Courses
MUTH 2100. The Syntax of Music
This is the first course in the core sequence for majors in music; it is designed to engage beginning first-year students in the study of the basic elements and formative principles pertinent and imperative to continued success as music analysts and listeners in the twenty-first century. Further, this course engages aspects of non-tonal and non-Western musics as an entryway into understanding the principles and themes of the Common Practice Period. The Syntax of Music includes the study of intervals; keys and clefs; scales and modes; triads and seventh chords; basic rhythmic elements; species counterpoint; introductory chord progressions and cadences; elementary compositional techniques; and computer notation.
MUTH 2200. Harmonic Idioms of the Common Practice Period
The second course in the core sequence for majors in music, Harmonic Idioms focuses on four-part voice leading principles, according to the stylistic traits of J. S. Bach and his contemporaries. This course introduces elements such as basic chordal structures in all inversions; realization of figured bass; voice-leading principles; and introductory modulatory techniques.
MUTH 2300. Musical Expansions: the 20th Century to the Present
The third course in the core sequence for majors in music, Musical Expansions is weighted toward listening, analytical writing, and composition. This course is designed to introduce advanced harmonic materials such as modally-borrowed and scalar variant chords, the Neapolitan chord, and Augmented 6th chords; as well as linear structures and techniques of enharmonic modulation. Other topics include: introduction to non-functional tonality; artificial/exotic scales; introduction to dodecaphony and set theoretical principles; neo-classical formal design; introduction to minimalism and texturalism; contemporary rhythmic practices; experimentalism and indeterminacy in music; and microtonalism.
MUTH 2400. Elements of Analysis
The fourth and final course in the core sequence for majors in music, Elements of Analysis is weighted toward the formal and structural analysis of music of any and all genres: tonal and post-tonal, Western and non-Western, “classical” and “popular.” This course involves the study of small and large Classical formal designs, as well as invention and fugue, set theoretical analysis, dodecaphonic analysis, reductive analysis, descriptive analysis, and microtonal analysis.
MUTH 3210. Post-tonal Analysis
Post-tonal Analysis is an upper-division course, required for theory/composition majors and available as an elective to any student who has completed the core curriculum in music theory. This course introduces analytical techniques for music operating outside the realm of standardized harmonic structures and/or formal designs of the common practice. General topics include non-functional tonal analysis, set theoretical analysis, dodecaphonic analysis, and textural/structural analysis.
MUTH 3220. Musical Explorations: Bartók
This is an elective seminar course, open to any student who has completed the core curriculum in music theory, or by permission of the instructor. The Bartók Seminar offers an in-depth investigation of the remarkable Hungarian composer’s life and music, including a detailed biography, meticulous study of his unique approaches to tonality and formal design, and a penetrating look into his exhaustive cataloguing of regional folk musics.
COMP 1150-4303. Applied Composition
Private lessons involving the one-on-one mentoring of composition students. Required for all composition majors/concentrators. Each semester, after consultation with his/her studio teacher, the student will begin work on various compositional projects, with the end-goal being to add new works to a comprehensive, ongoing, extensive and diverse four-year portfolio, from which several pieces will be selected for a composition recital (majors only) during the senior year.
COMP 1000. Composition Studio Class
The purpose of the Composition Studio Class is first and foremost to be a wellspring of creative inspiration. But it is also a “laboratory” for the types of practical, professional, and pedagogical discussions and experiences imperative to the study of composition/theory as a discipline. The professors encourage the group to suggest possible topics of interest or foci of discussion for the faculty-led sessions; for example, specific composers or pieces, pragmatic questions about the business of being a composer, or aesthetic issues about music in the twenty-first century.
MLAS 6100/MUSL 1320. The Music of the Outliers
This is a course designed for non-majors in music or even non-musicians. It seeks to answer questions regarding how music affects us as listeners; how musical “standards” are created; how the unorthodox becomes orthodox; to what degree are composers and artists obligated to move us forward, to “push buttons;” and what constitutes “going too far?” These are the types of questions raised, explicitly or implicitly, by concert-goers, educators, music critics, and composers. Perhaps more than any other medium, music has been tethered to the expectation of certain standards of beauty or sensibility, often at the expense of progressive thought. This course ventures into the world of the “outliers,” those composers and artists who challenge the world around them to think about music in new ways, to listen with unorthodox ears. Much can be learned from their approaches to what music actually is, and what it could be.