Additionally, students enrolled in the Musicology, Music Education, and Composition degree pathways have unique requirements that may be fulfilled by the courses listed below.

Priority Enrollment
In order to manage priority enrollment for students who are graduating or taking doctoral prelims, all courses will require departmental consent for the first two weeks of the enrollment period. Students should submit the Spring Enrollment Preferences form no later than Monday, November 3, to request a seat in their preferred course(s).

Advising
Students are encouraged to sign up for advising (November 3-7) to discuss spring enrollment with the graduate advising team.

• MUSICOLOGY
  • MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Voices Audible and Metaphoric"
  • MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Music, Sound, and the Climate Crisis"
  • MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Tolkien, Music, and Middle-earth"
  • MUSIC 516 - Ethnographic Methods for Music and Sound
  • MUSIC 822 - Historical Music Theories II
  • MUSIC 915 - Seminar in Ethnomusicology: Feeling Music
• MUSIC THEORY
  • MUSIC 523 - Orchestration
  • MUSIC 624 - Form and Analysis: Chamber Music
  • MUSIC 822 - Historical Music Theories II
• MUSIC EDUCATION
  • MUSIC 911 - Thinking With Social Theory in Music

MUSICOLOGY

MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Voices Audible and Metaphoric"

Section 070
Tues/Thurs 8:00-9:15 AM
Prof. Nadia Chana
20 seats (grad & undergrad)

What “voice” means and how “voice” is mobilized spans a vast terrain: a singing voice, the voice of a people, one’s “authentic” voice, a writerly voice, voices in one’s head. Voices can be audible, metaphoric, and even something in between. In this course, we will attempt to think both about and through the voice. We will consider a wide array of topics that scholars locate in “the voice”: self-fashioning; race, gender, and other vectors of identity; musical transmission; practice and technique; relational listening; the limits of the human; and even critical self-reflexivity. And we will explore current approaches to voices in (ethno)musicology and closely related disciplines, including anthropology, communication studies, and performance studies. One of our aims will be to map, disentangle, and assess these varying approaches: how, if at all, do they speak to each other? How do they help us understand current lay conceptions of voice and voices? We will also ask about the role of voice in shaping our own lenses and scholarly practices.

MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Music, Sound, and the Climate Crisis"

Section 170
Tues/Thurs 9:30-10:45 AM
Prof. Nadia Chana
20 seats (grad & undergrad)

The project of this course is to connect something as large and sweeping as climate crisis with sound and music––what we arguably mistakenly think of as the domain of the human. As Michael Mikulak argues, “the environmental crisis is more than a problem for scientists; it is a problem of narrative, ontology, and epistemology” (2008, 66). We will take up many different lines of thought about sound, listening, and climate crisis, tracing the productive frictions and disjunctures among them. While we will begin from a place of understanding climate crisis as a process that affects different communities unevenly and that is always intertwined with capitalism, racism, and colonialism, we will also take up the structures of thinking and ways of being that some might argue facilitate climate crisis. adrienne maree brown writes, for example, “[W]hat we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system” (brown 2017, 53). This course is shaped around the premise that we cannot look at listening, sound, and climate crisis as if we are not imbricated. We are deeply affected by climate crisis, and engage deeply (as musicians) with listening and sound. Therefore this course is not about standing apart and analyzing all of these things as if we are neutral observers. Some of this seminar, then, will be about practicing: how can we practice other ways of being or of thinking differently about climate crisis?

MUSIC 497 - Special Topics in Music: "Tolkien, Music, and Middle-earth"

Section 031
Tues/Thurs 11:00-12:15 PM
Prof. Ilana Schroeder
20 seats (grad & undergrad)

Regarded by many as the father of modern fantasy, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien have captured the imagination of readers and creators for generations. Not only have The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings proven to be foundational fantasy reading for children and young adults for the past sixty years they have also, since their second printing in the 1960s, been actively referenced in various mediums throughout popular and alternative culture. From Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin to Rankin/Bass, Peter Jackson, and Amazon, to Giorgia Meloni, the world of Middle-earth provides a lens through which different people, over diverse places and times, view themselves and the world around them. The purpose of this class is to investigate how music in and about Middle-earth participates in that phenomenon. While Tolkien himself was not a musician, Middle-earth resonates with the musics and sounds that are informed both by Tolkien’s work as a medievalist and his experiences and knowledge of music and culture within a Romantic and post-industrial intellectual milieu. In this class we will investigate the relationship between music and Tolkien through three avenues. First, we will consider how Tolkien incorporates elements of medieval music practices into his medievalist narratives. Second, we will examine how Romanic conceptions of music and musical culture and post-industrial disillusionment with modernity impacted Tolkien’s thoughts on sound and music as well as representations of his various fantastical peoples. Finally, we will investigate how twentieth- and twenty-first-century musicians respond to and create sound worlds that represent Middle-earth.

MUSIC 516 - Ethnographic Methods for Music and Sound

Mon 8:15-10:45 AM
Prof. John Walsh
12 seats (grad only)

What kinds of questions about music and sound can ethnography answer? What kinds of stories does ethnography tell about musical life? How does it differ from other ways of producing knowledge about music and social life? What are the ethics and politics of pursuing research questions with living people and writing about these experiences for an academic audience? This course is designed to introduce students to the history, theory, and practice of ethnographic research methods for understanding the cultural production, experience, and meanings of sound and music. We will develop an understanding of the toolbox of ethnographic methodology - interview, observation, recording, field notes, writing - as both practice and praxis. Students will develop and pursue a research question of their choosing “in the field” as they complete a small-scale ethnographic project. Class discussion will integrate students’ experiences of conducting these projects with academic literatures that explore ethnography’s relations to issues of power, perspective, and notions of authority.

MUSIC 822 - Historical Music Theories II

Thurs 3:00-6:00 PM
Prof. Michael Weinstein-Reiman
12 seats (grad only)

The course focuses on music-theoretical traditions of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. It takes as its point of departure the concept of western European “modernity,” that is, a deliberate and self- conscious orientation toward the “new” —the notion that one’s "present” is a moment of limitless possibility. How did music theory develop into a “modern” discourse, and is this discourse still relevant today? This seminar considers possible answers to that question vis-à-vis an array of texts, all with the goal of theorizing music, broadly construed.

MUSIC 915 - Seminar in Ethnomusicology: Feeling Music

Wed 8:15-10:45 AM
Prof. John Walsh
12 seats (grad only)

Perhaps music’s greatest meaning lies in its capacity to make us feel. This seminar explores theoretical approaches and academic conversations related to the creation and transmission of feelings through music making and listening. Together we will explore the deep connections between music and emotion, focusing on the role of the body in musical experience, the political dimensions of feelings, as well as how feelings structure social life, identity, and cultural belonging. The course will unfold in three sections, each centering on contemporary academic conversations: affect, attunement, and atmospheres. Assignments include written reflections, discussion leading, and a final project that integrates theoretical concerns with personal or ethnographic encounters with music.

MUSIC THEORY

MUSIC 523 - Orchestration

Thurs 4:00-7:00 PM
Prof. Laura Schwendinger
10 seats (grad & undergrad)
Instructor Consent Required

The study of orchestration through the examination of representative scores and recordings. Idiomatic writing for different instruments, as well as the role of different choirs of the orchestra, will be discussed. Practical assignments will include analysis of orchestral writing, as well as orchestrating of piano works for choirs of the orchestra in addition to full orchestra.

MUSIC 624 - Form and Analysis: Chamber Music

Wed 8:15-10:45 AM
Prof. Ed Klorman
12 seats (grad only)

The conception of chamber music (especially the string quartet) as a musical analogue for artful conversation has been influential to composers from Haydn to Ives, Carter, and beyond. This metaphor suggests that the interaction among the instrumental parts can be interpreted as a form of social interplay animated by the individual players in performance. This seminar analyzes instrumental chamber music, with an emphasis on Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart, with an eye toward uncovering the spirit of sociability encoded into the score. The seminar will interweave analytical and historical perspectives. Coursework includes reading, listening, and analysis assignments and in-class discussion. The term project comprises a presentation and accompanying paper.

MUSIC 822 - Historical Music Theories II

Thurs 3:00-6:00 PM
Prof. Michael Weinstein-Reiman
12 seats (grad only)

The course focuses on music-theoretical traditions of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. It takes as its point of departure the concept of western European “modernity,” that is, a deliberate and self- conscious orientation toward the “new” —the notion that one’s "present” is a moment of limitless possibility. How did music theory develop into a “modern” discourse, and is this discourse still relevant today? This seminar considers possible answers to that question vis-à-vis an array of texts, all with the goal of theorizing music, broadly construed.

MUSIC EDUCATION

(3^rd Option for DMA Students Only)

MUSIC 911 - Thinking With Social Theory in Music

Wed 4:30-7:00 PM
Prof. Jess Rathgeber
12 seats (grad only)

This seminar-based course focuses on investigating and applying social theory to contemporary issues impacting music learning and music teaching in a playful and engaging manner. Throughout the course, students will develop a “theory toolkit” they can use as a means to understand and consider curriculum planning/experience design, teaching/pedagogy, music making/performance, creating, listening, and investigating interdisciplinary connections. Throughout the semester, students will work to develop a practitioner article that addresses a pressing phenomena/issue related to music making, music learning, and music teaching of interest to them, demonstrate their use of social theories to critically consider the phenomenon, and identify future research and pedagogical practices. The majority of the course will be shaped by the interests and wonderments of students. Because of this, the specific theoretical perspectives and topics investigated will vary. This course is not intended to be an in-depth exploration of philosophical and sociological issues, but, rather, an overview of concepts and theories from these fields and more. Previous experience with philosophy and sociology are not required.