Courses
Past Courses Offered
For Undergraduate courses not listed here, see the College Catalog page for the full Music Curriculum.
22100/30707. Adaptation: Literature, Drama, Opera, Film. Meets w/ Music 30707, GRMN 27600, GRMN 37600. This course is an intensive, comparative examination of theories and practices of adaptation. We consider a disparate set of case studies spanning a host of epochs and genres (e.g., Schiller/Brecht/ Dreyer’s St. Joan; Heine/Wagner’s Flying Dutchman; Fontane/Fassbinder’s Effi Briest; Büchner/Berg/Herzog’s Woyzeck). Texts in English and the original. D. Levin, Winter 2007.
22300. Music and Politics. This course explores relationships of power and influence that classical and popular music have with social and political institutions in Western Culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Our goal is to learn about ways in which music and politics interact, studying the range of relationships from music as a supporter of the political milieu to music as a vehicle of dissent. Some composers and performers included are Sousa, Berg, Shostakovich, Brecht and Weill, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Cornelius Cardew, Pauline Oliveros, John Adams, Jimi Hendrix and other rock performers, Bob Dylan, Oscar Brown, Jr., Queen Latifah and other hiphop performers, and various blues and folk artists. J. Misurell-Mitchell. Autumn, 2006.
22405. Renaissance Music and Its Others. PQ: MUSI 10100, 12100, 14200, 15100 or equivalent. Some prior knowledge of music notation. This course acquaints students with the repertory and cultural conditions of music in the renaissance. It covers the canonical musical events, genres, and composers of the period, as well as phenomena that lie outside the canon. Among the latter are the music of nuns, oral traditions including street singers and improvisors, the musical practices of courtesans, and the introduction of castrati to major chapels and early opera. Students should be prepared to do weekly readings, especially of translated primary sources, and to do weekly listening, as well as a term paper. M. Feldman, Winter 2006.
22600. Beethoven. PQ: Any 10000-level music course or the ability to read music or consent of instructor. This course examines representative works chosen from all the genres Beethoven cultivated to demonstrate the ways the composer brought the stylistic models of classicism (i.e., those of Mozart and Haydn) into the new artistic climate of early romanticism. P. Gossett. Autumn, 2006.
22806. Music in Fin-de-Siècle France. PQ: Any 10000 level music course. We will study music by César Franck, Vincent d'Indy, Camille Saint-Saëns, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Lili Boulanger, Erik Satie, and Maurice Ravel through the lenses of social, political, economic, cultural, musical and other concerns of France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Directed readings and listenings covering individual topics will be discussed in class. One brief paper and one longer paper will be required. Ability to read music desirable but not essential. A. Robertson, Spring 2006.
22806. Music, Muses, and Muteness. Meets w/ Humanities 24903. This course aims to examine ways in which music as a non-verbal medium of expression. We will begin with investigating different forms of “speaking” and “text” in music. We will then proceed to examine specific instances where gestures blur the boundaries between “speaking” and being “mute,” and ways in which gestures redefine music as “mute” signs. Music will thus serve as a window for thinking about the following larger questions: what is the significance of speaking? What is at stake when effects of verbal language are open to discussion? What are the functions of non-verbal communication? How did composers represent muteness in music, why, and what are its implications? What is the role of gesture in music and how do we find its vanished traces? And if gestures are indeed important in other ways – demonstrating comportment, exercising power and control, conducting ideas between words and non-verbal signs, shaping experiences of silence, collapsing binary oppositions between silence and speaking, reflecting psychological turmoil, states of speechlessness, insanity, and passions – how do they influence the music itself? Questions concerning signification inevitably lead to questions of transmission. How do modes of transmission affect reception, and in what ways have processes of transmission and media in turn conditioned the choices of composers and performers? Above all, how does music help us understand gesture, language, and communication more fully?This course will be of interest to students curious about eighteenth-century European culture, history of science, music history, art history, history of culture, and performance. Students without musical skills are welcome and may carry out individual term projects gauged to their own interests and abilities. Students interested in this class must have taken any 10000-level music course or the equivalent. H. Law, Winter 2007.
22900/30900. Contemporary Opera. PQ: Consent of instructor. This course explores the various stylistic trends, the diversity of aesthetics, and the musical styles in opera after 1950, both in Europe and in America. Major emphasis is placed on analytical explorations of the most representative operas of that time. The selection of these operas is based on musical and artistic merit, historic importance, and cultural expression. M. Ptaszynska, Spring 2007.
23100/33100. Jazz. (=AFAM 23100) PQ: Any 10000-level music course or ability to read music. This survey charts the history and development of jazz from its African roots to the present. Representative recordings in various styles are selected for intensive analysis and connected to other musics, currents in American and world cultures, and the contexts and processes of performance. The Chicago Jazz Archive in Regenstein Library provides primary source materials. This course is typically offered in alternate years. T. Jackson. Autumn, 2006.
23206/33206. The Jazz Improviser/Composer: Monk and Mingus. PQ: Any 10000 level music course or ability to read music. Jazz improviser-composers Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus are two of the most original contributors to the jazz language. This course will concentrate on the nature of that originality and upon their idiosyncratic stylistic development. Our work will take particular notice of the process of recasting jazz into the big band medium, as heard in Monk's Town Hall Concert of 1959 and Mingus' posthumous extended work Epitaph. Term papers and in-class presentations are expected. D. Wang, Spring 2006.
23300. Introduction to the Social and Cultural Study of Music. Prior music course and ability to read music notation not required. This course provides an introduction to ethnomusicology and related disciplines with an emphasis on the methods and contemporary practice of social and cultural analysis. The course reviews a broad selection of writing on non-Western, popular, vernacular, and "world-music" genres from a historical and theoretical perspective, clarifying key analytical terms ("culture," "subculture," "style," "ritual," "globalization") and methods (ethnography, semiotics, psychoanalysis, Marxism). In the last part of the course, students learn and develop component skills of fieldwork documentation and ethnographic writing. W. Marshall, Autumn 2006.
23401. Southeast Asian Musical Practices: Current Topics. Meets w/ Music 33301. C. Johnson, Winter 2007.
23506/33506. Music of the Middle East. PQ: Any 10000-level music course or consent of instructor required; knowledge of one regional language and French suggested, as well as interest in an on-campus Middle East Music Ensemble. This course considers key issues in the study of music in the Middle East from Morocco to Kazakhstan. The focus is on maqam-based urban repertoires from a historical and comparative perspective, but with consideration of tribal and sedentary rural musical practices are also considered. The various historical transformations of the Ottoman repertory constitute an important focus, looking at the work of Wright, Feldman, Behar, Tura, and others. M. Stokes, Winter 2007.
23606/33606. Music of the Mediterranean. PQ: Any 10000 level music course of ability to read music. The course explores the musics of the Mediterranean basin and the challenges they pose to ethnomusicologists and musicologists regarding theorizations of culture, gender and sexuality, historical transformation, urbanity, nation-state formation, and mass media. The course will involve detailed case-studies focusing both on specific regions, north and south, and specific authors significant in the construction of the field. Students will be encouraged to work on short research projects as the quarter progresses bringing specific interests of their own to bear on the readings discussed in the course. An ability to read French will be helpful. M. Stokes, Spring 2006.
23900/33900. Rock. PQ: Any 10000-level music course or consent of instructor. The meanings and musical pleasures of rock continue to elude musicologists; musicologists have much to learn about themselves and their discipline, as well as the genre itself, if they continue to try. This course will consider some critical accounts of the music industry, of subcultures, and of mass media aesthetics; some historical dimensions of rock, such the circum-Atlantic and, more recently, the global circulation of blues-derived popular forms; and some analytical approaches deriving from the main theoretical traditions of western art music, psychoanalysis, semiotics and ethnography, as applied to rhythm and meter, repetition, tonality, voice and so forth. Students will also be encouraged, through select readings and listening assignments, to contextualize rock within a broad field of twentieth century popular/vernacular music-making. T. Jackson, Autumn 2005.
25100. Analysis of Music of the Classical Period. PQ: MUSI 15300 or equivalent. This course focuses on the analysis of music by composers associated with the Viennese classical period, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Topics include standard chromatic harmonies (e.g., augmented sixth and 406 Neapolitan chords), classical phrase structure, and standard tonal forms such as sonata-allegro. Participants present model compositions and write analytical papers. This course is typically offered in alternate years. T. Christensen, Winter 2007.
25200. Analysis of Nineteenth-Century Music. PQ: MUSI 25100 or equivalent. This course focuses on the tonal language of nineteenth-century European composers, including Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, and Wagner. Students confront analytical problems posed by their increasing uses of chromaticism and extended forms through both traditional (classical) models of tonal harmony and form, as well as alternative approaches specifically tailored to this repertory. Students present model compositions and write analytical papers. D. Bashwiner. Spring 2007.
25300. Analysis of 20th-Century Music. PQ: MUSI 15300 or equivalent. This course focuses on analytical approaches to twentieth-century post-tonal and serial repertories. S. Rings, Spring 2006.
25400. Jazz Analysis. PQ: MUSI 14200 or 15300; open to non majors with consent of Instructor. M. Bowden, Autumn 2005.
25506. The String Quartet. PQ: Music 15300 or equivalent. The course will cover significant string quartets composed over a two-hundred-year period, starting with 1762. In addition to a discussion of the acknowledged masterpieces of the period, there will also be an examination of some of the less successful works, for comparison and contrast. Also covered will be important and successful quartets written by composers whose names are not generally associated with string quartets, such as Verdi, Strauss, Saint-Saëns, and Respighi. Discussions will include harmonic and formal analyses, the positions that the quartets occupy in the composers' overall output, as well as their relation to the style of the time that they were composed. Four or five papers will be required; there will be no final exam. E. Blackwood, Spring 2006.
25600. Jazz Theory and Improvisation. PQ: MUSI 15300 or equivalent. This class focuses on the knowledge necessary to improvise over the chord changes of standard jazz tunes. We cover basic terminology and chord symbols, scale-to-chord relationships, connection devices, and turn-around patterns. For the more experienced improviser, we explore alternate chord changes, tritone substitutions, and ornamentations. Using techniques gained in class, students write their own solos on a jazz tune and transcribe solos from recordings. This course is typically offered in alternate years. M. Bowden, Autumn 2006.
25700/31900. Cognitive Science and Music Analysis. PQ: MUSI 25200. Open to nonmajors with consent of instructor. This course surveys recent research in music cognition and cognitive psychology and shows how it can be applied to problems of musical analysis. There is a general review of research on the perception of pitch and rhythm, on processes of categorization, and on cognitive structures associated with inference and reason. This review is paired with an exploration of issues in music theory and analysis that could be addressed by research in cognitive science. Analytical models incorporating both of these strands are developed in the latter portion of the course. This course is typically offered in alternate years. L. Zbikowski. Winter 2006.
26100. Introduction to Composition. PQ: MUSI 14200 or 15300, or equivalent. This course introduces students to some of the basic problems in musical composition through a series of simple exercises. M. Ptaszynska, Autumn.
26300-26400/34700-34800. Introduction to Computer Music. PQ: Consent of instructor. Rudimentary musical skills (but not technical knowledge) required; basic Macintosh skills helpful. This two-quarter course of study gives students in any discipline the opportunity to explore the techniques and aesthetics of computer-generated/assisted music production. During the first quarter, students learn the basics of digital synthesis, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), and programming. These concepts and skills are acquired through lecture, demonstration, reading, and a series of production and programming exercises. Students are encouraged to indulge their musical and programming creativity throughout the course. The final project is a creative musical or programming endeavor of the student's choosing. Weekly lab tutorials and individual lab time in the Department's Computer Music Studio are in addition to scheduled class time. This course is offered in alternate years. H. Sandroff. Autumn, Winter.
26500/34500. Instrumentation and Orchestration I. PQ: Open to nonmajors with consent of instructor. This course introduces the fundamental principles of the capabilities of musical instruments and their combinations. E. Blackwood. Autumn, 2006.
26800. Studies in Computer Music. PQ: MUSI 26300 & 26400 and consent of instructor. Meets w/ MUSI 36800. H. Sandroff, Autumn 2006.
26900. Eighteenth-Century Counterpoint. PQ: MUSI 14200 or 15300. Open to non-majors w/ consent of the instructor. This is a practical course for learning the art of fugue writing. The class concentrates on writing different types of fugues and on short pieces involving different types of imitation. The material is based on Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Goldberg Variations, Das Musikalische Opfer, and Die Kunst der Fuge. M. Ptaszynska, Spring 2006.
28200/38200. Multiple-Media Composition. PQ: Consent of instructor. This course examines aesthetic, technical, and conceptual issues of works that combine music and video, focusing on the critical interactions between visual elements and music, and their processes of perception. We will explore several current technological research and innovative approaches and techniques to works for music and video. This course will also provide historical and critical overview of the artists and scientists whose technical innovations have made a significant impact on the development of audio-visual works. You will produce several projects using the applications introduced in class. At least one project will be an exchange work with the video students in the Department of Visual Arts. Collaboration with other students in this course is strongly encouraged. K. Suzuki. Autumn, 2006.
29500. Undergraduate Honors Seminar. PQ: Consent of instructor. Open only to fourth-year students who are majoring in music and wish to develop a research project and prepare it for submission for departmental honors. The seminar guides students through the preliminary stages of selecting and refining a topic, and provides an interactive forum for presenting and discussing the early stages of research, conceptualization, and writing. The course culminates in the presentation of a paper that serves as the foundation of the honors thesis. The instructors work closely with honors project supervisors, who may be drawn from the entire music faculty. Autumn.
Graduate Classes
30300. The History and Literature of Electro-Acoustic Music. Many musical visionaries have at one time or another declared that the liberation of music was partly (or entirely) linked to the growth of electronic technology. Whether you accept or reject that notion, there is no denying that electricity, electronic and computer technology has had a profound and irrevocable impact on the aesthetics, economics, and social forces which drive and respond to musical innovation. We will endeavor to examine the history and literature of electro-acoustic music and the instruments that produce it from primitive beginnings at the end of the 19th Century to the present day with special emphasis on the second half of the 20th Century. We will listen, read and discuss much. Controversy is not only welcome but also expected. Come join us; your ears will receive the cleaning they deserve. H. Sandroff, Spring 2007.
30505. Introduction to the Philosophy of Music. Meets with 22505, equiv PHIL 21101/31101. Open to college and grad students. An introduction to topics in the philosophy of music, mainly by way of readings from contemporary offers. Among topics to be covered are: What is a musical work, what kind of thing? Is “absolute music” better than music with a text or a program? What explains the emotional effect of music? Is opera the best or the worst of the musical arts, or neither? Authors to be read include Peter Kivy, Stephen Davies, Jerrold Levinson, Kendall Walton, and Jennifer Roibinson. If time permits we will consider an earlier author, Adorno. T. Cohen, Spring 2007.
30707/22100. Adaptation: Literature, Drama, Opera, Film. Meets w/ Music 22100, GRMN 27600, GRMN 37600. This course is an intensive, comparative examination of theories and practices of adaptation. We consider a disparate set of case studies spanning a host of epochs and genres (e.g., Schiller/Brecht/ Dreyer’s St. Joan; Heine/Wagner’s Flying Dutchman; Fontane/Fassbinder’s Effi Briest; Büchner/Berg/Herzog’s Woyzeck). Texts in English and the original. D. Levin, Winter 2007.
30900/22900. Topics in Film Music. Meets with 22900. This course explores the role of film music in the history of cinema. What role does music play as part of the narrative (source music) and as nondiegetic music (underscoring)? How does music of different styles and provenance contribute to the semiotic universe of film? And how did film music assume a central voice in twentieth-century culture? We study music composed for films (original scores) as well as pre-existent music (such as popular and classical music). The twenty films covered in the course may include classical Hollywood cinema, documentaries, foreign (including non-Western) films, experimental films, musicals, and cartoons. B. Hoeckner. Autumn 2005.
30900/22900. Contemporary Opera. PQ: Consent of instructor. This course explores the various stylistic trends, the diversity of aesthetics, and the musical styles in opera after 1950, both in Europe and in America. Major emphasis is placed on analytical explorations of the most representative operas of that time. The selection of these operas is based on musical and artistic merit, historic importance, and cultural expression. M. Ptaszynska, Spring 2007.
31100. Tonal Analysis. In this course, we will study advanced problems and techniques of tonal analysis, with particular emphasis upon Schenkerian theory. It is presumed that the student enters with a good grasp of basic tonal harmonic theory, voice leading, and counterpoint. Readings by Schenker and various Schenkerian-influenced authors (as well as some critics of Schenker) will be complemented by regular analytic assignments and projects. We will use as a text "Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach" by David Gagne and Allen Cadwallader. T. Christensen, Winter 2006.
31200. Analysis of 19th-Century Music. This course explores a range of issues in the analysis and interpretation of nineteenth-century European art music. The primary focus of the course is the development and refinement of skills in the analysis of chromatic harmony, drawing on the theoretical traditions of Schenker, Riemann, Kurth, Bailey, Lewin, Cohn, and others. Class meetings will be equally divided between close analytical studies of works, focusing generally on one piece per class, and discussions of analytical and theoretical articles. Though this is primarily a course in technical analysis, we will also touch on some broader issues in Romantic aesthetics, including: the aesthetics of the fragment; the nature of the Romantic character piece; "Innigkeit" and constructions of subjectivity; tensions between "absolute" and "programmatic" music; the relation between public and private genres; and so forth. Participants will write analytical papers and review-essays of the readings, and participate in online discussions throughout the week. S. Rings, Spring 2006.
31506. Modal Analysis. This course explores traditional musics of West and South Asia, with principal emphasis on the classical music of Iran, as modal systems. The main focus is on the Persian dastgah, with secondary emphasis on Arabic maqam and South Indian raga as concepts in theory, but in greater detail, as guiding principles in performance. We will look at these musics from the perspective of their structure, but also examine their relationship to cultural contexts. We will try to discover the ways they are taught and learned and pay special attention to the role of modal principles in improvisational practice and improvised genres. Assignments will include some readings and listening to a modest number of recordings, and students will be asked to do ca. three analytical assignments one or two of which should result in oral reports. No final exam. B. Nettl, Spring 2006.
31900/25700. Cognitive Science and Music Analysis. PQ: MUSI 25200. Open to nonmajors with consent of instructor. This course surveys recent research in music cognition and cognitive psychology and shows how it can be applied to problems of musical analysis. There is a general review of research on the perception of pitch and rhythm, on processes of categorization, and on cognitive structures associated with inference and reason. This review is paired with an exploration of issues in music theory and analysis that could be addressed by research in cognitive science. Analytical models incorporating both of these strands are developed in the latter portion of the course. This course is typically offered in alternate years. L. Zbikowski. Winter 2006.
32100. Pro-Seminar: Chant. A. Robertson, Winter 2007.
32200. Pro-Seminar: History & Notation of Polyphonic Music. A. Robertson, Spring 2007.
32400. Pro-Seminar: Renaissance Music. C. Elias, Winter 2007.
32500. Pro-Seminar in Music from 1600-1700. L. Stein, Spring 2006.
32800. Pro-Seminar: Music since 1900. This proseminar will examine the challenges involved in gaining a comprehensive overview of the widely diverse cultural and aesthetic trends of the twentieth century, their effects on devising categories for twentieth-century music, and the pedagogical hurdles that need to be overcome in order to convey such concepts coherently to students. Following a critical examination of textbooks and anthologies currently available, we will explore alternative approaches to understanding the music of the twentieth century in its cultural, intellectual, and political contexts, with special attention to important issues in recent scholarship. Topics may include the impact of technology on composition and production, debates regarding the origins of modernism, the impact of wars and economics, music and ideology, the interactions between “art” and “popular” categories, trends and debates in music analysis, applications of literary and cultural criticism, and issues of globalization and identity. P. Potter, Spring 2007.
33100/23100. Jazz. (=AFAM 23100) This survey charts the history and development of jazz from its African roots to the present. Representative recordings in various styles are selected for intensive analysis and connected to other musics, currents in American and world cultures, and the contexts and processes of performance. The Chicago Jazz Archive in Regenstein Library provides primary source materials. This course is typically offered in alternate years. T. Jackson. Autumn, 2006.
33207. Topics in Ethnomusicology: Music, Migration, and Nation. This seminar takes as its subject the role that music plays in mediating the ontologies and narratives of belonging in a world long (and perhaps increasingly) defined by movement. As the rhetoric of "globalization" has come to the foreground in discussions of the modern world system, various observers—social theorists, anthropologists, ethno/musicologists, and philosophers, to name a few—have interpreted the international circulation of people, products, practices and the like through such overlapping yet distinct rubrics as transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, postcolonialism, and diaspora. Depending on the interpretation, the implications for understanding community relationships and social categories—from race to nation—can take radically different shapes. After working our way through the recent literature on cosmopolitanism, diaspora, postcolonialism, and transnationalism, we will turn specifically to texts—musicological and musical—which articulate music's relationship to these processes and projects. Our "case studies" will largely be drawn from the Caribbean and the Transatlantic more generally: Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, the US, and England. We will consider how these cases support or challenge contemporary social theories about migration and community, how musical representations figure in the creation of public discourses of race and nation, and whether musical practices and products might themselves offer compelling social theories about a world in motion. How might we hear the global in the Caribbean or the Caribbean in the global? How would attending to such a dialectic in music (and writing about music) serve to redraw imagined and inscribed cartographies? W. Marshall, Spring 2007.
33301. Southeast Asian Musical Practices: Current Topics. Meets w/ Music 23401. C. Johnson, Winter 2007.
33206. Topics in Ethnomusicology: Popular Music and Social Change in Latin America. This course explores how popular music has served as a ground for shaping, remaking, or enacting new visions of self and society in Latin America. Focusing primarily on musics of the twentieth century, we will examine the way that aesthetic practices, and the agents behind them, have reacted to shifting economic, demographic, and political realities, helping to shape emergent subject positions for new social actors. Case studies will be drawn from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States. While students will gain a basic understanding of the musical structures and principles underlying each genre studied, emphasis will be placed more specifically upon issues of race, class, nationalism, migration, and globalization. Proficiency in Spanish, Portuguese, and musical notation is not required. J. Tucker, Spring 2006.
33208. The Jazz Improviser/Composer: Monk and Mingus. Jazz improviser-composers Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus are two of the most original contributors to the jazz language. This course will concentrate on the nature of that originality and upon their idiosyncratic stylistic development. Our work will take particular notice of the process ofrecasting jazz into the big band medium, as heard in Monk's Town Hall Concert of 1959 and Mingus' posthumous extended work Epitaph. Term papers andin-class presentations are expected. R. Wang, Spring 2006.
33407. Global Film Musicals. P. Bohlman, Winter 2007.
33500. Introduction to World Music. This introduction to world music for graduate students lays the groundwork for a broader understanding of the diverse musics of the world, first by exploring world music in greater depth and familiarizing students with the many repertories and music cultures that constitute world music, and then surveying the ways in which world music can be integrated into research and teaching. Four different approaches will be woven together: 1) We examine the intellectual history of ethnomusicology as the discipline that has devoted itself to the comprehensive study of all the musics of the world. 2) We survey the major historical and cultural “areas” (e.g., Africa or South Asia) and the major practices and styles of music-making (e.g., folk music or popular music) that have traditionally served as the basis for specialties in the study of world music. 3) We take a practical approach to the teaching of world music, recognizing that students in the class, both ethnomusicologists and non-ethnomusicologists, are increasingly called upon to teach world music. Each student will design a course introducing world music within a specific academic context. 4) We explore the ways in which interdisciplinarity—the growing conversations between and among ethnomusicology and its sister disciplines within and outside music—has expanded the presence of world music in recent discussions of globalization, popular and mass culture, and the post-colonial studies. Students from all disciplines of music will be welcome in the class. Students from outside the musical disciplines are also very welcome, though they will want to realize that there will be moments in the class when their reading and listening requirements will presuppose a prior knowledge of music, some aural and listening skills, and basic understanding of the ways world music can be represented. P. Bohlman, Spring 2006.
33506/23506. Music of the Middle East. PQ: Any 10000-level music course or consent of instructor required; knowledge of one regional language and French suggested, as well as interest in an on-campus Middle East Music Ensemble. This course considers key issues in the study of music in the Middle East from Morocco to Kazakhstan. The focus is on maqam-based urban repertoires from a historical and comparative perspective, but with consideration of tribal and sedentary rural musical practices are also considered. The various historical transformations of the Ottoman repertory constitute an important focus, looking at the work of Wright, Feldman, Behar, Tura, and others. M. Stokes, Winter 2007.
33606. Music of the Mediterranean. The course explores the musics of the Mediterranean basin and the challenges they pose to ethnomusicologists and musicologists regarding theorizations of culture, gender and sexuality, historical transformation, urbanity, nation-state formation, and mass media. The course will involve detailed case-studies focusing both on specific regions, north and south, and specific authors significant in the construction of the field. Students will be encouraged to work on short research projects as the quarter progresses bringing specific interests of their own to bear on the readings discussed in the course. An ability to read French will be helpful. M. Stokes, Spring 2006.
33700/23700. Music of South Asia. (=RLST 27700, SALC 20800/30800) PQ: Any 10000-level music course or consent of instructor. This course examines the music of South Asia as an aesthetic domain with both unity and particularity in the region. The unity of the North and South Indian classical traditions is treated historically and analytically, with special emphasis placed on correlating their musical and mythological aspects. The classical traditions are contrasted with regional, tribal, and folk music with respect to fundamental conceptualizations of music and the roles it plays in society. In addition, the repertories of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and states and nations bordering the region are covered. Music is also considered as a component of myth, religion, popular culture, and the confrontation with modernity. P. Bohlman. Winter 2006.
33900. Music Anthropology. The course examines influential theorizations of music with reference to a broad anthropological literature on ritual, art and aesthetics. This will involve reading and discussion of the work of Durkheim, Hertz, Mauss, Leach, Bloch and others in the early part of the course, the work of 'Manchester School' theorists of performance, from Gluckman and Turner to Comaroff, Gilsenan and Kapferer in the middle section, and more recent work on conjunctions of ritual, art and aesthetic theory in the final section (Clifford, Taussig, Gell and others). M. Stokes, Winter 2006.
33900/23900. Rock. Meets with 23900. The meanings and musical pleasures of rock continue to elude musicologists; musicologists have much to learn about themselves and their discipline, as well as the genre itself, if they continue to try. This course will consider some critical accounts of the music industry, of subcultures, and of mass media aesthetics; some historical dimensions of rock, such the circum-Atlantic and, more recently, the global circulation of blues-derived popular forms; and some analytical approaches deriving from the main theoretical traditions of western art music, psychoanalysis, semiotics and ethnography, as applied to rhythm and meter, repetition, tonality, voice and so forth. Students will also be encouraged, through select readings and listening assignments, to contextualize rock within a broad field of twentieth century popular/vernacular music-making. T. Jackson. Autumn, 2005.
34500/26500. Instrumentation and Orchestration I. PQ: Open to nonmajors with consent of instructor. This course introduces the fundamental principles of the capabilities of musical instruments and their combinations. E. Blackwood. Autumn, 2006.
36800. Studies in Computer Music. PQ: MUSI 34700 & 34800 and consent of instructor. Meets w/ MUSI 26800. H. Sandroff, Autumn 2006.
36900. The Musical Language of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The first half of the course takes a close look at Karlheinz Stockhausen's aesthetics and compositional techniques, as well as his profound influence on computer music. Among works to be examined are Gesang der Jünglinge, Gruppen, Zyklus, Kontakte, Hymnen, Mikrophonie I, Stimmung, and Mantra. The second half of the course explores the stylistic trends, aesthetic, and compositional techniques in Germany after 1970. We will examine several works by Helmut Lachenmann and Nicolaus Huber, among others. K. Suzuki, Spring 2006.
37000. The Musical Language of Oliver Messiaen. This course, with a subtitle "Color and Poetry in the Music of Olivier Messiaen", is an analytical course presenting his compositional approach and characteristic techniques. In-depth analysis of several works will be a main focus of this course. The analysis will cover his modal, harmonic, and rhythmic language. The following works will be a subject of in-depth analysis: Quatre études de rythme for piano, Quatour pour la fin du temps, Coulers de la cité celeste, Turanqualila - Symphonie, Des canyons aux étoiles, Un sourire opera Saint François d'Assise, scenes: 5, 6 and 7. M. Ptaszynska. Winter 2006.
37200. History of Music Theory II. This second quarter of the history of music theory will cover a range of selected theoretical ideas from the 17th through the early 20th century. Among the topics to be considered are the emergence (and interpretations) of harmonic tonality in the 17th century (along with residuals of modal thought), models of musical rhetoric in the 18th century, theories of functionality, phrase and form in the 19th century, and energeticist and psychological perspectives of musical analysis in the early 20th century. Emphasis will be placed upon the reading and interpretation of primary texts (some of them in their original French or German). Unlike past versions of this course, there will be no culminating term paper due at the end; instead the student will write three short interpretive essasys over the ten weeks of the course that critically engage our readings. There will also be periodic class presentations. It is recommended (but not required) that the student purchase a copy of the Cambridge History of Western Music Theory for reference. T. Christensen, Winter 2007.
38000. Orchestral Conducting: The Art, The Craft, The Practice. One unit of credit for 3 quarters, given after Spring Quarter. This year-long course provides an introduction to the art, the craft, and the practice of orchestral conducting. The course is targeted particularly toward graduate students in Music Composition, and the experienced musician who is familiar with the basic orchestral repertoire as well as the fundamental procedures of orchestral playing. Ideally, all students enrolled in the course should have had several years' experience playing in a symphony orchestra or other musical ensemble. Proficiency in sightreading and ear-training, as well as basic keyboard skills, are prerequisites for the course. Through a combination of classroom work and extra ensemble sessions, the student will gain significant practical experience in conducting. Weekly classroom sessions will incorporate singing, keyboard work, and instrumental participation by class members and guest musicians. Important technical exercises will be assigned every week, as well as modest reading selections. Periodic ensemble sessions will involve small groups of eight to twelve players, and occasionally as many as thirty or forty players. Several short papers and several short classroom presentations will be assigned during the year as well. The overall work load of the course is commensurate with a one-third course load per quarter. Students receive course credit only upon completion of the entire year's work. Students should register for the course in all three quarters; they will receive an 'R' in autumn and winter, and a final grade in the spring. B. Schubert. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
38200/28200. Multiple-Media Composition. PQ: Consent of instructor. This course examines aesthetic, technical, and conceptual issues of works that combine music and video, focusing on the critical interactions between visual elements and music, and their processes of perception. We will explore several current technological research and innovative approaches and techniques to works for music and video. This course will also provide historical and critical overview of the artists and scientists whose technical innovations have made a significant impact on the development of audio-visual works. You will produce several projects using the applications introduced in class. At least one project will be an exchange work with the video students in the Department of Visual Arts. Collaboration with other students in this course is strongly encouraged. K. Suzuki. Autumn, 2006.
42706. Seminar: Music and Memory. This seminar will examine the relationship between music and memory from a variety of perspectives: philosophical and phenomenological, cultural and cognitive. We will consider how memory has been modeled and theorized across history, across cultures, and across disciplines. We will ask how these models and theories may help us to understand the relationship between music and memory in a variety of practices. Such practices will include mnemonic techniques for memorizing music itself, as well as nostalgia, trauma, involuntary recall, commemoration, and ritual, etc. where music becomes a vehicle of personal and collective memory in order to remember something else. The seminar will revolve around core readings and workshop style presentations. We will conclude with a mini-conference of 20-minute papers. B. Hoeckner. Winter 2006.
42906. Seminar in 15th-Century Music - The "Jesus" Compositions. Polyphonic music that conspicuously invokes the name of Jesus began to be composed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We will attempt to understand these works, heretofore unexamined as a group, in the course of this seminar. We will begin by trying to establish the musical repertory of "Jesus" compositions. Next, we will examine the various liturgical contexts in which "Jesus" compositions flourished - from settings for high mass to devotional works intended for side altars and connected with artwork of various kinds. Finally, we will work to comprehend the cultural significance of this repertory. Along the way, we will pose a variety of questions. What did the establishment of the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus have to do with the cultivation of this music? Did the "Jesus" works begin on the periphery of church spaces and then gradually make their way to the center of the choir, or vice versa? Does this repertory have features in common with, or analogous to, that composed for other ritual settings, e.g. Salve services? Why do some locales appear to cultivate these works more than others? What is their pattern of transmission and how is meaning inscribed in them? How does the "new Christology" of fifteenth-century theology figure in the development of this repertory? How do anthropological considerations inform these pieces, notably in terms of the perceived efficacy of uttering the name of "Jesus" in the late middle ages? Final papers will focus on individual "Jesus" compositions, which include pieces by major composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some familiarity with Latin, French and Middle English will be helpful, though not absolutely required. A. Robertson, Winter 2006.
43106. Seminar: The Castrato in Nature. This seminar considers castrati and their music in relation to paradigms of nature. It asks how castrati were produced and naturalized in the sixteenth through early eighteenth centuries, and why ultimately in the later eighteenth century they became alien to concepts of nature. At issue will be changing early modern paradigms of nature, along with attendant notions of the body, and how these have informed changing explanations of the castrato phenomenon. Also important will be a consideration of how and why nongenerative men were perceived to act so profoundly upon the bodies of listening publics, and how this relationship squares with persistent associations of castrati with bloodshed, gifts, money, and luxury. Among our related questions: How were contemporaneous medical, physiological, and therapeutic understandings of the body (Galenic, Aristotelian, folk, or traditional) implicated in the creation of this caste of singers and how did these understandings change over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? What do stories about why boys were castrated tell us about the symbolic significance castrati had for them and their observers? What relationships have been understood to exist between the singing of castrati and their procreative status? In approaching this last we will look specifically at the castrato voice's voice and vocal abilities--the "grain" (in Barthes's terms), the vocal production (diction, flexibility, articulation), and the instrument (layrnx, cords, chest, head, diaphragm)--and will consider what scores can tell us about how the singing of castrati might be distinguished from that of women. German, French, and (especially) Italian will all be useful in this seminar but not indispensable, since we will divide specific reading and research projects up among groups. The main work of the seminar will consist of weekly readings and research projects, plus a term paper to be delivered in oral form at a mini-conference. M. Feldman, Spring 2006.
43206. Seminar. Two Composers and One Canticum: Monteverdi, Bach and the Magnificat. The seminar considers the attitude of two major composers towards the Magnificat. The cultural differences between the environments in which Monteverdi and Bach used to work - the Catholic Northern Italy of the first half of the 17th century as opposed to the Lutheran Leipzig of the first half of the 18th - set the background for a comparative analysis of their respective settings of the canticum. The end of the Renaissance witnessed the fading of the tradition of multiple settings of a sacred text collected in volumes arranged by modes. In the case of the Magnificat, Palestrina's three books (one published in 1591 and two only in modern times) represent the last instance of such a compositional attitude: nothing of the like is to be found in Monteverdi's dramatic setting of less than two decades later. After a reading of the two versions of the endpiece of the Vespers of 1610 the seminar will investigate Monteverdi's two stylistically opposed achievements found in the Selva morale e spirituale of 1640-41. Bach's Magnificat in D major will be the keystone of the second part of the seminar. The close reading of this famous masterwork will include the study of its less known original version in E flat and of a number of possibly lesser known compositions related to it, including the setting of the German paraphrase of the canticum, "Meine Seel' erhebt den Herren" (BWV 10). A. Rizzuti, Autumn 2006.
43305. Seminar: Music and Performances Studies. An intensive exploration of theories and practices of performance. Topics to be explored include the theoretical stakes of live vs. recorded performance (Adorno, Phelan, Auslander), the voice on stage and screen (e.g., Silverman, Chion, Poizat), and modalities of performance (Frith, Cook). We will supplement our classroom work by attending various performances, some 'official' (e.g., Museum of Contemporary Art Performance Series, Chicago Opera Theater), others less obvious (the performances of everyday life, steetscapes). D. Levin and M. Stokes, Spring 2005.
43306. Seminar: Song. This seminar will focus on the analysis of nineteenth-century German lieder. The repertoire will draw primarily on songs by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. Topics that will be explored in some detail include the relationship between text and music in these songs, the compositional strategies specific to the small-scale theater of the lied, and the narrative structure of the song cycle. Our meetings will be divided between discussions of readings and the analysis of songs, with somewhat more time given to the latter than the former. The repertoire for seminar papers is not restricted to nineteenth-century German lieder, and participants are encouraged to explore both the theory and analysis of song in their research. L. Zbikowski, Spring 2006.
43506. Seminar: Music and Poetry. T. Jackson, R. von Hallberg, Spring 2006.
43600. The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Music. This seminar will examine the theoretical foundations of musical acoustics; the generation, propagation and perception of sound. Through a series of lectures, experiments and laboratory demonstrations, a number of topics will focus on the measurement and perception of the physical and psycho-physical characteristics of sound and its application by practitioners in the fields of music performance, composition, theory, instrument design, perception and sound reproduction. Students will have the opportunity to examine acoustical theory as it applies to their area of specialization in composition, musicology, ethno-musicology and music theory. Reading and listening assignments are made in the course syllabus and are subject to change or modification as needed. Students are responsible for all reading and listening. I have selected Acoustics and Psychoacoustics 3rd Edition, Howard, D. & Angus, J. Focal Press, as a text for the course. In addition to the text, other readings will be placed on reserve, handed out or posted to the Blackboard site. One major research project will be assigned. I will provide you with a list of possible topics. This list is not exhaustive and you are welcome to come up with your own. However, if your topic of choice is not on the list I would encourage you to speak with me before submitting the final proposal. Work on the project will progress over the quarter and you will be required to make a short presentation on your work every other week beginning week 3 or 4. You will be evaluated on your progress as demonstrated by the bi-weekly presentation. You must choose your topic by week 2 and therefore begin preliminary research immediately. In addition to the major research topic, I regularly assign weekly individualized mini research topics. Lastly, a midterm assignment will give you an opportunity to design a perceptual (artistic) experiment using current techniques. H. Sandroff, Winter 2007.
43606. Seminar: Scenes and Spatiality. Over the last few decades, varying theoretical currents as well a shifts in the structure and analysis of economic systems have led scholars to focus more attention on space and place. Once regarded as the inert backdrop in front of which historical (temporal) change occurred, space and place - since the pioneering work of Henri Lefebvre - have come to be regarded as constitutive elements that both shape and are shaped by economic, political, social, cultural and musical life. This seminar will focus on the implications and applications of studies of space for ethnomusicological research, particularly that focused on recent forms of popular music. We will begin by focusing attention on the work of theorists and urban geographers (e.g., Edward Soja and Davied Harvey) whose work has been crucial in (re)creating space as a category of investigation. Then our focus will shift to studies of urban development, particularly those focused on the era following World War II. Along the way, we will consider the ways that patterns of migration and changes in regimes of capital accumulation, among other factors, have affected the fortunes of music makers and presenters. We will finally turn our attention to various ethnographic writings on jazz, hip-hop, country, salsa and dance music, among others, to consider the ways in which understanding the interaction of space and place with better-theorized aspects of social life can enrich our work as musicologists, anthropologists and cultural theorists. In the process we will explore the efficacy of various models - scenes, communities, subcultures, pathways, networks - for situating musical activity and human interaction. T. Jackson, Spring 2007.
43607. The Theory and Practice of Musical Biography. I have a contract with W.W. Norton to write for them a biography of Gioachino Rossini. In thinking about this project, however, I have decided that I have no interest in writing a traditional "life and works" biography. Reflecting on the approach I wish to take (which I will describe during the course of the seminar) has encouraged me to explore the entire range of theoretical literature, particularly in literary, musical, and artistic studies, about the nature of biography and the integration or dissociation of life and works. In the seminar, we will read widely in theoretical literature on the subject. Some of it will be focused on music (including the 2006 Musical Biography: Towards New Paradigms, ed. by Jolanta T. Pekacz, but also including older works, such as Hans Lenneberg's 1988 Witnesses and Scholars: Studies in Musical Biography); much of it will come from literary studies (such as The Craft of Literary Biography, ed. by Jeffrey Meyers, Contesting the Subject: Essays in the Postmodern Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism, ed. by William H. Epstein, and Mapping Lives: The Uses of Biography, ed. by Peter France and William St. Clair). Although we will pay some attention to comparative studies of biographies of some literary figures (such as Shakespeare or Virginia Woolf), most of our time will be focused on musical figures. We will spend some weeks examining comparatively biographies of important musical figures, such as Beethoven or Schubert. We will address particular issues, such as the role of gender and sexual orientation in defining the premises for writing biography (both Handel and Britten will play a role in our thinking), and we will have Professor Ellen Harris of M.I.T. as a special guest to offer a seminar on writing the life of Handel. We will consider the special question of biographies of women composers in the 19th and 20th centuries. And we will broaden our focus to include studies of film biography (Amadeus, Immortal Beloved, and the recent Copying Beethoven, with John C. Tibbetts' Composers in the Movies: Studies in Musical Biography as a guide); students will also have the opportunity to study an unpublished screenplay by Robert Altman for a film biography of Rossini that was never made. Individual presentations can be devoted to general theoretical questions or to specific composers. P. Gossett, Winter 2007.
43701. Seminar: Sonata Form. For many years, the study of form was derided as one of the driest and most pedantic disciplines of music pedagogy. Let alone forcing the students to memorize dozens of abstracted schemata that rarely seemed to fit comfortably with the musical literature for which they were meant to account, courses and texts of Formenlehre seemed to present a simplistic teleology of musical form whose evolution culminated miraculously in the "sonata-allegro" model of the Viennese classicists. Again, though, the textbook descriptions of sonata form seemed consistently undermined by empirical counterfactuals. This baleful situation led, not surprisingly, to a counter-revolt among music theorists in which considerations of form, if not entirely dismissed, tended to be highly qualified or fractured (exemplified above all in Rosen's inclusive family of "sonata forms") and ultimately subordinated to other considerations, particularly that of motivic development, voice-leading, and hermeneutics. Within the last dozen years or so, however, theories of musical form have experienced a spectacular revival among music scholars. Indeed, with the diverse writings of such authors as Mark Evans Bonds, James Webster, Scott Burnham, William Caplin, Michael Spitzer, James Hepokowski, and Warren Darcy, we might legitimately speak of a Renaissance in the seemingly moribund discipline of musical form. Of course the work of these writers was not simply to resurrect and naturalize old notions of musical form. Instead, they have sought to invigorate the study by reconsidering critically the very foundations - historical and conceptual - upon which form theory has been based. In this seminar, we will consider the new Formenlehre of American music theory. We will begin with some historical perspectives, reading canonical texts of form by such theorists as Heinrich Koch, Carl Czerny, Antoine Reicha, and A. B. Marx, leading to the classical textbook descriptions of late 19th-century authors such a Richter and Prout. We will then consider some early 20th century critics (Halm, Schenker, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Tovey, etc.) and their disenchantment with textbook form theory. Finally, we'll turn to the recent work of theorists such as Caplin, Cone, Spitzer, Burnham, Hepokowski, and Darcy, and consider through careful study their contributions to ideas of large-scale musical organization in tonal music. Throughout the seminar, we will balance regular readings of primary and secondary sources (some in French and German) with analytic study, testing and evaluating the various constructs of form and musical process against common-practice repertoires. But beyond simply considering the empirical validity of any particular perspective of form, we will also consider deeper aesthetic and ideological issues at play: why is formal organization and coherence consistently such an important desideratum for musicians? Why do we feel so compelled to seek out or impose elements of rational order in music? And why the persistence of organicist rhetoric in describing such formal organization? What, in short, are the stakes in the analysis of form for responsible producers and listeners of music today? T. Christensen, Spring, 2007
43705. Seminar: Music & Science in the Early Modern Period. Music has been intimately entangled with science since Antiquity, when the ratios of musical consonance offered one of the most striking empirical confirmations of Pythagorean philosophy. In this seminar, we will consider the important role music played in the scientific revolution of the 17th century. We will see how music provided a key model for both mathematical as well as mechanistic natural philosophies, and was itself a subject of intense experimentation within the “new” science. Key texts by Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Mersenne, Kepler, Huyghens, Newton, Euler, and d’Alembert will be studied, along with a variety of recent secondary literature by both musicologists and historians of science. Besides topics of consonance analysis, temperament, cosmological harmonics, vibrational mechanics, and sound propagation, we will also consider issues of music and the occult (magic and gnostic lore), music and medicine (theories of the nerves, physiological models of auditory sensibility), and music and technology. No special training in science is required or expected of students enrolled in this seminar (although some readings will certainly push your memory of high-school mathematics and physics to the limit). For graduate students outside of music, no specialized musical training is necessary, although a basic ability to read music will prove helpful. Most (but not all!) readings will be in English. A final research paper is required. T. Christensen, Autumn 2005.
43807: Lewinian Transformation Theory. In this seminar we will explore the analytical and theoretical riches of GIS and transformation theory, as introduced in David Lewin’s 1987 book Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations and extended in an outpouring of more recent work, including my own. The course will focus on transformation theory’s mathematical and conceptual foundations, exploring the complex ways in which they intertwine and entail one another. In particular, the course will stress foundational aspects of the theory that are often insufficiently understood, including its basis in claims about the apperceptual nature of musical experience. We will not give formal matters short shrift, however. Students will leave the seminar with a solid mastery of the formal apparatus of the theory, including its basis in abstract algebraic group theory and graph theory. We will devote considerable attention to questions of analytical methodology. This is a theory that can produce a wealth of formally “true” statements. How can we be sure such statements are musically pertinent and analytically persuasive? The course will also explore important discursive aspects of transformation theory, such as the suggestive (but elusive) concept of the “transformational attitude” and the theory’s implicit critique of Cartesian dualism. Coursework will involve readings, weekly assignments (including problem sets), one class presentation, and a seminar paper. Papers may be theoretical, analytical, critical/methodological, or some combination of these. S. Rings, Winter 2007.
44505. Seminar: Classical Heroines and Baroque Opera. This course examines the characterization, social context, and changing portrayals of three tragic women in the plays of Seneca (or attributed to him) and their metamorphoses in 17th/18th century opera: Octavia, Phaedra, and Medea. It begins with Seneca’s depiction of the conflicts and motivations of the heroines, and passes to their representation in works by Monteverdi [et al.], Rameau, and Charpentier, with a few side glimpses of other treatments. There is a large amount of reading and listening (normally at least one or more plays/one opera, together with secondary literature, per week); other requirements include class reports and an extensive paper. Although the classical plays are read in translation, French and Italian will be helpful in dealing with the operas. D. Wray (Classics), R. Kendrick (Music), Autumn 2005.
44506. Seminar. The Sight of Sound in Early Modern Europe. This intensive seminar brings together issues in the representation of musical sound in 16th/17th-century Europe (largely Italy and the Low Countries), concentrating on traditional iconographical studies, the meaning of musical images secular and sacred, the representation of music in informal contexts, and the aesthetic relationship between music and painting. Students will be exposed to hermeneutic approaches in both music and art history, and will work on both class reports and a final paper project. Students are responsible for: (1) all readings and study of images; (2) engaging all musical pieces (beginning with Week 3, doing so ahead of class); (3) two class reports, one in and one out of their discipline; (4) a final paper, whose topic must be set by 27 November. In Week 2 students will explain key terms they know (e.g. ‘point of imitation’; ‘pictorial composition’) to those outside their discipline. Especially in Weeks 2 and 3 (but beyond as well), they should be helpful (and patient) in explaining terms, styles, and analytic methods to others. Most weeks feature several central images and pieces. Starting in Week 3, the class reports will focus on these. R. Kendrick, Autumn 2006.
44507. Seminar: Genre. The course will focus on a variety of relationships between music and genre, and on some of their theoretical and practical implications. We will examine conceptions of genre in twentieth-century philosophy and literary theory (from Croce to Derrida and beyond) and consider their impact on thought about music. Seminar discussions (and student papers) will tackle more general theoretical topics as well as specific musical cases. Participants in the course — whether their primary interest is in musicology, composition or ethnomusicology — will be invited to explore the ways in which they categorise, more or less consciously, their own musical experiences.S. Castelvecchi, Spring, 2007
44705. Seminar: Musical Revival. It is through revival that the past is given new life in the present. Cultural identity and social action are not simply imagined, but reimagined as historical narratives that connect previous generations and earlier eras in which the quality of human existence was in most ways superior to the time in which individuals and societies feel themselves motivated by the search for that which has been lost. Revival reinvigorates religious movements, and it accompanies local and global forces of cultural transformation, from conservative nostalgia to radical nationalism. Revival emerges at historical moments when anxiety over loss engender forceful solutions for stemming loss. The old may seem to offer more meaning than the new, but more often than not it is the banner of the new that the vanguard of revival brandishes as its own. Not surprisingly, then, revival has come to dominate many of the social movements and historical transformations that shape the modernity of our own day. In the “New Europe,” for example, religion and nationalism are undergoing sweeping revival. So pervasive is revival today that it is surely possible to claim it as the motor of globalization. In this seminar we examine the ways in which music sets revival in motion and provide it with a performative framework. Through its complex narrative potential, music has the power to recuperate meaning from the past, and to provide new performative contexts in the present. The seminar will begin by examining specific revivals and the music that revitalizes them: the revival of musical nationalism, the klezmer revival, the early-music revival, the Celtic revival, the folk-music revival, the hymnody of American religious awakenings, the reawakening of religious orthodoxies in a secular world, and the passion for “roots music” and country music on a global scale. We turn to historical and geographic dimensions of revival, mapping it on both time and space. Our theoretical considerations will lead us to examine just how and why some musical repertories lend themselves to revival, while other repertories are rejected as too destructive of a past in need of retrieval. In the course of the seminar, then, we shall seek the extent to which revival is central to our understanding of what music is and can be, and of why we turn to music narrate the present in the image of the past. Students will be required to undertake a seminar project that employs historical or ethnographic methods. Students from the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Divinity will all be welcome to participate in the seminar. P. Bohlman, Autumn 2005.
44707. Music and Islam in Europe. P. Bohlman, Spring 2007.
