Music

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.

A survey of the development of Western music from the first Viennese Classical school at the end of the 18th century to the present, with emphasis upon composers and forms. Extensive listening required.

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).

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.

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.

Investigation of how the composition, libretti, and production of operas are connected to their cultural, social, and political contexts.

This course seeks to explore the significance of sound for understanding the negotiation the relation between the sacred and the secular, in light of recent work in critical religious studies. It seeks to explore the acoustic dimensions of the 'turn to religion' by exploring the uses of sound in mediating the relationship between the sacred and the secular in different cultures.

Interdisciplinary study of sacred dramas from the 12th and 13th centuries, including the Play of Daniel, Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, and plays from the Fleury Playbook and Carmina Burana collections. Emphasis on the historical and cultural contexts of the plays.

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 orality 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 to going over texts in the original language using Paden’s book. Individually designed paper assignments will take students’ backgrounds into account; students from all departments are welcome.

Jewish Music is rich and diverse.  We known more about the contexts and uses of Jewish music than the music itself.  Prior to recordings of music, musical notation is the most accurate record of the “actual” music.  Notation of Western music develops and grows from the year 1000.  For Jewish music the date of notation of music is 1750.  Ashkenazic European liturgical music traditions are the first to be notated in the Jewish traditions.  Secular and art music does not begin for well over one years, it begins in the late 1800s.  Many liturgical traditions remain in the oral tradition.  There are many challenges to understand the history of Jewish music.  Investigating the role of culture and contexts of Jewish music opens the door for a productive inquiry.  Topics for discussion include: tradition and innovation, nationalism, culture contact, responses to modernity, and music and identity.

This seminar addresses the relationship between music and childhood through a focus on the following areas: child musicians, music written for or about children, the role of music in the creation of "childhood" as a modern cultural construct, and the history of musical education, and the shaping of identity through music. We will address a variety of themes using both diachronic and synchronic analyses. Students will pursue research projects in their own areas of interest that may overlap with or complement the course content. 

This course provides training in writing, improvising, singing, and analyzing 16th-c. modal counterpoint. Students will be introduced to theoretical ideas found in Renaissance treatises, which they will apply to repertoire examples and to their own compositions.

The goals of this course are practice-oriented. The end result will be short fieldwork-based project of approxiamtely 20 pages in length. In order to complete the paper, students will conduct fieldwork, read and synthesize relevant literatures, and think carefully about the questions in which they are interested and methods of addressing them through ethnographic inquiry.

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.

This course provides an introduction to contemporary work on music and place from an ethnomusicological perspective. It situates ethnomusicological work and specific musical case studies from multiple geographical regions within an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that draws from the fields of cultural anthropology, cultural, media, and sound studies.

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

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.

The course explores programming techniques and concepts in computer music interactivity, or the creation of compositions that incorporate software that responds to live musical performance, environmental activity, and other real-world contingencies. The Max/MSP programming platform is sued for MIDI, digital audio, and other interfacing techniques. Interactive works from the worlds of music, visual art, and performance are also presented. Basic knowledge of computer operation is required; basic knowledge of MIDI, Max/MSP, and/or digital audio is recommended.

This course consolidates two components of the systematic professional training and pedagogical formation of graduate students in the Department of Music. G6000 is taught by the chair of the Core Curriculum course, Masterpieces of Western Music (Music Humanities). The course streamlines the process by which students in the four different doctoral degree programs (historical musicology, ethnomusicology, theory, and composition) are trained to teach their own sections of Music Humanities. Students also learn about applying for academic positions, preparing curriculum vitae, submitting journal articles,  preparing book proposals, and other professional skills.

Introduction to Historical Musicology: the history of the discipline, major areas of research, source materials, and methodological problems.

This course explores through the prism of Beethoven's music the relationship between musical practice and philosophical discourse in the aesthetic critique of modernity.

Introduction to the main bodies of modern cultural theory, how these theories help to understand the music, and how to formulate new questions.

This seminar will introduce students to the life and music of Billie Holiday. Because Holiday's style and repertoire drew on many sources and shifted radically several times throughout her life, attention will be paid to her sources among women singers in European, American, and African-American cabaret, Broadway musical theater, African American folk music, and Tin Pan Alley popular music. The nature of song itself will be considered, especially in terms of its social functions and how singers and audiences understand sung performances. We will also examine Holiday's autobiography, as well as films and documentaries of her life.

An introduction to the intellectual history of Ethnomusicology in the context of the history of musical scholarship in the 20th-century.

Training in composing in tonal styles, including: Baroque fugues; Classical minuets, variations, and sonata-form movements; Romantic songs and preludes.

The study of music cognition from the perspective of music theory with interdisciplinary connections to psychoacoustics, theoretical linguistics, and especially cognitive psychology.

The professionalization of music studies in the several decades around 1900 occurred in close conjunction with the emergence of new forms of knowledge commonly referred to as the "human sciences": psychology, anthropology, sociology, history. How have the tendencies of musical inquiry been shaped by these early affiliations? What other forms of questioning may have fallen by the wayside, and with what implications? Course material is organized around the history of "music theory" broadly interpreted to include comparative musicology, hermeneutics, psychology, phenomenology, and philosophical anthropology.

A study of the basic principles of set theory. Concepts illustrated with examples from the atonal and twelve-tone repertory.

Study of 18th-century counterpoint through compositional exercises, including: fughettas (after Fux); invertible counterpoint and canon; and inventions and fugues (in the style of Bach).

Overview of current work in Music Theory, an analysis, perception, and philosophy. Major areas of research and methodological challenges.

Analysis of rhythm and meter in selected tonal compositions. Study of recent theories of rhythm and meter by such writers as Cooper and Meyer, Cone, Berry, Epstein, Lerdahl and Jackendoff, Lester, and Kramer.

The grouping, stress, meter, and contour of lines of poetry treated in terms of their music counterparts, drawing on recent linguistic and music theories.

Analysis of techniques in successful works from the past and explorations into the deeper understanding of orchestrational principles that our current knowledge of acoustics and our techniques of sonic and analysis offer. Empirical and theoretical knowledge are combined in an effort both to understand the masterworks of the past and to provide a framework of each composer's future personal explorations.

Investigation and analysis of styles and techniques of music since 1900, carried out in part through individual projects. (Prior to Spring 2008, the course was titled 20-Century Styles and Techniques.)

Investigation and analysis of styles and techniques of music since 1900, carried out in part through individual projects. (Prior to Spring 2008, the course was titled 20-Century Styles and Techniques.)

Analysis of Western Popular music including pop, rock, soul, electronic dance music, and hip hop through recent approaches. Topics will include the applicability of analytical techniques designed for Western art music, the role of notation, relationship of text and context, and the roles of popular music in identity formation.

Introduction to Ethnomusicology: the history of the discipline and the evolution of theories and methods. G6412, Proseminar in Ethnomusicology II: "Contemporary Ethnography" is offered Fall 2012.

Introduction to Ethnomusicology: the history of the discipline and the evolution of theories and methods. G6412, Proseminar in Ethnomusicology II: "Contemporary Ethnography" is offered Fall 2012.

The purpose of this project is to teach the student how to write a research proposal. This research proposal is to be used both as the formal dissertation research proposal and to apply for grants.

The course explores the politics of desire through three main contrastive and complementary arenas: the politics of desire as mediated by the state; the politics of desire as mediated by music and, the politics of desire as mediated by literature and film. The course will be simultaneously announced at NYU, CUNY and Columbia, programmed at the same time in all campuses. Four classes will be taught in each of the campuses. All professors are present at all lectures and contribute to all lectures. Students register through their home institution.  

This course explores the relation between music, myth and indigeneity with particular emphasis on the work of Lévi-Strauss and musical ethnographies from indigenous South America.

In this year-long sequence students gain familiarity with the materials used in electroacoustic music and the techniques and equipment that are employed to transform and organize these materials into compositions. Individual projects are assigned.

This year-long sequence explores advanced topics relating to the production of music by computer. Although programming experience is not a prerequisite, various programming techniques are enlisted to investigate interface design, algorithmic composition, and computer analysis of digital audio.  Some familiarity with computer music hardware/software is expected.

This course examines the role of music in salon culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with particular emphasis on the cities of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Topics include: theories of conversation and musical rhetoric; gender and the salonnières; the growth of the publishing industry/music for popular consumption; virtuosity and connoisseurship; the reception of “sociable” and serious genres in the emerging Romantic age. Final projects may be either research oriented or historiographic in nature.

The course examines the role of music/sound in new media theory, history, and practice. Topics include definitions, histories, and framings of sound art, the poetics of sound-inflected intermedia and computer interactivity, the sociality of the soundscape, discourses of listening, technologies of presence and synaesthesia, and intersections between new media and ethno/musicology.

The seminar will explore how the rise of capitalism, commerce, merchant banking and a burgeoning merchant class affected the makers, consumers, and patrons of western music alike from 1450 to the present.  Emerging markets in the history of music will be identified, and several publishers, composers, performers, institutions, and financiers who exploited them will be singled out.

Individual projects in composition.

The study and evaluation of contemporary compositional organization from the perspective of the cognitive science of music.

A study of the meanings and cultural significance of music and music theory; integration of music theory with areas outside of music, such as aesthetics, literary criticism, cognitive psychology, sociology of music, semiotics, phenomenology, theories of narrative, hierarchy theory, and linguistics.

Interdisciplinary exploration of the music and life of composer and folk music advocate Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953). Considers her prescient contributions to modernism and American traditional music through analytical study of her compositions and recent Crawford scholarship. 

  Detailed analysis of selected works by Claude Debussy in conjunction with pertinent theoretical perspectives on modernism and modernity.

This course addresses theoretical issues in musical temporality from a variety of angles, including studies in rhythm and meter, as well as philosophical, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives.

This seminar examines hip hop from a music-theoretical perspective, focusing on close readings of music analyzed alongside recent scholarly work on hip-hop.  We will explore the some of the key texts that have presented theoretical and analytical work on hip hop music, and students will prepare their own listening-based analyses of selected works throughout the term, culminating with a final presentation and paper. Throughout the course, we will track key words in hip hop studies such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, politics, society, class, representation, and diaspora, focusing on recordings, performances, videos, and films. While our roots will remain firmly in music, the seminar will consider hip hop through multiple lenses by examining the current hip hop literature by authors situated in music theory, ethnomusicology, musicology, music theory, anthropology, linguistics, cultural studies, American Studies, ethnic studies, women's/gender/sexuality studies, sociology, and English. Readings will help to locate music, artists, and genres within their various contexts, which in tum will assist us in our analysis of specific works. Critical reflection upon hip hop performance is an integral part of the course.

A study of the theoretical and practical aspects of ethnomusicological field work, using the New York area as a setting for exercises and individual projects.

This seminar will explore the role that Alan Lomax and his family played in creating a distinctively American approach to folklore and ethnomusicology. Topics will include the history of Anglo- and African American folk song collecting; the Archive of American Folk Song; the popularization of folk song (Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Carl Sandburg, Pete Seeger, Zora Neal Hurston, Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, the recording business and radio, the second folk revival, and folk festivals.); Lomax's stay in the UK, Spain and Italy; the mapping of the world's song styles; the use of micro-cultural studies of the body in song, dance, and speech; and new approaches to the use of film, video, and the computer.

A survey of the life and music of Miles Davis, examining the social history and musical traditions that shaped his work, and exploring his influence on music, performance, literature and other arts.

This course will focus on the question of aesthetics in popular music. When scholars tackle popular music as an object of analysis or critique, it is usually thought of in terms of its use as a space of productive if often muted political agency, as active participant in its own commodification or as the able expression of subaltern or aggrieved communities. In this course, however, while touching on those themes, we will think through the aesthetics - both as a theory of beauty as well as a philosophy of art  - of popular music. The majority of the readings deal with Anglophone popular music; however, there will be an effort to include English-language texts that deal with popular music from across the globe.

The objective of this seminar is to explore sexuality in music and dance cultures through an ethnographic perspective. We will examine relevant literature in ethnomusicology, anthropology, performance studies, and in other disciplines in which ethnography is an important component of methodology. A critical concern of this seminar is to analyze the influence that the globalization of sexuality has had on academic theories and writings on the subject. To this end, we will also look at the role played by works that challenge a universalization of sexuality.

Individual projects in composition.

This course explores New York's avant-garde music scenes and networks since 1950. Examples are drawn from a wide range of music, including "downtown" minimalism, "uptown" serialism, free jazz, and punk rock. In addition to investigating the aesthetic and conceptual underpinnings of these genres, we will study their entwinement with venues and institutions such as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, the Harlem Cultural Council, the Kitchen, the Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and CBGB. We will have the chance to visit a number of these spaces. Although music will be our primary lens through which to study New York's postwar cultural life, we will also explore interconnections between music, visual art, and theater in Fluxus, intermedia, and performance art movements. As such, this course is heavily interdisciplinary, and we will read widely in musicology, art history, literary theory, media studies, sociology, and performance studies. Each week's discussion will be guided by these readings, as well as by in-class and out-of-class listening. Musicians/composers/artists to be studied include John Cage, Meredith Monk, Ornette Coleman, Milton Babbitt, Laurie Anderson, the Afro-American Singing Theater, La Monte Young, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, the Velvet Underground, Joan La Barbara, Anthony Braxton, Elliott Carter, the Talking Heads, John Zorn, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, and Julius Eastman.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Performance of vocal and instrumental music from the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods. The Collegium usually gives one public concert each term.

The orchestra performs throughout the academic year in works spanning all periods of music including contemporary compositions. Distinguished guest soloists sometimes perform with the orchestra, and qualified student soloists may also have the opportunity either to perform or read concertos with the orchestra. Staff positions: a few persons interested in managerial work may gain experience as orchestra librarian and personnel manager.

The orchestra performs throughout the academic year in works spanning all periods of music including contemporary compositions. Distinguished guest soloists sometimes perform with the orchestra, and qualified student soloists may also have the opportunity either to perform or read concertos with the orchestra. Staff positions: a few persons interested in managerial work may gain experience as orchestra librarian and personnel manager.

Students registering for chamber music receive ensemble training with the performance associates. Student chamber ensembles perform a recital at the conclusion of each semester and are given other opportunities to perform throughout the academic year. See further mpp.music.columbia.edu for current list of Music Performance Associates.

Students registering for chamber music receive ensemble training with the performance associates. Student chamber ensembles perform a recital at the conclusion of each semester and are given other opportunities to perform throughout the academic year. See further mpp.music.columbia.edu for current list of Music Performance Associates.

A small advanced jazz band. The repertoire will cover 1950's hard bop to more adventurous contemporary Avant Garde styles. Students will be required to compose and arrange for the group under the instructor's supervision. Visit mpp.music.columbia.edu for more information. 

A small advanced jazz band. The repertoire will cover 1950's hard bop to more adventurous contemporary Avant Garde styles. Students will be required to compose and arrange for the group under the instructor's supervision. Visit mpp.music.columbia.edu for more information. 

Introduce students to specific non-western and non-classical styles and cultures through active participation in group lessons and rehearsal, culminating each semester in at least one public performance. Ensembles offered are: Arab Music; Bluegrass; Japanese Gagaku; Japanese Hogaku; Klezmer; Latin Music. Visit mpp.music.columbia.edu for more information.

Introduce students to specific non-western and non-classical styles and cultures through active participation in group lessons and rehearsal, culminating each semester in at least one public performance. Ensembles offered are: Arab Music; Bluegrass; Japanese Gagaku; Japanese Hogaku; Klezmer; Latin Music.

Historical survey of rock music from its roots in the late 1940s to the present day.

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

In this course we will study major works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) in the context of Viennese classicism and its multiple audiences, the cultures of the Enlightenment, and the connections between biography and art. We will also consider Mozart’s impact on later composers and publics, the changing approaches to performing his music, and his role in popular culture. Reading knowledge of music is NOT required in this course, nor is a background beyond Music Humanities.

This course is detailed survey of Russian national and international composers from Glinka to Shostakovich, and will also address Russian realism, orientalism, the relationship between composers and poets of the Russian Symbolist era, the Ballets Russes, Soviet film music, and musical aesthetics. A knowledge of Russian is not required.

An introduction to the potential of digital synthesis by means of the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). Teaches proficiency in elementary and advanced MIDI techniques. Challenges some of the assumptions about music built into the MIDI specifications and fosters a creative approach to using MIDI machines.

The objective of this course is to explore the relationship between listening, sound, and music across different cultures and in different historical moments and contexts. This will be explored by studying the historical formation of the sound archive of different parts of the world and the emergence of new technologies in the early twentieth century, and how different cultures consider the relation between natural and musical sounds.

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?

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.

This course will examine the diverse ways in which Asian Americans have understood and shaped their musical practices. We will explore the ways in which Asians have been represented via sound, text, and image, and will consider Asian Americans' participation in composed music traditions, jazz, traditional/folk music, diasporic music, improvised music, and popular musics. The course will reflect on readings from musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory as well as fields outside of music in order to consider gender/sexuality, polyculturalism, and political activism.

Analysis of the vocal music of Johann Sebastian Bach in its historical and cultural context with particular focus on the sacred cantatas, the St. Matthew Passion and the B minor Mass.

Survey of the music of Brahms, examining a wide range of genres as well as his historical and cultural position.

This course approaches the history of musical modernism through the lens of opera. Although we'll be consi dering many of the major stylistic movements of the twentieth century, we'll also be discussing how the sheer stubbornness of operatic tradition complicates narratives of development and progress. We'll be listening to six operas in their entirety: Claude Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande, Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and The Rake's Progress, Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, and John Adams' Nixon in China.

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.

The combination of music and word in song and other genres has led to some of the most contentious debates in Western musical thought. This course surveys these major debates, with close examination of select works and their historical contexts. Working with methods from poetry analysis, music analysis, semiotics, and historical musicology we will consider how composers and poets have negotiated the combinations of their arts, and how cultural and political forces have influenced their decisions. Students will complete a semester-long project on a song of their choosing.

Composition in more extended forms. Survey of advanced techniques of contemporary composition. (Previously called Advanced Composition.)

An exploration of tonal rhythmic, melodic and harmonic practice expressed in model compositions. Projects will be based on a variety of genre, techniques and idioms to include Baroque fugues, Classical minuets, variations, and sonata-form movements; Romantic songs and preludes. Analyses of compositions by, among others, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann will serve as models.

Fulfills the requirement of either the 3000-level advanced theory elective or the nontonal course. A study of the basic principles of set theory through the writings of Schoenberg, Babbitt, Forte, Martino, Lewin, et al. Concepts illustrated with examples from late 19th- and early 20th-century repertory.

An examination of Schenker's concepts of the relation between strict counterpoint and free writing; "prolongation"; the "composing-out" of harmonies; the parallels and distinctions between "foreground," "middle ground," and "background"; and the interaction between composing-out and thematic processes to create "form.

Materials, styles, and techniques of 20th-century music. Topics include scales, chords, sets, atonality, serialism, neoclassicism, and rhythm.

The study of baroque counterpoint in the style of J. S. Bach; general aspects of voice-leading; dances, inventions; canons; expositions of fugues.

In this highly participatory music theory seminar, we will analyze in depth some unusal patterns of harmony and melody across a range of alternative music: tracks by the alt-rock bands Radiohead and Portishead, the singer-songwriters Bjork and Sufjan Stevens, the "alt-classical" composer Max Richetr, and the alternative electronic artists Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Autechre. Student work will include weekly model compositions, and a final presentation and paper.

In this course, we explore the reciprocal relationships created between music and other artistic media such as text, images, dance, and film when combined in multimedia works. “Multimedia” is defined broadly here, encompassing artworks that involve multiple artistic dimensions, including songs and program music as well as dance and film. Readings about music in songs and musical drama, dance, film, video games, and cartoons will facilitate class discussions in a seminar setting, involving compositional techniques and approaches, as well as issues of aesthetics, interpretation and analysis, and politics of race, gender, and society as demonstrated in the numerous multimedia works we will discuss. This course is open to all majors.

An introduction to the field of ethnomusicology in the context of the intellectual history of music scholarship.  IN FALL 2011, THIS COURSE WILL BE OFFERED TR 6:10-7:25 IN RM 622 DODGE.

This course is about the relationship between popular music and literature in Latin America. It covers such topics as the relationship between the lettered city and popular culture as well as orality and the written word. In the course we will read novels and poetry by authors who have also been composers and/or musicologists and explore the production of composers who have also been recognized as important literary figures.

Main objective is to gain a familiarity with and understanding of recording, editing, mixing, and mastering of recorded music and sounds using Pro Tools software. Discusses the history of recorded production, microphone technique, and the idea of using the studio as an instrument for the production and manipulation of sound.

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. How does one learn to understand what they hear, re-create what they like and develop their own style? This class, “The History and Techniques of Music Production,” 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.

Keyboards: K. Cooper. Strings: R. Morley. Wind instruments:  TBA.   $500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS.  â€‹All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to​ ​major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees​ ​waived, are required to make an appointment with​ Prof. Brad Garton (*Special ​j​azz concentrators will ​meet with​ Prof. ​Chris​ ​Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER​ â€‹â€‹during the​ ​registration period, in order to register for appropriate courses.  â€‹Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement.  â€‹All accepted MPP ​students must register for lessons and ensembles ​by the change-of-program​ deadline​ in order to ​be allowed to attend lessons that semester.  Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.

Keyboards: K. Cooper. Strings: R. Morley. Wind instruments:  TBA.  $500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

Lessons emphasize the progressive development of a harmonic vocabulary representative of the techniques of the central tradition of 18th- and 19th-century music.   $500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline. 

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

This undergraduate seminar offers historical and critical perspectives on music and the brain between approximately 1660 and 1870. Through engaging with scholarship and primary sources from disciplines including musicology, philosophy, and the history of science and medicine, we will focus on the role of music in shifting understandings of mental states, aesthetic ideals, methods of treatment, and questions of sensation, attention, and cognition. We will examine the role of resonance and vibration in various models of mental activity, conceptualizations of music as a healing or destabilizing medium, as well as the role of musical instruments and sounds in different philosophical and physiological theories of the body. Based on our readings and investigations, students will develop new strategies for engaging with music from analytical, historical, and scientific perspectives. The course is intended to foster interdisciplinary engagement between musicology, the history of science and medicine, and disability studies, providing students with critical tools to examine constructions of music and the brain in various contexts.

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

$500 MUSIC LESSON FEE FOR NON-MAJORS/CONCENTRATORS. All freshmen and sophomore students wishing to major/minor/concentrate in music, and thereby get their lesson fees waived, are required to make an appointment with Prof. Brad Garton ( *Special j azz concentrators will meet with Prof. Chris Washburne), Dean of Undergraduate Studies, EVERY SEMESTER during the registration period , in order to register for appropriate courses . Fees will not be waived without meeting this requirement. All accepted MPP students must register for lessons and ensembles by the change-of-program deadline in order to be allowed to attend lessons that semester. Petitioning students must notify MPP staff prior to this deadline.  

Explores and compares the various listening traditions that have been applied from the late nineteenth century to the present to the songs of birds, whales, dogs, and other nonhuman animals.

The development of Wagner’s musical-dramatic style and critical thought, with special reference to The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, Die Walküre, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal, as well as selected prose writings in translation.

The popular and academic reputations of Giacomo Puccini have diverged more sharply than those of any other classical composer. This course aims less to "rehabilitate" Puccini than to imagine an alternate history of modernism in which his music plays a central role. Discussions will be centered around six operas, which we will be listening to in their entirety, as well as a variety of films, stage productions, and works by other composers. Major themes will include: sound studies and the history of technology; performance studies; theories of realism and modernism; and the relationship between Italian cultural politics and larger cosmopolitan and imperial formations.

The aim of this course is to provide a deeper understanding of the musical interactions between Europe and the United States from the first performance of an Italian opera sung in its original language in America (Gioachino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1825) until Arnold Schoenberg's death in Los Angeles in 1951. The course will address issues such as identity and cultural pride through music, the concept of a musical canon in America, and reception of European culture in the United States.

The combination of music and word in song and other genres has led to some of the most contentious debates in Western musical thought. This course surveys these major debates, with close examination of select works and their historical contexts. Working with methods from poetry analysis, music analysis, semiotics, and historical musicology we will consider how composers and poets have negotiated the combinations of their arts, and how cultural and political forces have influenced their decisions. Students will complete a semester-long project on a song of their choosing.

This course examines the relationship between musical and political institutions in France, from the reign of Louis XIV through the fall of the monarchy. We will 1) survey the development of musical style through listening and analysis; and 2) investigate how representative works reflected broad changes in the production and consumption of music during the grand siècle and age of Enlightenment. Topics will include: systems of court patronage and theatrical privilege; the rise of music criticism in the public sphere; the influence of the philosophes; salon culture; and the role of the arts in the historiography of the Revolution.

Composition for larger ensembles, supported by study of contemporary repertoire.

Composition for larger ensembles, supported by study of contemporary repertoire.

Notation is a creative act, neither neutral nor self-evident. Our compositional ideas are inextricably bound up with the symbols we use to represent them. The weight of history bears heavily on these choices, delivering through the ages a conventional system deeply embedded with the priorities and assumptions of the tradition it serves. Yet innovations arise out of crises, and where convention fails new methods of communication are developed. The past century is replete with composers who have adapted and broken with common-practice notation in search of novel modes of music making. In this course we will consider the pragmatic and aesthetic consequences of expanded notation -- scores that to varying degrees of extremity stretch the boundaries of conventional music representation. We will approach these works as composers, as performers, and as analysts.

Advanced dictation, sight singing, and musicianship, with emphasis on 20th-century music.

Advanced dictation, sight singing, and musicianship, with emphasis on 20th-century music.

Prerequisite: music major or instructor's permission. A survey of 20th-century literatures on the music/language relationship. Emphasis on semiotic and social-scientific paradigms.

This courses raises the questions: 1) What does it mean to "own" music?, 2) In what senses can music be conceptualized as "property?"; and 3) How do divergent understandings of music's status as "property" shape contemporary debates and discourses in the particular areas of disputes over "illegal downloading" of copyrighted music and the "repatriation" of Native American musical recordings as "cultural property?" Several relevant major recent statements will be considered and responses discussed. Case studies from ethnomusicological, anthropological, media studies and legal literatures engage issues of appropriation, the role of new technologies in shifting the terrain of musical ownership will be studied. Hands-on look at the Columbia Center for Ethnomusicology's ongoing projects to repatriate historic recordings of Native American music (currently 'owned' by Columbia University) to the Navajo and Iñupiat tribes.

This course examines music and performance in various African contexts, focusing on the postcolonial period.  It will explore the complex interactions between music, politics, nation, race, and mediation through case studies from Ghana, Nigeria, DRC, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. In addition, discussions will involve what is meant to speak about "African music," and class will theorize about the conditions of musical production in the context of postcolonialism.

An examination of the new jazz that emerged shortly after the middle of the 20th century.  The seminar will include the work of musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Carla Cley, Albert Ayler, and the Arts Ensemble of Chicago; the economics and politics of the period; parallel developments in other arts; the rise of new performance spaces, recording companies, and collectives; and the accomplishments of the music and the problems it raised for jazz performance and criticism.

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.

The study of “functional” orchestration in works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Students will analyze scores by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, and other, and will write exercises in the style of these composers.

Historiographical issues surrounding the performance of jazz and improvised musics after 1960. Topics include genre and canon formation, gender, race, and cultural nationalisms, economics and infrastructure, debates around art and the vernacular, globalization, and media reception. Reading knowledge of music is not required.

A central aspect of composing with computer media is designing the software system with which we will work; in other words, the composer, performer and/or improviser is often responsible for designing and assembling his own instrument. Electronic and Computer Music practices challenge our views of what a musical instrument is and how it is expected to behave. Through the analysis of various documents by a wide range of musicians as diverse as Theremin, Schaeffer, Stockhausen, Mathews, Moore, Tenney, Risset, Buchla, Moog, Mumma, Martirano, Waisvisz, Rowe, and Puckette amongst others, we will attempt to understand what new conceptions of musical instrument may have emerged with electric and digital media, and explore software implementations of some of their designs towards a final paper or computer system.