Music

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.

This course is designed for students who have little or no experience with playing, performing, reading, studying, composing, or improvising music. Students will be introduced to both skills and concepts that will enable them to participate in music making and deepen their appreciation of all types of music. 

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

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

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.

In this course we will study major works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) in the Enlightenment cultures of players, listeners, and the operatic stage. Drawing on the influential persona theory of Edward T. Cone (The Composer’s Voice) that seeks to answer the question “If music is a language, then who is speaking?” we will consider the multiple personas Mozart constructed as vehicles for musical expression. For instrumental music (chamber music, concerto, symphony, fantasia) our topics will include musical sociability, the agency of instrumental protagonists, and the projection of affective states. For comic opera, the natural home of deceptive practices, we will consider the many ironies of persuasion. To what extent is the composer “in the work”? These insights may be applied to other composers in the western classical tradition. Reading knowledge of music is NOT required in this course.

In order to exist, the female vocal celebrity needs a public. This course takes a global perspective on women’s voices, bodies, and performances, examining them in deep sociocultural contexts across a range of classical and popular music genres. Guiding questions interrogate the role of media and technology in commercializing and circulating the sounds and images of women singers on an international scale, forging new arenas for meaning-making around gender, race, and citizenship. Considering the historically, socially, and materially situated circumstances in which celebrated women performers have emerged in the modern era, the course asks: How did the expressive labor of virtuosic female singers shape the early US entertainment industry? In what ways have women singers around the world impacted nation-centered political agendas, struggles for racial equality, and other powerful religious and secular social formations? How did sound reproduction and broadcasting technology not only expand audiences on an exponential scale, but transform listeners’ experience of female singers’ live performance? Cross-culturally and throughout history, why have exceptional women vocalists had greater public impact than women instrumentalists? 

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.

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.

Elementary analysis and composition in a variety of modal and tonal idioms. 

Elementary analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms.  

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.

In this course, students at all levels of experience and musical interest will participate in solo and group activities and projects with a focus on musical beat, meter, and rhythm patterns, developing a sense of steady and changing tempo, and an understanding how rhythm contributes to style in music. Rhythmic articulation, nuance, and interpretation will be developed through the impact of agogic, metric, tonal, and dynamic accent. This course combines the standards of conservatory musicianship with standards of critical thinking, here represented as critical listening. The repertoire for Musicianship: Rhythm covers vocal and instrumental music, and is open to classical, pop, jazz, folk, music theatre, computer, and international music styles and genres.

In this course, students at all levels of experience and musical interest will participate in solo and group activities and projects with a focus on musical beat, meter, and rhythm patterns, developing a sense of steady and changing tempo, and an understanding how rhythm contributes to style in music. Rhythmic articulation, nuance, and interpretation will be developed through the impact of agogic, metric, tonal, and dynamic accent. This course combines the standards of conservatory musicianship with standards of critical thinking, here represented as critical listening. The repertoire for Musicianship: Rhythm covers vocal and instrumental music, and is open to classical, pop, jazz, folk, music theatre, computer, and international music styles and genres.

In this course, students at all levels of experience and musical interest will participate in solo and group activities and projects with a focus on scales, intervals, melodic contour and phrasing, and how they contribute to style in music. The repertoire for Musicianship: Melody covers vocal and instrumental music, and is open to classical, pop, jazz, folk, music theatre, computer, and international music styles and genres.

In this course, students at all levels of experience and musical interest will examine the phenomenon of simultaneous sound with chords and chord progressions, and experience harmony’s impact on musical structure and style. Harmonic articulation, nuance, and interpretation will be developed through the exploration of agogic, metric, tonal, and dynamic accent. The repertoire for Musicianship: Harmony covers vocal and instrumental music, and is open to classical, pop, jazz, folk, music theatre, computer, and international music styles and genres.

In this course, students at all levels of experience and musical interest will examine the phenomenon of simultaneous sound with chords and chord progressions, and experience harmony’s impact on musical structure and style. Harmonic articulation, nuance, and interpretation will be developed through the exploration of agogic, metric, tonal, and dynamic accent. The repertoire for Musicianship: Harmony covers vocal and instrumental music, and is open to classical, pop, jazz, folk, music theatre, computer, and international music styles and genres.

The decade of the 1970s was marked by uprisings on both sides of the Mediterranean, by progressive movements that laid the groundwork for socio-political struggles in the face of evolving global structures of power, and by battles against leftist political movements in which the dominant systems adopted extreme means of police and military violence and repression. Using a broad definition of protest songs, the course focuses on the musicopoetic production of dissent as a site of social and political critique. It examines the link between different forms of protest, change, and socio-political meanings of musicopoetic expressions, and explores how songs articulating protest function in specific contexts and in relation to what should be understood as a geography of protest in the Mediterranean. To this end the course asks: what is a protest song? What kind of political and social action can a song take? How does a song reflect societal concerns?  And what impact have protest songs had in creating change? Organized through a series of case studies, the course looks at popular songs encoded with socio-political meaning that emerged during the 1970s around the shores of the Mediterranean. We will pay close attention to poetic texts, music features and performance styles to examine songs’ capacity to intervene in socio-political struggles of the past, and what these songs can still offer us in the present.

Topics in western music from the Classical Era to the 20th Century, focusing on the development of musical style and thought, and on analysis of selected works. Pre-req: Music Theory II or permission of instructor. 

This course provides an immersive experience in music composition, focusing on both practical and theoretical aspects within a given instrumentation. Please refer to the topic for the instrumentation for this semester’s course. This class is open to students with no prior experience in composition. Students of varying music backgrounds are welcome. Permission of the instructor may be required for enrollment. The class will explore a variety of compositional approaches, including traditional, experimental, and interdisciplinary methods. During the semester, students will complete several creative and theoretical exercises ranging from short composition projects to analytical responses to diverse works. Students will also engage in individual and group feedback sessions as well as in-class readings of selected compositional projects by the performers. The final project will be an original work between 5 and 7 minutes, which will be workshopped, rehearsed, performed in a public concert, and recorded by professional musicians towards the end of the term.

Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms. 

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

Queer dance floors balance utopian longing and material constraint. Sweat, flesh, and rhythm intermingle, allowing queer people to build counter-publics on the dance floor. At the same time, queer clubs have been entangled in the gentrification of traditionally Black and brown neighborhoods. This course explores tensions within queerness surrounding race and class by examining New York based queer electronic dance music scenes from the 1970s to the present. Through practice-based assignments, students will learn electronic music production techniques to develop their own dance music. Through journaling, students will reflect on how their identies have been shaped by dance.

This course explores the recording studio and Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) as tools for diverse compositional practices. By exploring a range of recording and editing techniques to craft new musical works beyond the limitations of live performance, this class encourages a seamless blend of composition and music production. Various genres, artists, and techniques that push the boundaries of music recording will be studied, such as Jamaican dub, musique concrète, hyper-pop, jazz fusion, and more. Students will gain hands-on experience with DAWs, exploring tools like effects processing, layering, and spatial placement. They will learn to listen closely to pieces exemplifying these techniques, building a shared analytic vocabulary to describe them. Students will also create original pieces, applying and building on the techniques studied in class, while engaging in constructive feedback with peers.

Modular Sound Synthesis is a hands-on studio class that explores contemporary techniques for synthesizers both in studio practice and performance while framing them in the historical context in which they developed. The class approaches the fundamentals of sound and synthesis through the perspective of Columbia’s Computer Music Center: vintage function generators, suitcase reel-to-reel tape machines, prototype modules, custom devices; and the first programmable music synthesizer, the RCA Mark II. Students will learn to perform and compose on both hardware devices and software emulations, utilizing them as a creative tool for recording and live performance. Topics include oscillators, modulation, sequencers, voltage processing, wave shaping, filters, and LFOs. The course will engage in listening to both historical and contemporary examples to develop critical listening skills. This class is designed as a follow-up to Intro to Digital Music for undergraduates or graduate students interested in integrating modular synthesis within their artistic practice.

This course examines the transatlantic sounds of African music, including Afrobeat, Afrobeats, Amapiano, Chimurenga, Highlife, Kwaito, Makossa, Reggae, and more, to explore the rich cultural roots of African musical traditions and how they navigate and assimilate within the global popular culture sphere. From migration and collaborations to the rise of African artists in the era of advanced technology, the course uncovers how these genres transcend borders, inspire cross-cultural innovation, and influence the global music scene in contemporary times. Critical issues such as cultural appropriation, commodification, gender, health, and authenticity in the ever-evolving global music industry will be explored. By the end of the course, you will have a deep understanding of the complex dynamics driving the influence and dissemination of African music across the world.

Recording Studio Sessions places students in weekly recording sessions with guest bands and music ensembles. The course aims to give students as much hands-on recording studio experience as possible, with the end goal of developing studio skills that lead to the production of professional-level audio materials. Students explore a wide range of studio experiences, from learning both digital and analog workflows to handling varied musical groups, so that, following the course, they may either pursue further study in upper-level sound engineering programs, find work in professional studios, or simply gain a more profound understanding of the studio environment for their own creative work.

This course provides an opportunity for students in the Music Department’s Composition DMA program to engage in off-campus practicum or internships in music composition for academic credit that will count towards the requirements for the degree.

Interdisciplinary group work as part of Dissertation Proposal Seminar series.