of music theory. Exploration of scale, mode, rhythm, meter, texture and form, with reference to a diverse range of musics.

HUMA UN1123 MASTERPIECES OF WESTERN MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Analysis and discussion of representative works from the Middle Ages to the present

MUSI UN1312 INTRODUCTORY EAR-TRAINING. 1.00 point.

This course is an introduction to basic skills in sight reading. Instruction includes reading rhythms in simple meter, solfege recitation, and sight-singing simple melodies

MUSI UN1518 KEYBOARD HARMONY/MUSICIANSHIP. 1.00 point.

Prerequisites: Instructor Permission
Prerequisites: Instructor Permission This course is only open to Music Theory students who did not pass the piano proficiency exam. Sign up in 109 Dodge

MPP UN1521 UNIVERSITY ORCHESTRA I. 2.00 points.

Founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, the Columbia University Orchestra is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States. The principal mission of the Orchestra is to expose talented student musicians to the highest level of orchestral repertoire. An audition is required.

MPP UN1531 CHAMBER ENSEMBLE. 1.00 point.

The Music Performance Program (MPP) offers students the opportunity to participate in various classical ensembles and study with some of the most renowned chamber musicians in New York City. An audition is required.

MPP UN1541 COLUMBIA UNIV JAZZ ENSEMBL. 1.00 point.

The Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program in the Music Performance Program (MPP) offers students the opportunity to participate in various jazz ensembles, both large and small, instrumental and vocal, that cover a wide range of musical ensembles. All ensembles perform at an intermediate level or higher and require some past jazz experience.

MPP UN1551 WORLD MUSIC ENSEMBLE. 1.00 point.

In collaboration with the Center for Ethnomusicology, MESAAS, Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies and the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program, the Music Performance Program (MPP) offers students the opportunity to participate in various world music ensembles: Arab Music, Bluegrass, Japanese Gagaku/Hogaku, Klezmer and Latin American Music. Each ensemble requires different levels of experience, so please refer to the World Music section of the Music Performance Program website for more info. Please note the Latin American Music Ensemble focuses on two different Latin music traditions: The Afro-Cuban Ensemble meets in the Fall and the Brazilian Ensemble meets in the Spring.

MUSI UN2010 ROCK. 3.00 points.

How did Elvis become the “King of Rock’n’Roll” instead of, for example, Chuck Berry? Who are LaVern Baker, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Etta James and what do they have to do with rock and roll? Why and how did “rock and roll” become “rock”? What are the relationships among rock, rhythm and blues, soul, and funk? What do classical music composers such as J.S. Bach, Modest Mussorgsky, and Philip Glass have to do with rock? How many times has rock “died”? What is rock music’s relevance both historically and today? This course will introduce you to popular music studies, a field of inquiry that draws scholars from a number of different disciplines, including musicology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology and literature. Examining rock music in an interdisciplinary way has opened the genre to increasing attention beyond musicological methodologies and assumptions. First, however, we must ask some fundamental questions: for instance, what, exactly, is popular music as well as, importantly, what differentiates rock music from other genres? Our definitions will reveal some of the assumptions we bring to any discussion of popular music. Throughout this semester, we will question our assumptions about rock music culture through an investigation into a series of keywords. Each keyword will focus our attention on various aspects of rock music in order to think through the complexities of what might, on the surface, seem self-evident. Terms such as “genre” or “the everyday” will be examined to help us gain critical analytical tools with which to assess various rock music productions, artists, and processes

MUSI UN2020 SALSA, SOCA ＆ REGGAE. 3.00 points.

CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement

A survey of the major syncretic urban popular music styles of the Caribbean, exploring their origins, development, and sociocultural context.

MUSI UN2021 MUSIC IN CONTEMP NATIVE AMER. 3.00 points.

Music in Contemporary Native America is a historical, ethnographic, and topical examination of contemporary Native American musical practices and ideologies. The course emphasizes popular, vernacular, and mass mediated musics, and calls into question the simple distinction between traditional and modern aspects of Native American cultures. Our readings and class guests (several of whom will be Native American scholars) emphasize the importance of understanding Native 2 American perspectives on these topics. Three short papers and one substantial final project are required. Approximately 100-150 pages of reading per week

MUSI UN2023 BEETHOVEN. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent.

A study of the life and works of Ludwig van Beethoven, with emphasis on selected symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas. Also consider the changing nature of the critical reception of Beethoven and issues of classicism and romanticism in music.

MUSI UN2025 THE OPERA. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent.

The development of opera from Monteverdi to the present.  IN FALL 2011, THE OPERA WILL BE OFFERED MON/WED 2:40-3:55 in 622 DODGE.

MUSI UN2030 JEWISH MUSIC IN NEW YORK. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: Music Humanities (Columbia University) or An Introduction to Music (Barnard). With the arrival of the first Jewish immigrants in New York in the mid-1600s until today, Jewish music in the City has oscillated between preserving traditions and introducing innovative ideas. This course explores the variety of ways people have used music to describe, inscribe, symbolize, and editorialize their Jewish experience. Along these lines, it draws upon genres of art music, popular music, and non-Western traditions, as well as practices that synthesize various styles and genres, from hazzanut to hiphop. Diverse musical experiences will serve as a window to address wider questions of identity, memory, and dislocation. We will also experience the Jewish soundscape of New York’s dynamic and eclectic music culture by visiting various venues and meeting key players in today’s music scene, and thus engage in the ongoing dialogues that define Jewishness in New York. A basic familiarity with Judaism and Jewish culture is helpful for this course, but it is by no means required. You do not need to know Jewish history to take this class, nor do you need to be able to read music. Translations from Hebrew and Yiddish will be provided, and musical analysis will be well explained

JWST UN2155 Music, Sound, and Antisemitism. 3.00 points.

From the Middle Ages to the present, individuals involved in making and writing about music, have engaged in behaviors, creations, and discourses steeped in hatred of Jews. This course examines the various ways in which these individuals have used music to perform and inscribe, symbolize, describe, and editorialize antisemitism. In so doing, it focuses on musicking—a term that encompasses all musical activity from composing to performing to listening—in the realms of art music, popular music, and non-Western traditions, as well as of genres that synthesize different styles. It also draws on sound, including language and speech as well as writings such as Wagner’s Judenthum in der Musik (1848−50/69) and Carl Engel’s The Music of the Most Ancient Nations (1864). All of these will serve as a window through which to address the types of Jew-hatred that have become known since the mid-nineteenth century as antisemitism—religious, national and ethnic, political, populist, economic, and institutional—as well as hate speech or “hate talk” and the Jewish responses to it. A basic familiarity with music is helpful for this course, but it is not required as long as there is an openness to listening to music and a commitment to basic aural analysis. You do not need to know Jewish history to take this class, nor do you need to be able to read music. Translations will be provided, and musical analysis will be well explained. Suggested prerequisites: Music Humanities (Columbia University) or An Introduction to Music (Barnard)

MUSI UN2205 INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission.
An introduction to the potential of digital sound synthesis and signal processing. Teaches proficiency in elementary and advanced digital audio techniques. This course aims to challenge some of the tacet assumptions about music that are built into the design of various user interfaces and hardware and fosters a creative approach to using digital audio workstation software and equipment. Permission of Instructor required to enroll. Music Majors have priority for enrollment

MUSI UN2230 History and Practice of Electronic Music. 3.00 points.

This course will provide a critical survey of the development of electronic and computer music and sound from around the globe. From early experiments and precursors in the late 19th century through to modern-day experimental and popular music practices, this course aims to trace the development of technologies used in the production of electronic and computer derived sound and music alongside the economic, cultural, and social forces that contribute to the development of audiences. The course will focus intently on listening through a series of curated playlists in an effort to unpack style and genre distinctions. Readings and listening examples will be paired with small, hands-on assignments, that demonstrate the effect of music making tools on the process and structure of musical genres and styles ranging from the experimental practices of musique concrete, drone, and harsh noise to the mainstream practices of dub, techno, vaporwave, hyperpop, and hip hop and more

MUSI UN2240 The Song Within Us: Composition, Analysis, Performance. 3.00 points.

This class offers insight through composing, analysis, and performance for the composer, singer/songwriter, and performance artist. Coupling specifics of rhythm, melody, and harmony with story telling, lyric writing and the voice itself, students will be encouraged to share their imagination in song regardless of style, genre, or aesthetic. Music ranging from Chant to Music Theatre, the German lied to international pop fusion will be included as models upon which to base discussion and creative endeavor. Improvisation and musicianship techniques will complement pedagogical presentations of tonal and non - tonal compositional practice. A required final project based on any combination of composition, analysis, and performance, and in any media will be due at the end of the semester. All levels of experience and all types of instruments are welcome. Notation software is recommended but not required

MUSI UN2314 EAR-TRAINING I. 1.00 point.

Designed to improve the students basic skills in sight-singing, and rhythmic and melodic dictation with an introduction to four-part harmonic dictation

MUSI UN2315 EAR-TRAINING II. 1.00 point.

Techniques of sight-singing and dictation of diatonic melodies in simple and compound meter with strong emphasis on harmonic dictation

MUSI UN2318 MUSIC THEORY I. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI V1002 or the equivalent, as well as placement exam administered in the first class meeting every semester the course is offered. (Through Spring 2014, this course was entitled Diatonic Harmony and Counterpoint I.)

Elementary analysis and composition in a variety of modal and tonal idioms. A one-hour weekly lab is required, to be scheduled at the beginning of the term. Course to be taken in conjunction with the Ear-Training sequence, up through Ear-Training IV.

MUSI UN2319 MUSIC THEORY II. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI V2318.

Elementary analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms. A one-hour weekly lab is required, to be scheduled at the beginning of the term. Course to be taken in conjunction with the Ear-Training sequence, up through Ear-Training IV.

MUSI UN2320 Introduction to Music Cognition. 3.00 points.

The aim of music cognition is to understand the musical mind. This course is an introduction to a variety of key topics in this field, including human development, evolution, neural processing, embodied knowledge, memory and anticipation, cross-cultural perspectives, and emotions. The course explores recent research on these topics, as well as ways in which this research can be applied to music scholarship. Readings are drawn from fields as diverse as music theory, psychology, biology, anthropology, and neuroscience, and include general works in cognitive science, theoretical work focused on specific musical issues, and reports of empirical research

MUSI UN2500 Women and Music. 3 points.

This course explores the relationship between women, music, and performance from a thematic and a cross-cultural perspective. Through the analysis of different case studies, we will investigate different topics from the perspective of ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, and performance studies. A number of critical questions we will consider include: how does a particular gender ideology constructs and is constructed by musical aesthetics? What are some of the critical roles for women in performance?  What is the significance of gender in performances? What does it mean for women to have have and to be the voice? And how is a musical performance bound up with emotions?

MUSI UN2582 JAZZ IMPROVISTN:THRY,HIST,PRAC. 3.00 points.

This course offers an introduction to jazz improvisation for instrumentalists. Through recordings, transcriptions, daily performance and selected readings, students will actively engage the history of jazz through their instruments and intellect. The idea of improvisation will be explored in an historical context, both as a musical phenomenon with its attendant theory and mechanics, and as a trope of American history and aesthetics. This class is for instrumentalists who wish to deepen their understanding of the theory, history and practice of jazz improvisation. The history of jazz will be used as a prism through which to view approaches to improvisation, from the cadences of the early Blues through the abstractions of Free Jazz and beyond. The student will be exposed to the theory and vocabularies of various jazz idioms, which they will also learn to place in their social and historical contexts

MUSI UN3023 Late Beethoven. 3 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI UN2318-UN2319

An examination of the visionary works of Beethoven's last dozen or so years as a composer, beginning with the revision of his only opera, Fidelio, in 1814, and continuing with the late piano sonatas, cello sonatas, string quartets, Diabelli variations, Ninth Symphony, and the Missa Solemnis. Topics will include late style, romanticism, politics, deafness, and the changing nature of the musical work and its performance.

MUSI UN3036 SCHUBERT'S ROMANTIC CYCLES. 3.00 points.

MUSI UN3103 Afrofuturism and Society: Music, Media, and Race. 3.00 points.

An aesthetic, perspective, and practice, Afrofuturism places Afro-diasporic peoples at the center of science-fiction and speculative narratives, affording Black people narrative agency over their past, present, and future. Afrofuturism exists as an essential site for the interrogation and celebration of Black life, while also serving as a thoughtful critique of anti-Black sentiments and white supremacy. This course will familiarize students with the historical underpinnings, contexts, and both seminal and contemporary works that are a part of the movement and which situate Afrofuturism as part of a larger socio-cultural discourse on race, creativity, and activism. We will be discussing Afrofuturism’s historical and socio-cultural positionality, but will also ask: in the midst of global anti-Blackness, the post-Trump era, a pandemic, and the era of Black Lives Matter, where does Afrofuturism fit in the existing discourse?

MUSI UN3127 BACH'S SACRED MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Bach’s sacred music in its historical, theological, and social context

MUSI UN3128 HIST-WEST MUS: MID AGE-BAROQUE. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI V2318-V2319. May be taken before or concurrently with this course.
Prerequisites: MUSI UN2318 - MUSI UN2319. May be taken before or concurrently with this course. Topics in Western music from Antiquity through Bach and Handel, focusing on the development of musical style and thought, and analysis of selected works

MUSI UN3129 HIST-WEST MUS:CLASSICAL-20TH CENTURY. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI V2318-2319. May be taken before or concurrently with this course.

Topics in Western music from the Classical era to the present day, focusing on the development of musical style and thought, and on analysis of selected works.

MUSI UN3168 THE AMERICAN MUSICAL. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: reading ability of music and some theoretical knowledge is required. Musical theater is one of Americas most vital and important art form. Several of its major creators studied at Columbia, including Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, John Kander, and Fred Ebb. This course will present a historical survey of American musical theater from its origins in late nineteenth-century; through the musicals of figures like Kern, Gershwin, and Rodgers - Hammerstein; through Sondheim and the megamusical of Lloyd Webber. Focus will be on selected shows, through which broader cultural and musical trends will be examined

MUSI UN3171 PARIS FOR ROMANTICS. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: Completion of Music Humanities (or the consent of the instructor) is a pre-requisite for this course.

Prerequisites: Completion of Music Humanities (or the consent of the instructor) is a pre-requisite for this course. This course explores Parisian musical life during the long nineteenth century, situating musical discourses, institutions, and forms within the broader landscapes of literary and artistic Romanticism. Topics to be considered include: the musical echoes of the Revolution; operatic genres and theaters; the music of the salons; cultures of consumerism and domestic performance; and issues of nationalism and historicism after 1870. Composers to be considered include: Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Franck, Massenet, and Debussy. Completion of Music Humanities (or the consent of the instructor) is a pre-requisite for this course.

MUSI UN3210 Chopin, Pianos, Revolutions. 3.00 points.

This seminar offers a survey of the music by Fryderyk Chopin, examining his output in historical, geopolitical, and cultural context. Organized by genre, the study will be accompanied by the discussion of music as performance, using legendary recordings, and live in-class demonstrations. Through guided listening, analysis of the written score, and reading assignments, students will obtain tools to discuss topics related to the piano (the development of which will be an integral part of the course), comparative performance, interpretation, and performance practice. Since student performances will be an important component of the course, members of the Music Performance Program receive registration priority

MUSI UN3213 Bach Interpretation for Performers. 3.00 points.

This course will explore the music of Johann Sebastian Bach from the perspective of performance. Attention will be given to Baroque dance forms and the social significance of dance in the 18th century, the art of rhetoric as a driving force for convincing delivery, an exploration of period instruments, and the study of elements of style such as articulation and ornamentation. The course consists of lectures, discussions, guided listening, score analysis, reading assignments, and performance projects. Aside from Bach’s scores, we will examine three key 17th- and 18th-century vocal and instrumental treatises, and a wide array of literature on rhetorical style and performance practice. Upon successful completion of the course, students will gain a deeper understanding of interpreting the music of J.S. Bach and Baroque music in general, both as listeners and as performers

MUSI UN3239 INTRODUCTION TO COMPOSITION I. 3.00 points.

Composition in shorter forms. Students will compose new works for the cello, with a focus on diverse approaches to the instrument. Student pieces will be workshopped, rehearsed, and performed (and/or recorded)

MUSI UN3241 ADVANCED COMPOSITION I. 3.00 points.

Composition Faculty

Prerequisites: MUSI V3310 or the instructor's permission.
Composition in more extended forms. Study of advanced techniques of contemporary composition. Readings of student works

MUSI UN3310 TECHNIQUES OF 20TH CENTURY MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI V3322 or the instructor's permission.
Materials, styles, and techniques of 20th and 21st century music. Musical concepts and compositional techniques related to serialism and atonality, timbre, orchestration, indeterminacy, rhythm and temporality, electronic and electro-acoustic music, site-specific composition, graphic notation, recomposition, minimalism, and spectralism

MUSI UN3316 EAR-TRAINING III. 1.00 point.

Sight-singing techniques of modulating diatonic melodies in simple, compound, or irregular meters that involve complex rhythmic patterns. Emphasis is placed on four-part harmonic dictation of modulating phrases

MUSI UN3317 EAR-TRAINING IV. 1.00 point.

Techniques of musicianship at the intermediate level, stressing the importance of musical nuances in sight-singing. Emphasis is placed on chromatically inflected four-part harmonic dictation

AHMM UN3320 MUSIC IN EAST ASIA. 3.00 points.

A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations

AHMM UN3321 MUSICS OF INDIA ＆ WEST ASIA. 3.00 points.

CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement

A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations

MUSI UN3321 MUSIC THEORY III. 3 points.

A one-hour weekly lab is required, to be scheduled at the beginning of the term.

Prerequisites: MUSI V2319.

Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms. 

MUSI UN3322 MUSIC THEORY IV. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: MUSI V3321.

Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal and extended tonal idioms. 

MUSI UN3342 Beyond Boundaries: Radical Black Experimental Music. 3 points.

This discussion seminar focuses on African American composer/improvisers in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries whose work rejects and critiques simplistic compartmentalization in terms of improvisation, composition, genre, gender, race, and place. On the contrary, these musicians embody Duke Ellington’s famous dictum regarding great music being “beyond category.” Students will critically discuss some of the common threads in this network—musicians’ means of creating and performing their original music, its distribution in the marketplace and surrounding critical discourse, their engagement with issues of race, gender, and class within and outside of their communities, and interdisciplinary and community-based collaboration. Musical communities such encompassed in this course include the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Sun Ra’s Arkestra, and the Jazz Composers Guild and extends up to the current day to include contemporary artists such as Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, and Tyshawn Sorey. The incredibly rich multifarious pieces and performances that we will listen to and discuss reference and incorporate elements of improvisation, theatre, twelve-tone serialism, aleatoric composition, bebop, electro-acoustic and computer music,conduction, popular music, the voice, free jazz, Afrofuturism, the blues, orchestral music, opera, and graphic notation

MUSI UN3343 Shades of Brown: Music in the South Asian Diaspora . 3 points.

This course explores the musical world of the South Asian diaspora in Europe and North America. We will read ethnographic accounts of diasporic musics and experiences and develop methods for analysis and interpretation of such accounts, situating the songs of the South Asian diaspora within its broader social history. We will address the concepts of belonging and identity, nostalgia and affect, and the dismantling or upholding of dominant discourses such as gender, race, and caste. Our focus will be on the last half century, although deeper histories will need to be considered. Students will learn to analyze instrumentation and lyrics in various genres and traditions of South Asian music, including both art, folkloric, and popular idioms, and to correlate these with aspects of the social context of diaspora. While the specific focus of the course is on a particular diasporic history, the class will help students understand and think critically about the broader phenomenon of “diaspora” and its cultural dimensions, and through this to engage critically with important aspects of cultural globalization and migration.  

Students from all departments are welcome. Reading music not required.

MUSI UN3344 Curating Popular Music: From Song Pluggers to Spotify. 3 points.

How is popular music made popular? And who makes it popular? This discussion-based course seeks to answer these questions by focusing on the critical role that music industry professionals—song pluggers, sheet music publishers, producers, talent scouts, record executives, and content curators—have played in shaping the markets of production, circulation, and consumption of popular music in the United States from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Readings, listening selections, and class discussion will address a number of key genres of American popular music—Tin Pan Alley, folk, blues, country, rock, pop, and hip hop—while individual assignments (including a final project centered on creating and producing a podcast) will allow students to apply the knowledge gained in class to genres, styles, and works of their own choosing. Students will not be required to have prior knowledge of music theory or to be able to read music. Completion of Masterpieces of Western Music: “Music Humanities” (HUMA UN 1123) is preferred, but not required.

MUSI UN3400 TOPICS IN MUSIC ＆ SOCIETY. 3.00 points.

Music Majors and Concentrators.

This course seeks to approach the study of music and society by comparatively studying repertories from different parts of the world, how the history of ideas and methods of studying such repertoires shaped them, the practices that constitute them and the ways they are understood and used by different peoples. Central to this course is the interrelationship between the constitution of a repertoire and the history of the construction of knowledge about it.

MUSI UN3410 The Polycultural Roots of U.S. Popular Music. 3.00 points.

This course will explore the rich hybrid development of U.S. popular music genres and vernacular music traditions. Focusing on the contributions of Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and African American musicians and musical traditions in addition to European American musicians and musical traditions, in genres as various as country music, hip hop, jazz, reggaeton, and rock, students will enlarge their sense of the multiracial and crosscultural makeup of the music that constitutes “American popular music.”

MUSI UN3425 Music, Sound and the Law. 3.00 points.

This course is a historical overview of the relationship between music and the law in which students will employ both critical listening skills and critical thinking to understand how sound came to be understood as property, how the law impacts creativity, identity and labor, and how music has been used as a tool for enforcing and challenging legislative and political processes. We will discuss the origins of copyright law in the Enlightenment, how music has been used as a tool of colonization through formation of archives, examples of Native American conceptions of cultural property and modes of repatriation, the birth of the music industry and its segregationist history, how the law impacts creativity through the study of sampling, infringement and extension of rights, the ways in which musicians and listeners subvert legal strictures, how music can influence policy as protest or as propaganda, musical bans, noise ordinances, the relationship between music and the First Amendment, alternatives to copyright law in the digital age, music piracy, and the recent changes in the music industry to focus on data gathering as the primary model for music distribution. Music is our point of departure, and students will learn ways in which sonic practices shaped and challenged legislative paradigms. Our focus is on American musics such as Native American music, blues, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, experimental music, hip hop, pop, as well as some European classical music, “world” music, and EDM. Students will read and analyze legal primary sources such as the Music Modernization Act, as well as landmark court cases, critical legal literature, and musicological texts. Students will learn debate skills, acquire practical knowledge of the law through concepts such as fair use, the public domain and mechanical and performance rights, and develop listening skills to understand legal concepts such as infringement. This course is open to students of all majors and will be of particular interest to musicians, students with plans to pursue a law degree in IP or technology law, as well as those interested in working in the music industry. There are no prerequisites and no previous knowledge of music, music theory, or the law is necessary. Masterpieces of Western Music or Asian Music Humanities are recommended

MUSI UN3995 HONORS RESEARCH. 2.00-3.00 points.

Open to honors candidates in music only.

Prerequisites: a formal proposal to be submitted and approved prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details.
Prerequisites: a formal proposal to be submitted and approved prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details. A creative/scholarly project conducted under faculty supervision, leading to completion of an honors essay, composition, or the equivalent

MUSI UN3998 SUPERVISED INDEPENDENT STUDY. 2.00-3.00 points.

Prerequisites: approval prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details.
Prerequisites: approval prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details. A creative/scholarly project conducted under faculty supervision

MUSI GU4060 MEDIEVAL MUSIC DRAMA. 3.00 points.

In this seminar we will study examples of music drama from the tenth century to the fourteenth, taking into account both the manuscript sources and methodological questions raised by performative works at the intersection of literature, music, and ritual

MUSI GU4108 Critical Approaches to Opera Studies. 3.00 points.

Why opera now? In what ways can a 400-year-old art form speak to the needs of contemporary society? This seminar provides an introduction to critical opera studies: we will analyze a broad range of lyric repertory (spanning from Monteverdi to Saariaho) while interrogating the debates these works have generated, both historically and in the present day. Topics to be considered include: operatic institutions and conventions; gender and voice; theories of “text” and liveness; modernist staging; the troubling legacies of Empire and exoticism; and the intersections of opera and multimedia (opera on/as film, opera in HD, site-specific opera). Wherever possible, this course will incorporate live performance in New York, engaging the Metropolitan Opera as well as institutions for “indie” opera and new music. While completion of Music Humanities is a suggested pre-requisite, this class welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives. Individual assignments may be tailored to accommodate student interests and backgrounds outside of the field of music

MUSI GU4113 Medieval Mediterranean Love Songs. 4.00 points.

This seminar will focus on love poetry in the medieval western Mediterranean. Readings will consist primarily of medieval lyric in Old Occitan, Galician Portuguese, Old French, Italian, and Castilian in conversation with concurrent kindred forms of the lyric in classical Arabic and medieval Hebrew from medieval Iberia and Italy. Most weeks will include listening examples but a background in music is not a prerequisite. All texts will be available in translation; originals will also be made available. We will emphasize close reading and analysis, often addressing the relationship between text and music

MUSI GU4122 SONGS OF THE TROUBADOURS. 4.00 points.

This interdisciplinary seminar approaches the songs of the troubadours as poetic and musical traditions. Together we will develop methods for analysis and interpretation, situate the songs within literary and social history, and address broad issues such as the nature of performance, the interplay between oral transmission and writing, the origins of troubadour poetry, fin’amor, and gender. Students will learn to analyze the poetic and musical structure of the songs and to transcribe and edit them from medieval manuscripts. Weekly assignments in Paden’s Introduction to Old Occitan will familiarize students with the language of the texts; one hour a week will be devoted texts using Paden’s book. Students from all departments are welcome

MUSI GU4230 Sounding Alternative Perspectives in Electronic Music. 3.00 points.

In this seminar we will explore examples of electronic music composition and practice as propositions that centered situated perspective and dialogic world-making in the creative space as a means of resistance. We will look at historical and contemporary figures that animated alternative identity articulations, proposed distributed power dynamics, and challenged environmental bifurcations from the grounded and speculative province of music making. We will engage feminist methodologies in our approach, as they uphold the supposition that practice is praxis and scholarship, and support collective learning techniques. Readings in critical theory, musicology, and media studies will support our research as well as practice-based projects. With this seminar we will ask how electronic music functioned(s) as place or form of identity formation and challenge to normative expression. Can electronic music work as an experience that resists patriarchal and/or colonial structures or disciplines? What strategies have been taken that reset or rescript techno-masculinist spaces, tools and practices? And how can we create an analysis method that makes these qualities legible? No in-depth experience with either computers or electronic music is required, though music and sound will be the principle focus of our inquiry. Interdisciplinary methods of critical response and analysis will be explored in this class

MUSI GU4308 Theory and Analysis of Jazz and Improvisation. 3.00 points.

What are the traditional definitions of jazz and how do they apply to improvised music in the twenty-first century? This course aims to communicate reliable methods and processes useful when dissecting and evaluating jazz performances and jazz compositions. Students will engage with traditional and fundamental jazz improvisation theory, then extrapolate new modalities reflective of the music happening today; including categorizing music on gradations from minimally to fully improvisational, tonal to harmonically abstract, rhythmically rigid to free, and sonically acoustic to fully synthesized. The class will explore and differentiate between “new complexity” classical compositions and virtuosic free form improvisation, compare US jazz to versions happening in other countries, and to recognize how world music influences affect improvisational tonal systems and improvisational traits

MUSI GU4325 Topics in Music Cognition. 3.00 points.

This advanced seminar builds on the Introduction to Music Cognition (MUSIC UN2320) with an in-depth inquiry into selected key topics in the field of Music Cognition. Specific topics vary each year, depending on interest and availability of instructors, and include human development; evolution; communication and music’s relation to language; embodied knowledge; first-person awareness; metaphor; ineffability; neuroscience; mental representations; memory and anticipation; cross-cultural studies; emotions; musical aesthetics; artificial intelligence; agency; creativity; and music’s relation to other art forms. Each semester the course delves into recent research on 3–4 of these topics, focusing in particular on how this research can be applied to questions of musical knowledge. Advanced readings are drawn from fields as diverse as music theory, psychology, biology, anthropology, philosophy, and neuroscience. They include general works in cognitive science, theoretical work focused on specific musical issues, and reports of empirical research

MUSI GU4360 ANALYSIS OF TONAL MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Detailed analysis of selected tonal compositions. This course, for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduates, is intended to develop understanding of tonal compositions and of theoretical concepts that apply to them, through study of specific works in various forms and styles

MUSI GU4380 Topics in Sound Studies. 3.00 points.

Sound studies is a burgeoning interdisciplinary field that explores the question of how does listening to sound, beyond having a phone conversation or listening to your favorite tunes, influence culture, knowledge, and society by initiating dialogues across musicology, philosophy, cultural studies, disability studies, race and gender studies, and science and technology studies. In this course, students will examine three interrelated debates within the field: 1. the role of sound in understanding and uncovering historical and cultural knowledge; 2. the function of sound in the invention of media and technologies that have transformed listening culture; 3. the capacity of sound to shape social perceptions of race and gender. Reading texts that have revolutionized the way we think about sound, students will learn how sound and listening participated in historical and contemporary meaning-making

MUSI GU4407 Songs and Sounds of Protest of Latin America and the Caribbean: Relistening to the 1960s and 1970s. 3.00 points.

This course is a topical (not comprehensive) survey of musical-poetic manifestations from Latin America, the Caribbean and their diasporas that emerged during the 1960s and the 1970s. The course revisits this time period by exploring the contributions of myriad countries among which Puerto Rico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, Québec, Haiti, Chile, Argentina, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Martinique/Guadeloupe, and the United States (with a strong emphasis on New York). It analyzes objects and experiences engaged in contesting colonialism, settler colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, racism, capitalism and Eurocentrism highlighting as well the limits (and limitations) of these radical discourses. Using a decolonial/postcolonial lens and an ethnomusicological approach, the course pays careful attention to the politics of these musics, their historical context and aesthetics, and the social imaginary of those who made them possible

MUSI GU4418 Music and Fashion. 3.00 points.

Fashion has been integral to musical performance practices, and music continues to influence fashion. As a result, specific music genres and practitioners are linked to particular fashion trends and movements that represent their persona and appearance. In various cultures around the world, music and fashion play a significant role in marking identity, as practitioners’ cultural heritage impacts the choice of costumes they wear during performances in different spaces and times. Spread through live performances and mass-mediated technology, consumers and fans of these practitioners also adopt and integrate these fashion trends into their everyday styles. This class explores Some of the questions: How does fashion become a visual representation of specific music cultures, subcultures, genres, movements, and artists? How does fashion reflect, influence, inspire, evolve, spread, sustain, represent, affect, and communicate musical ideas? To answer these questions, musical fashion icons such as Beyoncé, Prince, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and David Bowie, and genres like Hip Hop, rock, Opera, K-pop, Afrobeats, and other global genres are examined through written scholarships, analysis of music performances and costumes, and their appearances in events and everyday life. This class explores how fashion trends influence sounds and vice versa, how they mark identity through music, embody symbolic sounds, and attract music consumers and fans who perpetuate these trends

MUSI GU4420 MUSIC AND PROPERTY. 3.00 points.

MUSI GU4425 SOUNDING ISLAM. 3.00 points.

The objective of this course is to explore the relationship between sound, music and Islam and, in doing so, to focus on a philosophy of listening (sama‘) which is deeply embedded in the experiential. The course aims to analyze how sound and music directly or indirectly associated with Islam are produced, circulated, and listened to by a wide variety of audiences in local and transnational settings; to explore the ways in which multiple sonic dimensions of Islam have affected the public sphere in different historical moments and contexts (particular in relation to ideas about nationalism, secularism and modernity); and to examine the effect of these sonic dimensions on Muslim and non-Muslim listeners in a local and a transnational perspective

MUSI GU4500 JAZZ TRANSCRIPTION ＆ ANALYSIS. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. A progressive course in transcribing, proceeding from single lines to full scale sections and ensembles. Stylistic analysis based on new and previously published transcriptions

MUSI GU4505 JAZZ ARRANGING ＆ COMPOSITION. 3.00 points.

Course designed to train students to arrange and compose in a variety of historical jazz styles, including swing, bebop, hard bop, modal, fusion, Latin, and free jazz.

MUSI GU4515 CONDUCTING MUSIC. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: advanced music major and extensive contemporary music background.
Prerequisites: advanced music major and extensive contemporary music background. Analysis of the modern repertory of contemporary music with directional emphasis on actual conducting preparation, beating patterns, rhythmic notational problems, irregular meters, communication, and transference of musical ideas. Topics will include theoretical writing on 20th-century conducting, orchestration, and phrasing

MUSI GU4525 INSTRUMENTATION. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: extensive musical background. Analysis of instrumentation, with directional emphasis on usage, ranges, playing techniques, tone colors, characteristics, interactions and tendencies, all derived from the classic orchestral repertoire. Topics will include theoretical writings on the classical repertory as well as 20th century instrumentation and its advancement. Additional sessions with live orchestral demonstrations are included as part of the course

MUSI GU4630 RECORDED SOUND. 3.00 points.

As music moves into the 21st century, we find ourselves surrounded by an ever-evolving landscape of technological capability. The world of music, and the music industry itself, is changing rapidly, and with that change comes the opening – and closing – of doorways of possibility. What does this shift mean for today’s practicing artist or composer? With big label recording studios signing and nurturing fewer and fewer artists, it seems certain that, today, musicians who want to record and distribute their music need to be able to do much of the recording and production work on their own. But where does one go to learn how to do this – to learn not only the “how to” part of music production, but the historical underpinnings and the development of the music production industry as well? How does one develop a comprehensive framework within which they can place their own artistic efforts? How does one learn to understand what they hear, re-create what they like and develop their own style? This class, “Recorded Sound,” aims to be the answer. It’s goal is to teach artists how to listen critically to music from across history and genres in order to identify the production techniques that they hear, and reproduce those elements using modern technology so they can be incorporated into the artist’s own musical works.

MUSI GU4802 Sound, Music and Death. 3 points.

This seminar is an exploration of the roles of sound and music play in people’s attempts to grapple with death and its many auras. We will read literature from ethnomusicology, anthropology, and sound studies, and listen to musics from many parts of the world, so as to investigate how 1) the processes of aging, decay, and mourning; 2) metaphorical deaths including war and exile; and 3) imaginations of afterlives resound among the living.

MUSI GU4810 Sound: Foundations. 3.00 points.

This foundational course in sound will begin by exploring how listening happens as well the tools necessary capture and present that listening. Through hands-on experimentation and demonstration, this seminar will examine both the technical and semiotic use of sound as amaterial within creative practice. Fundamental studio techniques will be explored including soldering for building cables, microphones, and loudspeakers. We will also explore the building blocks of analog and digital processes for the creation of sound, including microphones (types, patterns, and placement), basic synthesis, and techniques for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering. Through creative projects that implement these skills we will learn by doing. We will study theories of sound and listening that determine or are determined by technology, from the physical and social dimensions of the sounds we use to create, language (sound as a symbol or object), acoustics (sound in space), acousmatics (sound without a visual reference), and psycho-acoustics (sound as cognitive process). This class assumes no prior knowledge or technical skill. Some reading will be assigned and we will look and listen to a lot of work, students are encouraged to participate actively in discussions

MUSI GU4998 SUPERVISED INDEPENDENT STUDY. 1.00-3.00 points.