Music (MUSC)
MUSC 005 College Music Program
Private study in voice, keyboard, strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, and non-western instruments. Such study is designed to meet the artistic, technical, and/or professional needs of the student. Note: This is not a syllabus. Course requirements and assessment will be determined by the private instructor. Private lessons in the College House Music cannot be taken Pass/Fail. Please visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/performance. Students cannot register through Penn In Touch. Registration will be maintained by the music department upon receipt of application and instructor permission.
Activity: Studio
0.5 Course Units
Notes: Permits will be entered after student completes College Music House form. Forms available in Music department.
MUSC 007 Ensemble Performance
Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Ancient Voices, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
Activity: Studio
0.5 Course Units
Notes: Please contact Ensemble Director if you are interested in taking Music 007 for credit.
MUSC 010 Marian Anderson Performance Program
Special instruction in vocal and instrumental performance for music majors and minors only. Students must demonstrate in an audition that they have already attained an intermediate level of musical performance. They also must participate in a Music Department ensemble throughout the academic year, perform in public as a soloist at least once during the year (recital), perform a jury at the end of the spring semester, and attend and participate in masterclasses.
Two terms. student must enter first term.
Prerequisite: Must be a music major or minor
Activity: Lecture
0.5 Course Units
MUSC 016 Freshman Seminar
The primary goal of the freshman seminar program is to provide every freshman the opportunity for a direct personal encounter with a faculty member in a small setting devoted to a significant intellectual endeavor. Specific topics will be posted at the beginning of each academic year. Please see the College Freshman seminar website for information on current course offerings http:/www .college.upenn.edu/courses/seminars/freshman.php. Fulfills Arts and Letters sector requirement.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 018 Freshman Seminar
The primary goal of the freshman seminar program is to provide every freshman the opportunity for a direct personal encounter with a faculty member in a small sitting devoted to a significant intellectual endeavor. Specific topics be posted at the beginning of each academic year. Please see the College Freshman seminar website for information on current course offerings http:// www.college.upenn.edu/courses/seminars/freshman.php.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 030 1000 Years of Musical Listening
We know that we like music and that it moves us, yet it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly why, and harder still to explain what it is we are hearing. This course takes on those issues. It aims to introduce you to a variety of music, and a range of ways of thinking, talking and writing about music. The majority of music dealt with will be drawn from the so-called "Classical" repertory, from the medieval period to the present day, including some of the 'greats' such as Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, but will also introduce you to music you will most likely never have encountered before. This course will explore the technical workings of music and the vocabularies for analyzing music and articulating a response to it; it also examines music as a cultural phenomenon, considering what music has meant for different people, from different societies across the ages and across geographical boundaries. As well as learning to listen ourselves, we will also engage with a history of listening. No prior musical knowledge is required. (Formerly Music 021). Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Open to all students
MUSC 031 Symphony
This course will focus on a specific repertoire of representative symphonies by such composers as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikowsky, and Mahler. Historical developments will be considered, along with the effects upon symphonic literature of such major sociological changes as the emergence of the public concert hall. But the emphasis will be on the music itself--particularly on the ways we can sharpen our abilities to engage and comprehend the composers' musical rhetoric. Topics will alternate term to term. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.
Taught by: Bernstein
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 032 Composers
This course will center on the biography, works, and cultural context of a specific composer or group of composers. As well as introducing students to the musical works of the composer(s), the course will examine issues such as reception history, the canon, mechanisms of cult formation, authorship and attribution, identity, historical and social contexts, and nationalism and patriotism. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman, Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 033 History of Opera
An investigation, through a series of representative works, of the central problem of opera: how does the combination of music, text, and visual spectacle create an art form in which the whole is more powerful than its parts. Today this issue can be examined not only in live performances but also through media such as film, DVD, streaming video-- media to which this four-centuries-old multimedia form has adapted, evolving in still compelling ways. The works chosen for the course provide a chronological survey but also represent the variety of sources on which opera has drawn for it subject matter: myth and legend, the epic, the novel, and the play.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Taught by: Calcagno, Goodman
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 034 Music Makers
Courses under this number will treat composer performers and performance. Courses will include a class on Haydn and Mozart (formerly 027;); Beethoven (Formerly 028; and Mahler (formerly 025).
Taught by: Caldwell, Goodman, Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 035 Jazz Style and History
This course is an exploration of the family of musical idioms called jazz. Attention will be given to issues of style development, selective musicians, and to the social and cultural conditions and the scholarly discourses that have informed the creation, dissemination and reception of this dynamic set of styles from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Fulfills Cultural Diversity in the U.S.
Taught by: Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: This course is an exploration of the family of musical idioms called jazz. Attention will be given to issues of style development, selective musicians, and to the social and cultural conditions and the scholarly discourses that have informed the creation, dissemination and reception of this dynamic set of styles from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Fulfills Cultural Diversity in the U.S.
MUSC 044 Popular Music
This course traces the history of popular music in America from the nineteenth century to the present. We will start with parlor songs and social class and the racialized rise of minstrelsy in the antebellum period, track the separation of highbrow and lowbrow culture in the 19th century, explore the explosion of new styles in the early twentieth century, and witness the birth of hugely influential genres such as rock n roll in the 1950s and hip hop in the 1970s and 1980s. Throughout the semester we will consider how popular music intersects with and reflects individual and social identity, particularly in terms of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Students will engage intensively with popular songs and pieces while also gaining a firm grounding in the historical and social forces of which music was a part.
Taught by: Goodman
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 046 Urban Sound Studies
Sound is all around us and shapes almost every aspect of our everyday days, and yet, in comparison to our rich descriptions of visual culture, we often lack the explanatory power to analyze and assess the overwhelming influence of the sonic. This introduction to sound studies course will combine a rigorous conceptual and a creative, hands-on approach. We will explore how sound and auditory cultures have been theorized, how soundscapes shape built environments and transorm social relations, and how technologies have affected our relationships to sound. The course will focus on urban spaces. Cutting across disciplinary, historical and geographical boundaries, we will cover themes including sound-reproduction and mobile technologies, sonic consumption, noise regulation, protest, the politics of listening under Trumpism. We will encounter a wide variety of materials from literary texts to mobile apps and video games, not to mention a vast range of sounds drawn from fieldwork around the world from Las Vegas to Shanghai, Paris to Johannesburg. Alongside written work, you will make fieldwork recordings on the streets of Philadelphia and develop creative projects using media of your choice to reflect upon urban sound.
Taught by: Waltham Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 048 Voicing Politics/Politicizing Voices
What does it mean to have a voice? To raise your voice? To have your voice heard? What do our voices say about us and what do they fail to communicate? How we speak and how our voices are perceived impact our interactions in daily life, our participation in the political sphere, and our capacity to effect change through activism. This CWiC course explores the parameters by which voice is defined in the context of music and sound studies, social justice, philosophy, and media and communication studies. We will consider how voice embodies our political constitution through an examination of the vocal practices of artists such as Tanya Tagaq, Anohni, Juliana Huxtable, Laurie Anderson, Sikh Knowledge, and Lucas Silveira; the phenomena of voice-activated devices such as Apple s Siri and Amazon s Echo; and the collective voices of movements such as Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock water protectors. Through individual and group presentations, discussions, and creative projects, this critical speaking seminar encourages students to develop their oral communication skills while examining what informs their individual and collective voices. No previous musical training required. Enrollment limited to 16.
Taught by: Murphy
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Fulfills CWiC requirements. May be used towards music minor requirements.
MUSC 049 Listening to Nostalgia from the Phonograph to YouTube.
In revising the past, nostalgia invites us to also rethink the present, its ideals and its utopias. This CWiC course covers a century of nostalgia s aural technological mediation, from the invention of the phonograph to today s digital media such as YouTube. We will explore how conflicting forms of aural nostalgia (the longing for the sounds of other times or other places) are seen either as a suspicious refuge or an empowering cultural resource, and how they affect personal and collective identities, such as enhancing self-esteem or providing interpersonal bonds. The objective is to develop the students public speaking skills by voicing their own experiences of nostalgia while trying to understand the broader social, cultural, and communal issues at stake in nostalgic sounds. Through the examination of readings, analyses of recent and archival recordings, exhibits, and discussions, we will examine the intricate roles nostalgia has played at the intersections of aesthetics, technology, politics, marketing, the environment, and various audiovisual media, and how they affect us as individuals and communities. In order to develop their oral communication skills, students will be required to give presentations on two nostalgic topics of their choice in formats that employ different research, organization, and presentation competencies. Every week a small group of students will report on an example of sonic nostalgia found in Philadelphia in the style of a nostalgic radio program (or podcast). Each student will give a more formal oral critique of a nostalgic artifact of their choise, engaging with the plurality of oral (and aural) forms of nostalgia.
Taught by: Pare-Morin
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Communication within the Curriculum.
MUSC 050 World Musics and Cultures
This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Taught by: Muller,Rommen,Sykes
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 051 Music of Africa
African Contemporary Music: North, South, East, and West. Come to know contemporary Africa through the sounds of its music: from South African kwela, jazz, marabi, and kwaito to Zimbabwean chimurenga; Central African soukous and pygmy pop; West African Fuji, and North African rai and hophop. Through reading and listening to live performance, audio and video recordings, we will examine the music of Africa and its intersections with politics, history, gender, and religion in the colonial and post colonial era. (Formerly Music 053). Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.
Taught by: Muller
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
0 Course Units
MUSC 056 Seeing/Hearing South Africa: Politics and History through Contemporary Performance
This course begins in the regular semester--students are provided a general introduction to South African history, politics, environment, and performance through a range of resources: scholarly literature, film, music, and online resources; with particular focus on sites, communities,and events included in the two week intensive travel to South Africa (either Fall semester Intro with winter break travel; or spring semester Intro with late spring intensive travel). Students are given guidelines for writing about and representing live performances and experiences of exhibits and heritage sites. For fall/winter travel: focus is on Cape Town's New Year's Festival performed by those historically called "Cape Coloured" a Festival that makes complicated understandings of race, slavery, and transatlantic translation of borrowed culture. For the Spring/late spring travel, the destination is music festivals in mid-May. Both classes include visits to Robben island, Kirstenbosch gardens; "Cape Malay' heritage sites; travel to KwaZulu Natal, and to Johannesburg's apartheid museum, Soweto's anti apartheid destinations, the Cradle of Humankind works heritage site, a game park, and the Union Buildings in Pretoria. En route we will stop over to view Khoisan rock art.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Taught by: Muller
Course not offered every year
Prerequisites: APPLICATION THROUGH PENN GLOBAL REQUIRED. http://global.upenn.edu/pennabroad/
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: Application required through Penn Global: https://global.upenn.edu/pennabroad/pgs
MUSC 057 PHONETICS OF MUSIC
Singing is an instance of human voice production, and as such can be studied in the way that speech is studied by speech scientists. The scientific study of singing is a small but growing field that uses methods from speech physiology and acoustics to characterize differences among singing voices and performances. This course will introduce students to methods for quantifying aspects of voice production, so that voice samples can be compared across singers, styles, etc. We will also discuss the scientific basis for some of the vocal techniques. Every aspect of voice presented in class will be explored through hands-on lab work with computer programs. We will mostly look at recorded samples of professional singers, but we will sometimes look at students' own vocal productions. However, this is not a course about improving one's singing, and no skill or talent is required to participate.
Course usually offered summer term only
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: May be counted toward the music minor but NOT major.
MUSC 060 Beginning Tabla I
An introduction to the tabla, the premier drum of north Indian and Pakistani classical music traditions.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 061 Indian Musical Performance A: Elementary
Introduction to the fundamentals of Indian music; instruction in performance on the sitar.
Taught by: Nalbandian
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 062 Beginning Tabla II
Continued study in Tabla
Course usually offered in spring term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 063 Beginning Sitar II
Taught by: Nalbandian
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Continuation of MUSC 061
MUSC 070 Introduction to Theory and Musicianship: Making Sense of Music.
This course will cover basic skills and vocabulary for reading, hearing, performing, analyzing, and writing music. Students will gain command of musical rudiments, including notation, reading and writing in treble and bass clefs, intervals, keys, scales, triads and seventh chords, and competence in basic melodic and formal analysis. The course will include an overview of basic diatonic harmony, introduction to harmonic function and tonicization. Musicianship skills will include interval and chord recognition, rhythmic and melodic dictation and familiarity with the keyboard. There will be in-depth study of selected compositions from the "common practice" Western tradition, including classical, jazz, blues and other popular examples. Listening skills--both with scores (including lead sheets, figured bass and standard notation), and without--will be emphasized. There is no prerequisite. Students with some background in music may place out of this course and into Music 170, Theory and Musicianship I. (Formerly Music 70, 71). Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.
Taught by: Waltham-Smith, Weesner
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: There is no prerequisite. Students with some background in music may place out of this course and into Music 170, Theory and Musicianship I.
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 080 Literatures of Jazz
That modernism is steeped as much in the rituals of race as of innovation is most evident in the emergence of the music we have come to know as jazz, which results from collaborations and confrontations taking place both across and within the color line. In this course we will look at jazz and the literary representations it engendered in order to understand modern American culture. We will explore a dizzying variety of forms, including autobiography and album liner notes, biography, poetry, fiction, and cinema. We'll examine how race, gender, and class influenced the development of jazz music, and then will use jazz music to develop critical approaches to literary form. Students are not required to have a critical understanding of music. Class will involve visits from musicians and critics, as well as field trips to some of Philadelphias most vibrant jazz venues.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 081 Film Music in Post 1950 Italy: Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone
An exploration of cinematic sound through the lens of specific composer/director collaborations in post-1950 Italy, examining scores, soundtracks, and the interaction of diegetic and non-diegetic music with larger soundscapes. Composers Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone serve as case studies, in partnership with directors Fellini, Visconti, Leone, Pontecorve, Pasolini, and Coppola. Highlights include several excerpts form the Fellini/Rota collaboration, including The White Sheik, I vitelloni, The Road, Nights of Cabiria, La dolce vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, The Clowns, Roma, Amarcord, Casanova, and Orchestra Rehearsal. Rota's music for Visconti will be examined in Senso, the Leopard, and Rocco and his Brothers, along with his Transatlantic collaboration for The Godfather. Morricone's work with various directors will be discussed in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Battle of Algiers, and Teorema, as well as for American films such as Malick's Days of Heaven and Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. Weekly screenings required. Open to all: music majors, minors, and non-majors; will count toward requirements for music minor. Knowledge of music and Italian helpful but not required. All readings and lectures in English.
Taught by: Samuel
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 082 African-American Lit
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 099 Guided Research
Individual research under the supervision of a member of the faculty.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 130 Introduction to European Art Music
This course aims to introduce students to what it means to study the European musical tradition. Students will approach the diverse music that constitute the classical tradition from a variety of scholarly perspectives. The goal of this class is to listen deeply and think broadly. Students will consider questions such as: what sort of object is music? Where is it located? What does it mean to say a work is "canonic"? What is left out of the story? This class will be in dialog with other tier-one classes, and will consider what the historian can bring to the study and understanding of music.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman, and Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Prerequisite: Music 070
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Fulfills the requirements of the Music Major. Music 070 prerequisite.
MUSC 135 Introduction to the Music Life in America
This course surveys American musical life from the colonial period to the present. Beginning with the music of Native Americans, the European legacy, and the African Diaspora, the course treats the singular social and political milieu that forged the profile of America's musical landscape. Attention will be given to the establishment of the culture industry and to various activities such as sacred music, parlor music, concert and theater music, the cultivation of oral traditions, the appearance of jazz, the trajectory of western art music in the United States, and the eventual global dominance of American popular music. Music 070 prerequisite. Preference given to music Majors and Minors. Fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. College Requirement.
Taught by: Ramsey, Goodman
Course not offered every year
Prerequisite: Music 070
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 150 Introduction to Ethnomusicology
This course introduces students to the field of ethnomusicology through a series of case studies that explore a range of traditional, popular, and art musics from around the world. The course takes as a point of departure several works of musical ethnography, musical fiction, and musical autobiography and, through in-depth reading of these texts, close listening to assigned sound recordings, and in- class case studies, generates a context within which to think and write about music.
Taught by: Muller, Rommen, Sykes
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
Notes: Fulfills the requirements of the Music Major.
MUSC 161 Intermediate Sitar I
North Indian classical music is performed in a format shared by stringed, bowed and wind instruments. intermediate North Indeian Instrumental performance is open to students who play a Western or Indian instrument with at least an intermediate degree of proficiency and to those who have completed Beginning Sitar. The course will cover North Indian methods of composition, rhythm and improvisation and focus on two or three performance pices. A group performance will be given at the end of the semester.
Taught by: Miner
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 170 Theory and Musicianship I
Introduction to and development of principles of tonal voice-leading, harmonic function, counterpoint, and form through written analysis, composition, improvisation, and written work. Course covers diatonic harmony and introduction to chromaticism. Repertoires will focus on Western classical music. Musicianship component will include sight-singing, dictation keyboard harmony. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.
Taught by: Moreno, Primosch, Reise, Waltham-Smith, Weesner
Course usually offered in fall term
Prerequisite: Music 070 or successful completion of diagnostic test
Activity: Lecture
1.5 Course Unit
Notes: Required of music majors.
MUSC 171 Theory and Musicianship II
Continuation of techniques established in Theory and Musicianship I. Explores chromatic harmony. Concepts will be developed through analysis and model composition. Musicianship component will include sight singing, clef reading, harmonic dictation and keyboard harmony.
Taught by: Moreno, Reise, Waltham-Smith, Weesner
Course usually offered in spring term
Prerequisite: Music 170
Activity: Lecture
1.5 Course Unit
Notes: Required of music majors.
MUSC 230 Historical Eras and Topics: Earlier Periods
This course offers an in-depth look at topics and repertoires of the "earlier" periods, namely one (or more) of three historical epochs: Medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque. The purpose of this course is to give students the oppotunity to engage deeply with musical works historically, analytically, and contextually, in addition to introducing a range of methodologies within the historical study of Music. (Formerly Music 120, 121,122).
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 231 Historical Eras and Topics: Later Periods
This course offers an in-depth look at topics and repertoires of the eighteenth century to today. Classes focus on one (or more) of four historical epochs: Enlightenment, Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern. The purpose of this course is to give students the opportunity to engage deeply with musical works historically, analytically and contextually, in addition to introducing a range of methodologies within the historical study of music. (Formerly 123, 124).
Taught by: Goodman, Kallberg, Ramsey
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 232 Themes in Music History
In this course, students will have the opportunity to explore music history from a thematic or conceptual perspective, frequently through several eras. Past themes organizing the course include the Voice, the Sacred, Uncanny, Technology, Instruments, Orality and Literacy, and Machines.
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman, Kallberg, Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 233 Musical Thought and Scholarship
This course will introduce students to the field of music philosophy, aesthetics and intellectual history.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 234 Music Makers
Courses under this number will treat composer, performers, and performance. This class may also on occasion have a performance component, including collaborations with local performance venues, artists in residence. Courses will include a class on Haydn and Mozart (formerly 027); Beethoven (formerly 28); Mahler (formerly 25); Monks and Nuns; String Quartets.
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman, Kallberg, Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 235 Studies in African-American Music
This course explores aspects of the origins, style development, aesthetic philosophies, historiography, and contemporary conventions of African-American musical traditions. Topics covered include: the music of West and Central Africa, the music of colonial America, 19th century church and dance music, minstrelsy, music of the Harlem Renaissance, jazz, blues, gospel, hip-hop, and film music. Special attention is given to the ways that black music produces "meaning" and to how the social energy circulating within black music articulates myriad issues about American identity at specific histroical moments. The course will also engage other expressive art forms from visual and literary sources in order to better position music making into the larger framework of African American aesthetics. (Formerly Music 146).
Taught by: Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 236 Performance, Analysis, History
Participation in the course is contingent upon a successful audition. This course must be taken for a letter grade (pass/fail option may not be utilized for this course). This weekly seminar will explore music from the past and present through class discussions of performance, historical context, and analytical aspects of the music led by a professor and/or performer. One example of a class in this number will be an indepth study of chamber music repertoire led by the Daedalus Quartet. Students will prepare for a final performance at the end of the semester as well as a paper/presentation. Students interested in this applied approach to music may also wish to take 256 and/or 276.
Taught by: Weesner
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 239 Guided Reading in Musicology
Individual research under the supervision of a member of the faculty. Students who take Music 239 may not take Music 259 or 279. Prerequisite 130 and one other class from tier 1 or 2. Student must complete one guided Reading Course in order to be eligible for departmental honors.
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Musc 130 or 135; and 170
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 246 Sound Studies
This course provides an introduction to the burgeoning field of sound studes. With clear roots in Music studies, sound studies is at the same time a trans-disciplinary endeavor that spans literature, media theory, sensory history, and anthropology, and is engaged with substantive issues of race, gender, and global politics. Students will engage with texts drawn from a variety of fields, as well as sound and performance art, fiction, podcasts, and film, and they will be encouraged to experiment with creative, multimedia elements in their final projects.
Taught by: Waltham-Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 252 Music, Religion, Ritual in South and Southeast Asia.
What role does music play in articulating religious identities and spaces? What is the importance of ritual musics as they persist and change in the modern world? How does music reflect and articulate religious ways of thinking and acting? In this course, we explore these and other questions about the interrelations between music, religion, and ritual in South and Southeast Asia. Focusing on India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the course emphasizes musics from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian traditions; nevertheless, it draws widely to touch upon sacred musics in Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and among some indigenous peoples in the region. Throughout, we explore ontologies of sound; sonic occurrences in religious structures, public processions, and pilgrimage sites; the construction of religion and ritual as ideas forged through colonial encounter and modern scholarship on religion; the politics of sacred sounds in today's public spaces and contemporary media, such as television and online; and the surprising fluidity between popular and sacred musical genres.
Taught by: Sykes
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 255 Accordions of the New World
This course focuses on the musical genres and styles (both traditional and popular) that have grown up around the accordion in the New World. We will begin our explorations in Nova Scotia and move toward the Midwest, travelling through the polka belt. From there, our investigation turns toward Louisiana and Texas--toward zydeco, Cajun, and Tex-Mex music. We will then work our way through Central and South America, considering norteno, cumbia, vallenato, tango, chamame, and forro. Our journey will conclude in the Caribbean, where we will spend some time thinking about merengue and rake-n-scrape music. Throughout the semester, the musical case studies will be matched by readings and film that afford ample opportunity to think about the ways that music is bound up in ethnicity, identity, and class. We will also have occasion to think about the accordion as a multiply meaningful instrument that continues to be incorporated into debates over cultural politics and mobilized as part of strategies of representation through the New World. (Formerly Music 157).
Taught by: Rommen
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 256 Music and Performance of Africa
This class provides an overview of the most popular musical styles and discussion of the cultural and political contexts in which they emerged in contemporary Africa. Learning to perform a limited range of African music/dance will be part of this course. No prior performance experience required. (Formerly Music 253).
Taught by: Muller
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 257 Caribbean Music and Diaspora
This course considers Caribbean musics within a broad and historical framework.Caribbean musical practices are explored by illustrating the many ways that aesthetics, ritual, communication, religion, and social structure are embodied in and contested through performance. These initial inquiries open onto an investigation of a range of theoretical concepts that become particularly pertinent in Caribbean contexts--concepts such as post-colonialism, migration, ethnicity, hybridity, syncretism, and globalization. Each of these concepts, moreover, will be explored with a view toward understanding its connections to the central analytical paradigm of the course--diaspora. Throughout the course, we will listen to many different styles and repertories of music ranging from calpso to junkanoo, from rumba to merengue, and from dance hall to zouk. We will then work to understand them not only in relation to the readings that frame our discussions but also in relation to our own North-American contexts of music consumption and production. (Formerly Music 258).
Taught by: Rommen
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 258 Latin American Music
This survey course considers Latin American musics within a broad cultural and historical framework. Latin American musical practices are explored by illustrating the many ways that aesthetics, ritual, communication, religion, and social structure are embodied in and contested through performance. These initial inquiries open onto an investigation of a range of theoretical concepts that become particularly pertinent in Latin American contexts--concepts such as post-colonialism, migration, ethnicity, and globalization. Throughout the course, we will listen to many different styles and repertories of music and then work to understand them not only in relation to the readings that frame our discussions but also in relation to our own, North American contexts of music consumption and production. (Formerly Music 158).
Taught by: Rommen
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 259 Guided Research Ethnomusicology
Individual research under the suprvision of a member of the faculty. Students who take Music 259 may not take 239 or 279.
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisites: Music 150 and 170.
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 265 Performing Arts in South Asia
This course is a survey of selected traditions of theater, music, and dance in India and surrounding regions. Topics include ritual practices, theater, classical dance, classical music, devotional music, regional genres, and contemporary popular musics. Readings and lectures are supplemented by audio and visual materials and live performances. The aim of the course is to expose students to a variety of performance practices from this part of the world and to situate the performing arts in their social and cultural contexts. The course has no prerequisites.
For BA Students: Arts and Letters Sector
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 266 Music Cult in India & Pak
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 270 Theory and Musicianship III
Continuation of techniques established in Theory and Musicianship I and II. Concepts will be developed through analysis and model composition. Musicianship component will include advanced sight singing, clef reading, harmonic dictation and keyboard harmony.
Taught by: Moreno, Primosch, Reise, Waltham-Smith, Weesner
Course usually offered in fall term
Prerequisites: Music 170 and 171
Activity: Lecture
1.5 Course Unit
Notes: Required of music majors.
MUSC 271 Composition I: Historical Practices
Studies in selected 16th through 19th century compositional practices. Possible topics may include 16th century modal counterpoint; sonata forms in Viennese classicism; advanced chromatic harmony. Course includes analysis of relevant pieces and student compositional projects reflecting course topic.
Taught by: Primosch, Reise, Waltham-Smith
Course not offered every year
Prerequisites: Music 170, 171, 270
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 272 Composition II: Contemporary Practices
Studies in seleted 20th and 21st century compositional practices. Possible topics may include symmetry in post-tonal harmony; composing for piano; the sonata in the 20th century. Course includes analysis of relevant pieces and student compositional projects reflecting course topic.
Taught by: Reise
Course not offered every year
Prerequisites: Music 170, 171, 270
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 273 Orchestration
An introduction to writing for the instruments of the orchestra. Course will include study of individual instruments and various instrumental combinations, including full orchestra. Representative scores from the 18th century to the present day will be analyzed. Students will be responsible for several scoring projects and will have opportunities to hear readings of their projects. Prerequisite: at least two semesters of music theory or permission of instructor. (Formerly 285).
Taught by: Primosch
Course not offered every year
Prerequisite: Music 70 or 170
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 275 Electronic Music
MUSC275 offers an introduction to electronic music/sound production with a focus on analogue systems and performance. Guest artists will join us for in-class visits and performances during the semester. Meetings will take place in the classroom, in concert spaces and in the studio. Preference given to Music majors and minors for registration.
Taught by: Lew
Course not offered every year
Prerequisite: Music 070 or 170
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 276 Performance and Analysis
Participation in the course is contingent upon a successful audition. This course must be taken for a letter grade (pass/fail option may not be utilized for this course). This weekly seminar will explore music from the past and present through class discussions of performance and analytical aspects of the music led by a professor and/or performer. Compared to Music 236, this class will have a more analytical focus. Students will prepare for a final performance at the end of the semester as well as a paper/presentation. Students interested in this applied approach to music may also wish to take 236 and 256.
One-term course offered either term
Prerequisite: Music 70 or 170
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 277 Recording Music.
An introduction to music and sound recording with a focus on concerts and live performances. The entire process will be examined from start to finish, including the roles played by composers, musicians, listeners, performance spaces, and recording technology. Meetings will take place in the classroom, in concert spaces and in the studio. Music majors and minors will be given preference for registration.
Taught by: Lew
Course usually offered in fall term
Prerequisites: Music 170.
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: This course is for Music Majors and minors.
MUSC 278 Composition for Musicians
Music 278 is a Composition Seminar that treats composing as both an end in itself and a means for thinking broadly and speculatively about music. We will work on various compositional techniques through exercises as well as 'free' composition, giving attention to skills as well as to personal voice. We will survey the current musical landscape through listening, analysis and dicussion. The question of musical style itself will be pursued, and while we will be oriented to western art music, we will consider a wide range of styles, including popular music. It is assumed that students will have fluency with musical notation. Prerequisite: Music 171, or permission of the instructor.
Taught by: Weesner
Prerequisite: Music 171
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: Music 171 prerequisite
MUSC 279 Guided Research in Theory and Composition
Individual research under the supervision of a member of the faculty. Students who take Music 279 may not take Music 239 or Music 259. A research paper (15-20 pages in length with a bibliograpy) is expected at end of term summarizing research.
Prerequisites: Music 170, 171 and one other tier 2 class
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 320 Media and Memories of the Future: Sound and Environment in Berlin.
This global cities seminar will discuss the cultural politics of memory as they develop through the spatial and sonic atmosphere of post-war Berlin. A city rich in history and focused on the future, Berlin is a laboratory for how exploration of the recent past is re-scripting the near future. The city becomes a palimpsest sonically, visually, and spatially that is available for investigation and interpretation as a means to understand historical patterns and their relationship to novel practices and methods in the present. Media, and in particular sonic cultures, as well as real estate economics and ecological design will form interrelated prisms through which to understand cities, urban practices, urban memory and the transformation of the environment. Methodologically, the course will be an experiment in the use of media to understand cities and engage with urban practices. The course also involves a mandatory, funded field trip to Berlin during spring break when students will participate in the ongoing Anthropocene Curriculum at the Haus der Kultur der Welt and will visit sound art galleries and sound design studios, as well as meeting with practitioners and researchers. Entrance to the course is via application. Music320(naomiwal@sas.upenn.edu)&ARCH320(barberda@design.upenn.edu)
Taught by: Daniel Barber and Naomi Waltham Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 330 Seminar in Music History
Advanced seminar in topics in musicology.
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman, Kallberg, Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 350 Seminar in Ethnomusicology
Advanced study in a selected topic in Ethnomusicology.
Taught by: Muller, Rommen, Sykes
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 370 Seminar in Theory and Composition
Advanced seminar in topics of music theory and compositions.
Taught by: Waltham-Smith, Weesner, Moreno
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 508 Advanced Musicianship
Advanced techniques of score reading and general musicianship at the keyboard. Goals of the course include increasing proficiency in sight singing (including C clefs).Taking harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic dictations. Accurate performance of rhythms.
Two terms. student must enter first term.
Prerequisites: Reasonable keyboard and sight-reading facility
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 515 Analysis of Twentieth-Century Music
Analytical studies of twentieth-century music.
Taught by: Primosch
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 516 Analysis of 20th Century Music II
Analytical Studies of 20th century music focusing on post World War II music.
Taught by: Primosch, Reise
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 520 Orchestration
A study of the instruments of the orchestra and their combination. Frequent written projects.
Taught by: Reise
Course not offered every year
Activity: Lecture
1 Course Unit
MUSC 525 Composition in Selected Forms
Study of the style and form of one genre, composer, or historical period, with emphasis on written projects.
Taught by: Reise
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 530 Composition and Electronic Media.
This course is intended for advanced composers who have substantial experience and training in composition. Students in MUSC530 will complete short etudes utilizing the student's choice of media. Examples from the literature will be discussed.
Taught by: Primosch
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 601 Texts and Material Culture
Topics may include book, manuscript, and print culture; history of the book; history of music notation; codicology and paleography; textual criticism, philology, and editing; encoding and textual technologies; musical bibliographies.
Taught by: Caldwell
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 603 Aesthetics and Criticism
Topics may include hermeneutics, methods of formulating value judgements, the relationship of evaluation to interpretation, and the role of aesthetics in history.
Taught by: Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 604 Historiography and Methodologies.
Theories and models of historical investigation. Analysis of historiographic writings and musicological works exemplifying particular approaches, such as transnational, environmental/landscape, gender/sexuality, critical race studies, performance studies, archives, and the digital humanities.
Taught by: Calcagno, Caldwell, Goodman
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 605 Anthropology of Music
Topics may include the intellectual history of ethnomusicology, current readings in ethnomusicology, a consideration of theoretical principles based upon the reading and interpretation of selected monographs, and area studies. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Muller, Rommen, Sykes
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: Open to graduate students from all departments
MUSC 606 The Interpretation of Oral Traditions
Topics may draw on methodologies derived from jazz studies, chant studies, and ethnomusicology. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 620 Analytical Methods: Tonal Music
Current methods in the analysis of tonal music. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Moreno,Waltham-Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 621 Analytical Methods: Twentieth-Century Music
Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions. .
Taught by: Moreno, Waltham-Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 622 Tonal and Post-Tonal Music
Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 630 Perspectives on the String Quartet
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 650 Field Methods in Ethnomusicology
The goal of the seminar is to give students a compressed dissertation research experience--taking them from the beginnings of "researching" a community and its music, through the documentation and representation stages. Students do background and methods reading, though the focus of the class is the development of basic ethnographic and documentation skills. This is a community partnership seminar, which means that all forms of representation are produced in collaboration with community partners in West Philadelphia. These include photographic essays, an NPR style audio documentary, but most significantly, twenty-thirty minute documentary films on a particular subject. See sample syllabus and projects on http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/music/westphillymusic Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Muller, Rommen, Sykes
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 699 Preparation of the A.M. Essay in History and Theory
Guidance in preparation of the A.M. essay in the history and theory of music.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 700 Seminar in Composition
Seminar in selected compositional problems, with emphasis on written projects. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Primosch, Reise, Weesner
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 705 Seminar in Ethnomusicology
Topics in Ethnomusicology. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/node/53425 for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Muller, Rommen, Sykes
Course usually offered in fall term
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
Notes: Open to graduate students from all departments
MUSC 710 Studies in Medieval Music
PLEASE see department website for current term course description. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses/music/courses .
Taught by: Caldwell
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 720 Studies in Renaissance Music
Seminar on selected topics in the music of the Renaissance.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 730 Studies in Baroque Music
Seminar on selected topics in the music of the Baroque period. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Calcagno
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 740 Studies in Classical Music
Seminar on selected topics in the music of the Classical period. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Goodman, Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 750 Studies in Romantic Music
Studies of Music in the 19th-Century. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 760 Studies in Twentieth-Century Music
Seminar on selected topics in the music of the twentieth century. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Kallberg
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 770 Seminar in Afro-American Music
Seminar course description offerings can be found on the Music department website: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses. Scroll through Current graduate seminar offerings on right.
Taught by: Ramsey
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 780 Studies in Music Theory and Analysis
Seminar on selected topics in music theory and analysis. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Moreno, Waltham-Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 781 Writing Sound--Sounding Literature
Seminar on selected topics in sound studies. Please see department website https://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/courses for current term course descriptions.
Taught by: Waltham-Smith
Course not offered every year
Activity: Seminar
1 Course Unit
MUSC 799 Guided Reading in Musical Scholarship
Guidance in preparation for the A.M. comprehensive examination in the history and theory of music.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 800 Teaching Music History
The teaching of music history courses to undergraduates.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 801 Teaching Music Theory
The teaching of music theory courses to undergraduates.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 802 Teaching World Musics
The teaching of world music courses to undergraduates.
Taught by: Muller, Rommen.
Course not offered every year
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 994 Preparation of Ph.D. Proposal
Preparation of Ph.D. essay. Completion of Course and submission of Ph.d. essay marks official entry to Ph.D. program.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
MUSC 998 Independent Study in Composition
Private instruction in musical composition.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
Notes: May be taken for multiple course-unit credit
MUSC 999 Independent Study and Research
Individual study and research under the supervision of a member of the faculty.
One-term course offered either term
Activity: Independent Study
1 Course Unit
Notes: May be taken for multiple course-unit credit