Class Piano

This course is an introduction to basic keyboard skills for beginner pianists. Students develop technique and music-reading skills through solo repertoire and ensemble playing. Applied music theory such as major and minor scales, keyboard harmony and improvisation is also explored. Repeatable for credit. Prerequisite: MUS 100. Enrollment limited to 8. Instructor permission required.

Intro to Violin Ensemble

This is a group ensemble course focused on violin playing at the beginner level. Students learn how to perform with proper technique in a group setting on violin as well as how to read music. Listening assignments highlight the versatility of violin playing throughout various time periods and musical styles. Prerequisite: Any topic of MUS 100 (may be concurrent.) Enrollment limited to 8. Instructor permission required. (E)

Sem: Writing About Music

This course considers various kinds of writing--from daily journalism and popular criticism to academic monographs and scholarly essays--that concern the broad history of music. Via regular writing assignments and group discussions of substance and style, students have opportunities to improve the mechanics, tone and range of their written prose. Required of senior majors; open to others with instructor permission. Restrictions: Juniors and seniors only. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required.

Experimental Music

What counts as music? Who decides? Can anyone make music? This course raises these and other questions by focusing on experimental music. The course explores the history and practice of experimental music, focusing on text, graphic and other forms of notation. The course also looks at the history of experimental music in performance and makes in-class performances of several key pieces. Through reading and practice, the course asks questions about musical authority, skill and even failure, and the role of institutions in shaping musical ideas.

Girl Groups Through History

The term "girl groups" typically refers to the close-harmony all-women pop groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Yet groups like the Andrews Sisters, the Shirelles, and, most famously, the Supremes, represent only one manifestation of a centuries-long musical practice in which groups of young women have sung together, from enslaved women of the medieval Islamic world to Vivaldi's young pupils at the Ospedale della Pietà to Motown. For centuries, these groups have enthralled listeners and inspired composers.

Diction for Singers

In this course, students learn to use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as an efficient tool to approach accuracy in lyric diction. Choral and solo singers must frequently perform music in languages that they do not speak, and therefore often struggle to sing with accurate pronunciation. IPA is a set of orthographic characters, almost entirely based on the Roman alphabet, that standardizes phonetics across most major languages. Prerequisite: MUS 952, MUS 953, or individual voice performance lessons must be taken concurrently. Enrollment limited to 20.
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