Program Requirements
The B.Mus.; Minor in Composition focuses on an introduction to the techniques and aesthetics of contemporary instrumental and digital composition, including a foundation in orchestration, music history and music theory.
Required Courses (9 credits)
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MUCO 230 The Art of Composition (3 credits)
Overview
Composition : An introduction to compositional techniques and notational practices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the analysis of selected works.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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MUCO 260 Instruments of the Orchestra (3 credits)
Overview
Composition : An introductory study of the instruments of string, woodwind and brass families, elementary acoustics of the instruments. Techniques of playing including embouchure, fingering, bowing, hand-stopping, transposing instruments. Evolution of the instruments, their technique and their music from the 18th century to the present.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
3 hours
Restriction: Not open to students in the Major Composition
Priority will be given to students in the Minor Composition and Special Students in the prerequisite package for Sound Recording. Other students may be admitted with permission of the instructor.
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MUCO 341 Digital Studio Composition 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Composition : Composition with MIDI, audio recording, digital audio signal processing software and hardware. Creation of small-scale composition studies using technological resources in the context of electroacoustic music. The hands-on activities will include critical listening and evaluation of electronic and computer music repertoire.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Britton, Eliot (Fall)
Complementary Courses (9 credits)
9 credits selected from
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MUHL 375 Introduction to Ethnomusicology (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : Central themes and methods in contemporary ethnomusicology. Music and its meanings in several contrasting cultural regions and groups. Topics include: colonialism, politics, globalization, and the impact of technology. Techniques of transcription, ethnography, and fieldwork.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: SullyCole, Althea (Winter)
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MUHL 385 Early Twentieth-Century Music (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : Development of European, Russian, and American music from the 1890s until the early 1940s, tracing its roots in late 19th-century Romanticism and following its evolution in central Europe, France, and the United States. The music of major innovators such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ives, and Varèse will be discussed.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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MUHL 388 Opera After 1900 (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : Major early twentieth-century works by Debussy, Strauss, Schreker, Bartók, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Opera in Europe between the Wars including operas of Berg, Milhaud, Krenek, Hindemith and Weill. Politics, sociology, and literature in relationship to musical style. Approaches since 1945 in selected works by Britten, Henze, Zimmermann, Ligeti, Somers and Glass.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Whitesell, Lloyd (Winter)
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MUHL 391 Canadian Music (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : Survey of music in Canada from the 16th Century to the present. Current musical organizations and institutions, and contemporary Canadian music will be stressed. Time permitting, brief reference will be made to the folk music of indigenous and immigrant groups.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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MUHL 392 Music since 1945 (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : Appearance and evolution of such post-war phenomena as total serialism, "chance" music of various kinds, and electronic music as seen in major figures such as Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage and others in Europe and the United States. Important developments during the 1960s. Rise of "minimalism" and "neo-Romanticism" during the 1970s and 80s.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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MUHL 393 History of Jazz (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : A study of the history and development of jazz through listening, reading, video viewing, lectures and discussion. The central goals will be to learn how to hear jazz critically and to understand the values, meanings, and sensibilities of jazz as a social practice.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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MUHL 396 Era of the Modern Piano (3 credits)
Overview
Music History and Literature : Survey of keyboard repertoire from 1850 to the present: instruments, the crisis at mid-century, character pieces, Brahms, late Liszt, national schools, commercialization - the concert hall, music for the bourgeois - salon music, Scriabin, the Second Viennese School, Impressionism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Romanticism, serialism, the sonata in the 20th-century, North American composers.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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MUTH 322 Topics in Post-Tonal Analysis (3 credits)
Overview
Music Theory and Analysis : Topics in advanced analysis of post-tonal music.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Neidhofer, Christoph (Fall)
3 hours
Prerequisite: MUTH 350
Topics will change from semester to semester.
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MUTH 539 Topics in Advanced Writing Techniques (3 credits)
Overview
Music Theory and Analysis : Advanced writing skills, including intensive four-part harmonization, advanced harmonic vocabulary and syntax, post-tonal counterpoint.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Neidhofer, Christoph (Winter)
