MUSI BC 1501x-BC1502y Voice Instruction

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

MUSI W 1509x-W1510y Organ Instruction

Prerequisite: the instructor's permission.
1-2 points.

MUSI W 1513x-W1514y Introduction To Piano

Prerequisite: the instructor's permission.
1 point

MUSI W 1515x-W1516y Elementary Piano Instruction

Prerequisites: MUSI W1513-W1514 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission.
1-2 points.

MUSI W 1517x-W1518y Keyboard Harmony and Muscianship

Prerequisite: the instructor's permission. Lessons emphasize the progressive development of a harmonic vocabulary representative of the techniques of the central tradition of 18th- and 19th-century music.
1 point

MUSI W 1525x-W1526y Instrumental Instruction

Flute: D.Fedele, S. Kahn, T. O'Conner, S. Palma-Nidel, S. Rotholz.Oboe: V.Bodner.Clarinet: A. Blustine, J. Kopperud, B. Sholl, S. Williamson.Basoon: M. Goldberg, M. Newman.French horn: S. Temple.Trumpet: D. Krauss.Trombone: D. Hayward.Tuba: D. Braynard.Drums and percussion: T. Kolor, A. Korf.Violin: A. Ajemian, M. Coid, L. Kaplan, M. Kim, M. Otani.Viola: S. Adams, A. Neu.Cello: E. Bailen, Y. Bond.String bass: J. McCoy, L. Mc Knight.Guitar: A. Kampela. Prerequisite: an audition to be held during the registration period in 618 Dodge. Contact the Music Performance Program for further details (854-1255). Students participating in the orchestra are given preference when applying for private instrumental instruction.
1-2 points.

MUSI V 1580x-V1581y Collegium Musicum

May be taken for Pass credit only. Prerequisite: an audition to be held during the registration period. Contact the department for further details (854-3825). Performance of vocal and instrumental music from the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods. The Collegium usually gives one public concert each term.
1 point

MUSI V 1591x-V1592y University Orchestra

Prerequisite: an audition to be held during registration period, by appointment at 618 Dodge. Contact the department for further details (854-6689). Students should bring two short works, or movements of longer works, of different stylistic periods; they will also be asked to read brief orchestral or chamber music excerpts at sight. 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.
1 point

MUSI V 1593x-V1594y Barnard-Columbia Chourus

Prerequisite: auditions by appointment made at first meeting. Contact Barnard College, Department of Music (854-5096). May be taken for Pass credit only. 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.
1 point

MUSI V 1595x-V1596y Barnard-Columbia Chamber Singers

Prerequisite: auditions by appointment made at first meeting. Contact Barnard College, Department of Music (854-5096). May be taken for Pass credit only. 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.
1 point

MUSI V 1598x-V1599y Chamber Ensemble

Prerequisite: an audition to be held during the registration period, by appointment at 618 Dodge. Contact the Music Performance Program for further details (854-1257). Students registering for chamber music receive ensemble training with the performance associates listed for MUSI W1525-W1526. Student chamber ensembles perform a recital at the conclusion of each semester and are given other opportunities to perform throughout the academic year.
2 points

MUSI V 1618x-V1619y Columbia University Jazz Ensemble

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.
Prerequisites: An audition to be held during the registration period, by appointment at 618 Dodge. Contact the Music Performance Program for further details (854-1257)
1-2 points.

MUSI V 1625x-V1626y World Music Ensemble

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. Fall 2007 ensembles offered are: Bluegress (Section 1, J.King); Japanese Gagaku (section 2, L. Sasaki, N. Sasaki, TBA); Klezmer (section 3, J. Warschauer).
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
1 point

MUSI W 2515x-W2516y Intermediate Piano Instruction

Prerequisites: MUSI W2515-W2516 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission.
1-2 points.

MUSI W 3515x-W3516y Advanced Piano Instruction

Prerequisites: MUSI W2515-W2516 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission.
2 points

MUSI V 1002x Fundamentals of Western Music

Corequisite: MUSI V1312. A student may place out of V1002 with a score of 5 on the Theory Placement Examination given on the first day of class. Similarly, a student may place into a higher level of the co-requisite by passing the Ear Training Placement Test, offered on the first day of the V1312 class. The basic elements of music to be studied in the Fundamentals of Western Music course with the aim of developing musicianship include: notation, dictation, sight-singing, transposition, aural recognition of the simpler forms, triad identification, cadence types, and voice-leading in two parts.

MUSI V 1312x or y-V1312y Introductory Ear Training

A student may place into a higher level of this course by passing an examination given on the first day of the class. V1312 is an introduction to basic skills in sight reading. Instruction includes reading rhythms in simple meter, solfege recitation, and sight-singing simple melodies.
Lab Required.
1 point

MUSI V 2318x-V2319y Diatonic Harmony and Counterpoint, I and II

Prerequisite: MUSI V1002 or the equivalent. Corequisite: an ear-training class (MUSI V1312, V2314-V2315, V3316-V3317, or W4318-W4319). "Diatonic" is a two-semester course that constitutes the first year of the two-year sequence of courses in music theory required of all music majors and concentrators (the "main theory sequence," of which the second year is Music V3321-3322y; see below). N.B. -All students, without exception, who wish to take Diatonic must pass an entrance examination given on the first day of class in each section. (For a detailed description of the Diatonic entrance exam, and advice on preparing for it, contact the Director of Undergraduate Theory Instruction.) Assigned readings, musical analysis, and compositional exercises, designed to teach the following: (1) analysis and composition of melodies; (2) strict (species) counterpoint in two voices; (3) the idiomatic use of all diatonic chords in major and minor keys, and tonicizations of secondary key areas; (4) principles of figured bass; (5) four-part writing; (6) harmonization of melodies, e.g., chorales; (7) basic principles of musical form. Each semester includes some work in tonal composition, e.g., minuets for piano modeled on examples by Haydn and Mozart.

MUSI V 3321x-V3322y Chromatic Harmony and Counterpoint, I and II

Continuation of MUSI V2318-V2319. Placement in this class is determined by an exam given in the first class meeting of V2318-V2319(see above). "Chromatic" is a two-semester course that follows on from Music V2319 and constitutes the second year of the two-year sequence of courses in music theory required of all music majors and concentrators (the "main theory sequence," of which the first year is Music V2318-2319y; see above). Assigned readings, musical analysis, and compositional assignments, designed to teach the following: (1) tonal counterpoint in the style of Bach, in selected contrapuntal forms (e.g., chorale prelude, invention, fugue); (2) more advanced harmonic and voice-leading techniques, including sequences and "chromatic harmony"; (3) forms and genres associated with the Classical and Romantic periods (e.g., sonata-allegro form; Lied).

MUSI V 2314x or y Ear Training, I

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

MUSI V 2315x or y Ear Training, II

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

MUSI V 3316x or y Ear Training, III

Sight-singing techniques of modulating diatonic melodies in simple, compound, or irregular meters that involve complex rhythmic patterns. Emphasis is placed on four-part harmonic dictation of modulating phrases.
1 point

MUSI V 3317x or y Ear Training, IV

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.
1 point

MUSI V 4318y Ear Training, V

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

MUSI V 3128x History of Western Music I: Middle Ages To Baroque

Pre- or co requisite: V2318-V2319. A survey of Western music from Antiquity through Bach and Handel, focusing on the development of musical style and thought, and analysis of selected works.

MUSI V 3129y History of Western Music II: Classical To the 20th Century

Pre- or co requisite: V2318-2319. A survey of Western music from the Classical era to the present day, focusing on the development of musical style and thought, and on analysis of selected works.

MUSI V 3241x-V3242y Projects in Composition

Composition in more extended forms. Survey of advanced techniques of contemporary composition. (Previously called Advanced Composition.)
Prerequisites: MUSI V3310 or instructor's permission.
3 points

MUSI W 4241x-W4242y Advanced Composition

Composition for larger ensembles, supported by study of contemporary repertoire.
Prerequisites: MUSI V3241-3242 and instructor's permission.
3 points

AHMM V 3320x Introduction To the Musics of East Asia and Southeast Asia

Fulfills the requirement of a nontonal course for music majors. A topical approach to concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.

AHMM V 3321y Introduction To the Musics of India and West Asia

Fulfills the requirement of a nontonal course for music majors. A topical approach to concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.
3 points

MUSI BC 1001x-BC1002y An Introduction to Music

x: 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. y: 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.

MUSI V 2010y Rock

Prerequisite: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. Historical survey of rock music from its roots in the late 1940s to the present day.

MUSI V 2014x Popular Music of the Americas: Country

A survey of the social, musical, and commercial history of "country and western" music and its antecedent and related genres in the U.S. and as a global style, focusing on the history of recording technology, popular imaginings of rusticity, race, class, and gender in country music, and the lived experience of country music's listeners and creators in various eras and locales. Class projects will include the production of a series of radio shows (by groups of students) for the actual broadcast.General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).

MUSI V 2015 Music In the United States

Main currents in American musical life, with emphasis on ragtime, jazz hymnody, spirituals, blues, popular song, and major works of Copland, Ives, Ellington, Gershwin, Billings, Foster, and Reich.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 2016y Jazz

The musical and cultural features of jazz, beginning in 1900.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
3 points

MUSI V 2020x Salsa, Soca, and Reggae: Popular Musics of the Caribbean

A survey of the major syncretic urban popular music styles of the Caribbean, exploring their origins, development, and sociocultural context.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
3 points

MUSI V 2023y Beethoven

A study of the life and works of Ludwig van Beethoven, with emphasis on selected symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas. Also consider the changing nature of the critical recption of Beethoven and issues of classicism and romanticism in music.

MUSI V 2024x (Section 001) Mozart

The life, works, and cultural milieu of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with emphasis on selected symphonies, string quartets, piano concertos, and operas.

MUSI V 2025y The Opera

The development of opera from Monteverdi to the present.

MUSI V 2026y The symphony

The symphony orchestra as a musical and social institution in the 18th through 20th centuries, and a survey of the music written for it in those periods.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 2140 Music and Musical Life In Soviet Russia

Music in the context of Soviet society and culture, with emphasis on compositions of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Also come consideration of folk and religious music, and of other composers' concert music.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 2170 Music and Dance from Romanticism to Mark Morris

An exploration of the music-dance relationship from Romanticism to Mark Morris. Specific topics to include Romanticism, Tchaikovsky, the Ballets Russes, Copland-Graham, Stravinsky-Balanchine, Jazz/African-American traditions, Cage-Cunningham, and Mark Morris. Special attention will be paid to composer-choreographer collaboration; the interdependence of the musical and choreographic arts; and the role each art has played in the formal and aesthetic/historical development of the other.
General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 2205x Midi Music Production Techniques

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.

MUSI W 2340 History of Electronic and Computer Music

Prerequisite: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. The history, technology, and literature of electronic music over the past century with a particular focus on Columbia's foundational role. Students will be directly engaged using new technologies.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 2500x Women and Music

Explores the complex relationships of women and Western art music from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Women are studied not only as creators and performers but also as patrons and muses, and through their musical representations in the repertoire.

MUSI V 2582x Jazz improvisation: theory, history and practice

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. The course will explore improvisation in jazz as 'statements within frameworks,' and investigate the crucial historical junctures when these musical frameworks broadened to accommodate new approaches and options. Further, these moments will be explored in their social and historical contexts in order to understand how societal and cultural factors affect the way musicians play. The class will seek to answer the following questions: How does one construct meaning in improvisation? How does one build a musical narrative? What tensions exist between innovation and tradition in jazz improvisation? How does one draw on one's own musical history and tastes in order to develop an individual voice? How does one perform purely in the moment? Can a musician's playing be dishonest? The goal is to provide the student not only with the instrumental skills required to become a proficient jazz improviser (thus serving the performance ensembles in which some of these students will go on to participate) but to do so in a way that is informed by the history of the music and the social contexts in which it evolved. While this course will be performance based, it will include strong music theory and music history components. The course will examine the development of jazz improvisation chronologically, yet will also pause to examine certain aesthetic concepts central to building compelling jazz improvisations.

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. Finally the student will be challenged and encouraged to develop an individual voice, at once informed by the theory and history of jazz improvisation and expressive of the student's musical identity.
General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
3 points

MUSI V 3115x Monteverdi

A study of the major works of Claudio Monte Verdi. Focuses on the social and cultural forces that led to the dissolution of Renaissance polyphony and the emergence of opera.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3120 From Source To Sound: the Interpretation of Medieval Music

Fulfills the requirement of either the 3000-level advanced theory elective or the nontonal course. Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. Methods, problems, and possibilities for recreating the oldest extant body of music in Western Europe, that of the Middle Ages from ca. 1000 to ca. 1300. By directly confronting musical manuscripts, theoretical treatises, and performance contexts from the period, students develop their ability to think critically and historically about the music of the past and modern attempts to describe it.
General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3127x Bach Vocal Music

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.

MUSI V 3132 John Cage and the New York School

Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. This course examines the music of John Cage and the other New York School composers-Morton Feldman, Earle Browne, and Chrisitian Wolff-postwar New York City.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3138x The music of Brahms

Survey of the music of Brahms, examining a wide range of genres as well as his historical and cultural position.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent, and the ability to read musical notation. General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3145 Music for piano

Surveys and analyzes the major litetature for piano and other keyboard instruments by 17th through 21st century composers. We will address issues of performing, competitions, historical performance practices; compare the major "piano schools" (Russian, German, French, American); and consider the history and evolution of the instrument. Live performances inside and outside the classroom.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3158 Music, Race and Nation
The course examines ways in which musical forms, canons, and histories are created and constructed as part of an "economy of symbolic goods" that incorporates and is mediated by conceptions of race, ethnicity, and national identity. The course will examine cases from US and international popular music, 20th and 21st Century classical music, film music, and conceptions of "world music," focusing on how the creation and reception of forms embodies the intersections of the gendered dynamics of racial formation with debates over national character. Reading knowledge of music is not required.
General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3163 Sonic texts of the Black Atlantic

The course examines the importance of music and improvisation to the arts of the Black Atlantic, proceeding in semi-chronological fashion in presenting creative writing, recorded performances, and visual forms in which music is a central metaphor. Critical/historical texts are used to support topics that include African oral narrative, music during American chattel slavery, minstrelsy, the music of Harlem Renaissance composers, bebop and the world of the Beats, free improvisation, hip-hop, classical music and opera, and contemporary avante-garde digital technologies of text and sound. Reading knowlege of music is not required.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3165 Jazz and improvised music after 1950

This course examines the musical forms, techniques, and intellectual and social issues surrounding Jazz and improvised music after 1950, via listening and reading assignments, guest musicians and scholars, and representative live performances. Topics include genre and canon formation, gender, race and cultural nationalisms, debates around art and the vernacular, globalization, and media reception. Reading knowledge of music not required.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3168 The American musical

Historical and critical survey of American musical theater from the late nineteenth century to the present, with a focus of selected major works.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3244 Tonal Composition

Prerequisite: MUSI V3321 or equivalent. Training in composing in tonal styles, including: Baroque fugues; Classical minuets, variations, and sonata-form movements; Romantic songs and preludes.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3248x Interactive Music Composition

An introduction to programming techniques and musical concepts in computer music interactivity, where students create software that responds to live musical performance or environmental activity. The MAX/MSP programming platform is used to extend existing proficiencies in MIDI and digital audio, and to introduce techniques designed for interactive environments. Interactive works from the worlds of music, visual art, and performance are also studied. Particular emphasis is placed on creating works for the Disklavier, a unique digitally controlled acoustic piano. Projects are developed at the Computer Music Center, and final projects are presented in a class concert. - G. Lewis
Prerequisites: This class has been revised and is now being offered as G4601. Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3250y Introduction To Music Cognition

Prerequisite: MUSI V2318-V2319 or the equivalent. Study of music cognition from the perspective of music theory, with interdisciplinary connections to psychoacoustics, theoretical linguistics, and, especially, cognitive psychology.

MUSI V 3302x (Section 001) Introduction To Set Theory

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.

MUSI V 3305y Theories of Heinrich Schenker

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."

MUSI V 3310y Techniques of 20th-Century Music

Materials, styles, and techniques of 20th-century music. Topics include scales, chords, sets, atonality, serialism, neoclassicism, and rhythm.
Prerequisites: MUSI V3322 or instructor's permission.
3 points

MUSI V 3330 Advanced Counterpoint

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

MUSI V 3370y Orchestration

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

MUSI V 3385 Analysis of popular music

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.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3395x Listening to Hip-Hop

An interdisciplinary exploration of hip-hop music and culture, including MCing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti, from its beginnings to the present through historical, analytical, and critical perspectives. The courses's primary focus will be on listening and on sound; readings will help to situate particular pieces of music, artists, and genres within their cultural, political, and social contexts.

MUSI V 3420x The Social Science of Music

An introduction to the field of ethnomusicology in the context of the intellectual history of music scholarship.

MUSI V 3430 Music and Nationalism

This course studies the relationship between music and nationalism, from both aesthetic and political perspectives. The broad historical emergence and development of modern nationalism and related themes of race, gender, globalization, and indigneity, are explored through musical case studies focusing on western and non-western, elite, popular, and folk styles and genres. Reading knowledge of music is not required.
General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3432 Music and Place

An introduction to contemporary work on music and place from an ethnomusicological perspective. It situates ethnomusicological work and specific musical case studies within an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that draws from the fields of cultural anthropology, cultural studies, and performance studies.

MUSI V 3435 Music and literature in Latin America

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.

MUSI V 3440x Survivors' Music

This course will examine the role of music in the lives of survivors of traumatic experiences and discover why music is a special expressive resource for such people. Examples from survivors' music about the nature of traumatic events that other expressive and documentary resources do not yield will be utilized. Course is interdisciplinary and the use of these examples to explore these issues is from a social, cultural, psychological and musicological perspective. Geared towards advanced undergraduates and graduate students from all disciplines.

MUSI V 3460y Music and the Post-Socialist state

This course analyzes changes in music traditions in the post-socialist context since the fall of the Soviet Union. The focus is on the relationship between music and politics, socialist/post-socialist cultural policy, the rise of popular music genres, new conceptualizations of "folk" music, and the influence of technologies, media, and privatization on music.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI V 3462y Music, Gender and Performance

This seminar explores relationships between gender, music and performance from the perspective of ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, critical music studies, feminist and queer theory and performance studies. We examine debates around issues of sex and gender and nature and culture through the lens of musical performance and experience. Some questions we consider include: In what ways is participation in particular music dictated by gendered conventions? What social purpose do these delineations serve? What might music tell us about the body? What is the relationship between performance and the ways in which masculinity and feminity, homosexuality and heterosexuality are shaped? How can we think about the concept of nation via gender and music? How might the gendered performances and the voices of musical celebrities come to represent or officially "speak" for the nation or particular publics? How does music shape our understanding of emotion, our experience of pleasure?

MUSI V 3630y Recorded Sound

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.

MUSI V 3995x-3996y Honors Research

Open only to honors candidates in music. A creative/scholarly project conducted under faculty supervision, leading to completion of an honors essay, composition, or the equivalent. A formal proposal is required to be submitted and approved prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details.
3 points

MUSI V 3998x-V3999y Supervised Independent Study

A creative/scholarly project conducted under faculty supervision. Approval prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details.
3 points

MUSI W 4115y (Section 001) Music and Theatre under the Ancien Regime

Explores the wealth of music theatre produced in France from 1660s to 1760s. Our focus will be the analysis of interaction of music, text, dance and staging in opera, but we will also consider spoken dramas and literary texts referenced in the operas, and situate them in the social and political context of absolutist France. Some of issues addressed will be Why the Opéra became the prime arena of sovereign representation; Why the role of adversary was conventionally played by a woman; Correspondences between social organization and theatrical representation; and Why these works have been revived in recent years. Prof. Burgess is renowned both for his research in this area and as a performer with the Paris-based company Les Arts Florissants.

MUSI W 4320y Philosophies of Listening

Selected introduction to major topics, debates and fields of study in the growing musicological and philosophical literature on listening. What are our various modes of listening, and how are they organized? To what degree is our listening shaped by metaphor and intentionality? How is listening tied to subjectivity? How does musical listening differ from everyday listening and what does this imply for the future of music? These and other questions will be addressed through close readings of the major literature (and supplementary texts) including Adorno, Barthes, Calvino, Cavarero, Derrida, Forster, Freud, Kafka, Lacoue-Labarthe, Levinson, Nancy, Scruton, Schaeffer, and others. Intensive reading and sustained critical responses are required weekly for all participants; a final research paper will be required.

MUSI G 4360y Analysis of Tonal Music

Fulfills the requirement of the 3000-level advanced theory elective. This course was previously offered as V3360, Pre-Tonal and Tonal Analysis. Detailed analysis of selected tonal compositions. This course, for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduates, is intended to develop understanding of tonal compositions and of theoretical concepts that apply to them, through study of specific works in various forms and styles.

MUSI W 4540y Histories of Post-1960's Jazz

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

MUSI W 4115y Music and Theatre under the Ancien Regime

Explores the wealth of music theatre produced in France from 1660s to 1760s. Our focus will be the analysis of interaction of music, text, dance and staging in opera, but we will also consider spoken dramas and literary texts referenced in the operas, and situate them in the social and political context of absolutist France. Some of issues addressed will be Why the Opéra became the prime arena of sovereign representation; Why the role of adversary was conventionally played by a woman; Correspondences between social organization and theatrical representation; and Why these works have been revived in recent years. Prof. Burgess is renowned both for his research in this area and as a performer with the Paris-based company Les Arts Florissants.

MUSI W 4117y Music and the Cold War

Study of the principal musical trends and aesthetic debates of the Cold War. Hoe did music respond to and reinforce the political divisions of the Cold War? We will move through a series of chronological units that integrate primary source readings from Adorno to Zhdanov, musical case studies (including works by Shostakovich, Eisler, Lutoslawski, Babbitt, Boulez, Kagel, Schnittke, Rochberg, Copland, Nono, Henze) and recent scholarly writings. Themes will include socialist realism, American influence in Western Europe, nationalism, postmodernism, and historiography. - L. Silverberg
Prerequisites: Previous coursework in Music (including W1123) or permission of the instructor.

MUSI G 4125x Jewish Music: Uniqueness and Diversity

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.

MUSI W 4241x-W4242y Advanced Projects in Composition

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

MUSI W 4320y Philosophies of Listening

Selected introduction to major topics, debates and fields of study in the growing musicological and philosophical literature on listening. What are our various modes of listening, and how are they organized? To what degree is our listening shaped by metaphor and intentionality? How is listening tied to subjectivity? How does musical listening differ from everyday listening and what does this imply for the future of music? These and other questions will be addressed through close readings of the major literature (and supplementary texts) including Adorno, Barthes, Calvino, Cavarero, Derrida, Forster, Freud, Kafka, Lacoue-Labarthe, Levinson, Nancy, Scruton, Schaeffer, and others. Intensive reading and sustained critical responses are required weekly for all participants; a final research paper will be required.

MUSI W 4400 Popular Music in Latin America

An introduction to popular music traditions and styles in 20th century Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay.
General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI W 4405y Music and language

Survey of 20th-century literatures on the music/language relationship. Emphasizes semiotic and social-scientific paradigms.

MUSI W 4415y Musical traditions and modern society in Japan

A comparative and topical examination of Gagaku, Okinawan music, and modern Japanese electronic music.
Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI W 4420x Music and Property

This courses raises the questions 1) What does it mean to "own" music? 1) In what senses can music be conceptualized as "property?" 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.

MUSI W 4430x (Section 001) Listening and Sound in Cross-Cultural Perspective

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 through recent histories of listening, through anthropological work on hearing and sound in different cultures and through the field of acoustic ecology. The course will seek to compare these three scholarly perspectives and their contributions to a historical and contextual understanding of listening practices.

MUSI G 4465y Performance: Theory & Ethnography

This course provides an introduction to performance studies with a particular focus on the ethnography of expressive culture. Performance has been theorized from a wide range of academic disciplines including: cultural/social anthropology, linguistics, ethnomusicology, musicology, performance and cultural studies, and literary theory. Additionally, in the past decade, performance and performativity have been useful cross-disciplinary tools for thinking through categories such as gender, sexuality, identity and race and concepts of representation and power. This course treats performance (from performance in the arts to theories of performativity in the everyday) as a lens through which to understand relationships between expressive aesthetic practices and social life. What might we learn from thinking about ethnography as performance, history as performance, or text as performance? What challenges do theories of performance pose to the ethnographic study of music and the reception of music? What unique challenges might the study of musical process and artistry pose to performance theory? We will get at some of these questions through situating contemporary performance ethnographies within the context of an historical genealogy of theories of performance from the perspective of the social sciences and the humanities.

MUSI G 4505 Jazz Arranging and Composition

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.

MUSI W 4507y "The New Thing": Jazz 1955-1980

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. - J. Szwed
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

MUSI W 4508x Sound and Phonography

An historical overview of the nature of sound and the technologies of its transmission, modification, and recording; the social and artistic consequences of recording, including questions of originality and ownership. Topics may include the art of noise; the soundscape; field recording; and audio-terrorism.

MUSI W 4525x Instrumentation

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.

MUSI W 4526y Orchestration

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.

MUSI W 4540y Histories of Post-1960's Jazz

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.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent. Not offered in 2009-2010.
3 points

MUSI G 4601x Musical Interactivity

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.

MUSI G 6440x Suvivors' Music

This course will examine the role of music in the lives of survivors of traumatic experiences and discover why music is a special expressive resource for such people. Examples from survivors' music about the nature of traumatic events that other expressive and documentary resources do not yield will be utilized. Course is interdisciplinary and the use of these examples to explore these issues is from a social, cultural, psychological and musicological perspective. Geared towards advanced undergraduates and graduate students from all disciplines.