MUSI

This seminar will review recent work in affect theory and its application to musical practice. It will also explore how theoretical perspectives on relationships between music and the emotions, beginning in the eighteenth century and extending through to the twenty-first, suggest reformulations both to affect theory and to the way it might be applied to music. Seminar discussions will be focused on readings from affect theory, the history of music theory, music psychology, and cognitive psychology, and detailed consideration of musical works from a range of musical traditions.

Student and faculty composers meet weekly for composition seminars to discuss issues related to musical materials, imagination, design, aesthetics, and compositional techniques with leaders in the field from across the globe.

This course's goal is to introduce graduate students to the history, development and theoretical underpinnings of ethnomusicology as a research discipline. In our readings, therefore, we will focus our attention on key figures and institutions, especially from the late 19th century forward; on major issues and debates in and beyond ethnomusicology; on the relationships between ethnomusicology and other research disciplines; and on emergent emphases and concerns in ethnomusicological work.

A seminar in twentieth- and twenty-first-century western music is a terribly hoary "topic", if such a tame word can really access the taxonomic catastrophe of "what happened in/with/to western music after 1900". This is somewhat alleviated by the "pro" in proseminar: as with the other proseminars, ours is not principally a survey, but rather an engagement "with salient scholarly issues on trends and repertories" of its chosen time-period. Put another way: we'll be focusing more on how people within the last long decade think and write about music that emerged since 1900, and less on "what actually happened”* (the "content", history, or music-theoretical aspects of various repertories, styles, movements, figures). In the process, we’ll proceed conceptually and thematically rather than chronologically or via various “traditions”; in addition, we’ll explore three mutually irreducible but often interacting fields of musical production: 1) classical or “composerly” musics, 2) popular musics, and 3) jazz and improvisational idioms. We’ll maintain a dual-focus on how these fields listen to themselves (traditions, legacies, evolutions and revolutions) but also to each other (fusions, hybrids, crossovers) and to their other (in many cases non-Western) others.

This is a yearlong course in ear training, keyboard progressions, realization of figured basses at the keyboard, and reading of chamber and orchestral scores. Classes each week consist of one dictation lab (sixty minutes long) and one keyboard lab (thirty minutes long).

MUSI 27300 treats music since 1800. Topics include the music of Beethoven and his influence on later composers; the rise of public concerts, German opera, programmatic instrumental music, and nationalist trends; the confrontation with modernism; and the impact of technology on the expansion of musical boundaries.

Electronic Music I presents an open environment for creativity and expression through composition in the electronic music studio. The course provides students with a background in the fundamentals of sound and acoustics, covers the theory and practice of digital signal processing for audio, and introduces the recording studio as a powerful compositional tool. The course culminates in a concert of original student works presented in multi-channel surround sound. Enrollment gives students access to the Electronic Music Studio in the Department of Music. No prior knowledge of electronic music is necessary.

This course is a continuation of MUSI 261: Introduction to Composition, and an opportunity to go deeper into creative work. The focus will be on writing new pieces while also learning about various techniques and aesthetics, with special attention on music of the last hundred years. The new works will be performed and recorded by professional musicians, with demonstrations of instruments as well. Students are encouraged to bring their own existing interests into discussions and projects, while also incorporating newly acquired ideas and inspirations. There will also be focused attention on analysis of more recent repertoire for a variety of instrumentations and configurations, addressing new ways of thinking about harmony, melody, form, timbre, orchestration, rhythm, improvisation, notation, technology, theatricality, and concept. Students will also attend rehearsals and performances of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition and other events on campus.

This course focuses on the genre of the string quartet mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. We will analyze quartets by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Bartók using several different methodologies. Students will become proficient in analyzing metric, harmonic, formal aspects of the musical language, as well as be able to articulate the development of this venerable genre.

This survey charts the history and development of jazz from its earliest origins 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. PQ: Any 10000-level music course or ability to read music.