2024-2025 Catalog

MUSI 10100. Introduction to Western Art Music. 100 Units.

This one-quarter course is designed to enrich the listening experience of students, particularly with respect to the art music of the Western European and American concert tradition. Students are introduced to the basic elements of music and the ways that they are integrated to create works in various styles. Particular emphasis is placed on musical form and on the potential for music to refer to and interact with aspects of the world outside.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Background in music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

MUSI 10200. Introduction to World Music. 100 Units.

This course is a selected survey of classical, popular, and folk music traditions from around the world. The goals are not only to expand our skills as listeners but also to redefine what we consider music to be and, in the process, stimulate a fresh approach to our own diverse musical traditions. In addition, the role of music as ritual, aesthetic experience, mode of communication, and artistic expression is explored.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Background in music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 10200

MUSI 10300. Introduction to Music: Materials and Design. 100 Units.

This introductory course in music is intended for students who are interested in exploring the language, interpretation, and meaning of music through coordinated listening, analysis, and creative work. By listening to and comprehending the structural and aesthetic considerations behind significant written and improvised works, from the earliest examples of notated Western music to the music of living composers and performers, students will be prepared to undertake analytical and ultimately creative projects. The relationship between cultural and historical practices and the creation and reception of music will also be considered. The course is taught by a practicing composer, whose experience will guide and inform the works studied. No prior background in music is required.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Background in music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

MUSI 10400. Introduction to Music: Analysis and Criticism. 100 Units.

This course aims to develop students' analytical and critical tools by focusing on a select group of works drawn from the Western European and American concert tradition. The texts for the course are recordings. Through listening, written assignments, and class discussion, we explore topics such as compositional strategy, conditions of musical performance, interactions between music and text, and the relationship between music and ideology as they are manifested in complete compositions.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter. Given the current circumstances, most components of the class will be asynchronous, with occasional Zoom meetings. The assignments will include a variety of activities that can be done asynchronously, within a specified timeline. These are difficult times for all, and we are all in this together.
Note(s): Background in music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

MUSI 10500. Music Performance as Laboratory. 100 Units.

This course, designed for instrumentalist, singers, and practicing musicians from all musical backgrounds, combines an active workshop in contemporary music-making with studies of historical traditions of performance and theories of performativity. In addition to learning about social and cultural dimensions of performance, different styles of performers, and aspects of aesthetics, technique, dramaturgy, and improvisation, students will acquire practical experience showcasing new musical and theoretical skills.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

HIST 12002. Feuds, Vengeance, and War: Violence in Medieval Europe, 500-1550. 100 Units.

Violence and conflict are dominant themes of medieval and early modern European history. This course will introduce students to the wide variety of perspectives with which one can approach violence in its western European context from 500 to 1550. Students will not only analyze and evaluate the historiographic and methodological contributions made by the existing scholarship on violence, but also have the opportunity to explore and evaluate various sources for the study of violence. The course itself will be organized around chronological, thematic, and regional lines of investigation ranging from Merovingian France to Early Modern Scotland. Guiding this class will be a broader methodological discussion on the relative merits and demerits of different approaches to studying violence's role in pre-modern societies and politics and how they continue to influence contemporary perceptions of violence, past and present.

Instructor(s): T. Sharp
Prerequisite(s): This course is reading/discussion intensive

MUSI 12100-12200. Music in Western Civilization I-II.

This two-quarter sequence explores musical works of broad cultural significance in Western civilization. We study pieces not only from the standpoint of musical style but also through the lenses of politics, intellectual history, economics, gender, cultural studies, and so on. Readings are taken both from our music textbook and from the writings of a number of figures such as St. Benedict of Nursia and Martin Luther. In addition to lectures, students discuss important issues in the readings and participate in music listening exercises in smaller sections.

MUSI 12101. Music and Euro-American Cultures I: To 1810. 100 Units.

This course, part of the Social Sciences Civ core, looks at musics in different moments of Euro-American history and the social contexts in which they originated, with some comparative views on other world traditions. It aims to give students a better understanding of the social contexts of European music over this period; aids for the basic sound structures of pieces from these different moments; and convincing writing in response to prompts based on source readings or music pieces. Our first quarter (MUS 12101 etc.) spans roughly the period between Charlemagne's coronation as Holy Roman Emperor (800 CE) and the dissolution of the Empire (1806) with the triumph of Napoleon across Western Europe.

Instructor(s): Anne Robertson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Prior music course or ability to read music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This two-quarter sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies; it does not meet the general education requirement in the arts. Please note that MUSI 12101-12201 will not be offered on campus in 2023-24. The sequence will be offered in Paris through Study Abroad in Autumn 2023. Information about the Paris offering is available here: https://study-abroad.uchicago.edu/paris-music-western-civilization. Students who have not taken MUSI 12101 should be aware that the course will not be offered on campus until Autumn 2024. Instructor(s)
Equivalent Course(s): SOSC 21101, HIST 12801

MUSI 12201. Music and Euro-American Cultures II: 1810-Present. 100 Units.

This course, part of the Social Sciences Civ core, looks at musics in different moments of Euro-American history and the social contexts in which they originated, with some comparative views on other world traditions. It aims to give students a better understanding of the social contexts of European music over this period; aids for the basic sound structures of pieces from these different moments; and convincing writing in response to prompts based on source readings or music pieces. Our second quarter (MUS 12201 etc.) runs from the beginning of European Romanticism around 1800 to the turn of the 21st century.

Instructor(s): R. Kendrick     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Prior music course or ability to read music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This two-quarter sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies; it does not meet the general education requirement in the arts. Please note that MUSI 12101-12201 will not be offered on campus in 2023-24. The sequence will be offered in Paris through Study Abroad in Autumn 2023. Information about the Paris offering is available here: https://study-abroad.uchicago.edu/paris-music-western-civilization. Students who have not taken MUSI 12101 should be aware that the course will not be offered on campus until Autumn 2024.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 12802, SOSC 21201

MUSI 12300. Going to the Opera in Paris, 1650-1848. 100 Units.

This class studies the experience of opera-goers in Paris from the Sun King to the Second Republic. We read libretti and other source documents on the premieres of operas. Our site visits include the Opera Garnier and one live opera in the city. We will also read other articles about the historical context of our operatic repertory.

Instructor(s): R. Kendrick     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the Paris Music Civilization sequence, and MUS 121-122.

MUSI 12400. Music and Culture in Vienna c. 1900. 100 Units.

This course examines the centrality of music to Viennese culture in one of the moments of its greatest flowering on the eve of World War I.  We discuss  readings in the city's flourishing intellectual life, and study both popular music of the time as well as works by Mahler, Schoenberg and others.  Students will report on source texts and their relation to music.

Instructor(s): Robert Kendrick     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the Spring 2025 Vienna Civilization Program and MUS 121-122 in Vienna

MUSI 14300. Music Theory Fundamentals. 100 Units.

This one-quarter elective course covers the basic elements of music theory, including music reading, intervals, chords, meter, and rhythm.

MUSI 15100-15200-15300. Harmony and Voice Leading.

This three-quarter sequence serves as an introduction to the materials and structure of Western tonal music. The first quarter focuses on fundamentals: scale types, keys, basic harmonic structures, voice-leading and two-voice counterpoint. The second quarter explores extensions of harmonic syntax, the basics of classical form, further work with counterpoint, and nondiatonic seventh chords. The third quarter undertakes the study of modulation, sequences, and additional analysis of classical forms. Musicianship labs in ear training and keyboard skills required.

MUSI 17000. University Chorus. 000 Units.

The University Chorus is the largest vocal ensemble on campus. Its season includes an annual production of Handel's Messiah as well as presentations of choral masterworks such as Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and Verdi's Messa da requiem. Among its 80 to 100 members are undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff members, and singers from the Hyde Park and University community: The result is a wonderfully diverse group of vocalists, collaborating in performances of monuments of the literature. The University Chorus presents three to four concerts per season, culminating in a festive year-end performance with the combined choirs and the University Symphony Orchestra.

Instructor(s): J. Kallembach     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17001. Motet Choir. 000 Units.

As the premier undergraduate choral ensemble at the University of Chicago, the Motet Choir accepts 28-36 singers each year. Concentrating on a cappella masterworks of all periods, this polished vocal ensemble specializes in music of the Renaissance and also performs historically and culturally diverse repertoire ranging from Gregorian chant to gospel standards. The Motet Choir presents at least three major concerts per year (one each quarter) and sings at convocations and special events on campus and throughout the Chicago area. The ensemble goes on tour every second year, often during the University's spring break.

Instructor(s): J. Kallembach     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17002. Women's Ensemble. 000 Units.

The Women's Ensemble is made up primarily of undergraduate women at the University of Chicago. We explore classical repertoire from the Medieval era up through the present day and music from polyphonic singing traditions across the world, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, the Republic of Georgia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Sweden, and Norway, as well as a variety of American singing traditions. Through diverse repertoire, we strive to bring our voices together in powerful ways.

Instructor(s): Mollie Stone     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17003. Rockefeller Chapel Choir. 000 Units.

The Rockefeller Chapel Choir and its professional subset, the Decani, sing at Sunday services and festivals throughout the academic year and also in Rockefeller's signature Quire & Place concert series, presenting major works from the entire historical canon, lesser-known gems, and the premières of new work by distinguished composers. The choir's members come from diverse spiritual and cultural backgrounds, sharing together the rich musical experience of singing an array of choral music in the unique religious and cultural contexts of a chapel to which students of all world traditions are drawn.

Instructor(s): J. Kallembach     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17010. University Symphony Orchestra. 000 Units.

The 100-member University Symphony Orchestra presents an ambitious season of six major concerts per year (two each quarter). Known for its imaginative presentations of unusual repertoire as well as for its powerful performances of major symphonic literature, the University Symphony opens each year with a costumed Halloween concert-a family-friendly event enhanced by storytelling, dancing, and special effects-and closes with a celebratory year-end collaboration with the combined choirs. Repertoire generally encompasses 19th- and 20th-century works written for large orchestral forces, including masterpieces by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák, Mahler, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, and more. In recent years the USO has presented several silent films with live orchestral accompaniment, including Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, and performed with acclaimed professional soloists every season. Membership is chosen on the basis of competitive auditions, and includes both undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff, alumni, and some community members.

Instructor(s): B. Schubert     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17011. University Chamber Orchestra. 000 Units.

The University Chamber Orchestra is a 40-member ensemble of strings, woodwinds, and horns that specializes in Baroque, Classical, and 20th-century repertoire for smaller orchestra. The group presents three concerts per year, often pairing a major symphony by Mozart or Haydn with an overture, suite, or concerto for similar forces. The Chamber Orchestra also serves as the pit orchestra for the Music Department's annual collaboration with the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company.

Instructor(s): M. Sheppard     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17012. University Wind Ensemble. 000 Units.

The University Wind Ensemble is an auditioned group of fifty to sixty instrumentalists with a diverse range of musical interests and experience. The UWE presents one concert per quarter, after an intensive preparation period of six to seven weeks. With a focus on modern literature conceived specifically for the wind ensemble medium, the UWE provides its members with an opportunity to perform music by such renowned wind composers as Malcolm Arnold, Percy Grainger, Gustav Holst, and Frank Ticheli, as well as transcriptions of orchestral masterpieces by J. S. Bach, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, and others. Membership includes talented undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and community members who are dedicated to bringing a wide array of music to the University community.

Instructor(s): Nicolas Carlson     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17013. Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble. 000 Units.

The Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble explores this unique musical tradition still practiced today in Cuba. This African diaspora-based music and culture is a living example of how art can be a manifestation of the human desire to stay connected to one's roots, ancestors, belief system, and home, even in the darkest of situations. Born of deep African origins, this form involves hand drumming, percussion, and singing.  ACFE Director Samuel Werk has studied this rich musical tradition in Havana, Cuba, under Alejandro Carvajal Guerra, and has performed in prominent venues ranging from Montreux, Switzerland, to Perugia, Italy, to Juncos, Puerto Rico.

Instructor(s): Samuel Werk     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17019. Jazz Ensemble. 000 Units.

TBA

Instructor(s): TBA      Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17022. Jazz Combo. 000 Units.

In addition to the Jazz X-tet, several small jazz combo groups are set up each year to provide training and experience to interested musicians and to perform informally on campus.

Instructor(s): M. Bowden     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17023. Middle East Music Ensemble. 000 Units.

The Middle East Music Ensemble explores a variety of classical, neo-classical, and popular musical forms from throughout the Middle East, encompassing compositional and improvisational techniques unique to non-Western musical culture. Members perform on traditional instruments, often in company with noted guest artists, and present multiple concerts both on and off campus. No previous experience in the genre is required, but the ability to read music is necessary. Membership includes students, faculty, and staff of the University, as well as community members interested in the art and music of the Middle East.

Instructor(s): W. Zarour     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17025. South Asian Music Ensemble. 000 Units.

The South Asian Music Ensemble explores a variety of classical, vernacular, and popular song repertories from the Indian Subcontinent, with membership open to beginners as well as to more experienced performers with a background in South Asian music. The ensemble will focus on teaching vocal techniques, stylistic features, compositional forms, improvisational practices, and performance conventions specific to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and South Asian diasporas. In addition to participating in weekly ensemble rehearsals, members will have the option of attending voice coaching sessions and/or engaging the instructor for private lessons. Membership is open to students, faculty, and staff of the University, as well as community members interested in South Asian music.

Instructor(s): M. Pasupathi     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17026. Chamber Music Performance. 000 Units.

The Chamber Music Program creates opportunities for intermediate and advanced wind players, string players, and pianists to learn and perform small ensemble chamber music. Participants in the program study duo, trio, quartet, and quintet repertoire spanning the entire chamber music repertoire, and hone their collaborative skills under the guidance of the chamber music coaches. Weekly Rep Classes offer extra-curricular musical activities as well as studio and masterclass opportunities for ensembles to practice performing and learn from guest artists. Chamber Music Program ensembles receive three coachings per quarter focusing on instrumental technique, interpretation, and collaboration, with the expectation that ensembles maintain regular weekly rehearsal schedules and perform their repertoire at least once during the academic year. Performance opportunities are available at a wide variety of venues on the U of C campus and in the Hyde Park community. Additionally, CMP participants are eligible to take private lessons with the instrumental teacher of their choice, and may audition for the annual Lesson Awards and the bi-annual Concerto Competition.

Instructor(s): Clare Longendyke     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17027. Piano Performance Studio. 000 Units.

The Piano Program is designed for intermediate and advanced undergraduate and graduate students to enhance their musical skills and experience through regular coaching opportunities, master classes, quarterly Piano Showcase concerts, and numerous other opportunities offered by the Department of Music's Piano Program. Undergraduate and graduate student pianists interested in taking advantage of these opportunities must audition for the Piano Program in order to be included in these activities. Auditions are held at the beginning of the academic year.

Instructor(s): Eugenia Jeong     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

MUSI 17028. Vocal Performance Studio. 000 Units.

The Vocal Studies Program provides opportunities for the solo singer, and supports the U of C choirs with vocal pedagogy and technique coaching. The program focuses on developing the solo classical and musical theater singer. Private lesson study is encouraged but not required. Students prepare for performances on regularly scheduled departmental concerts and in a variety of special programs on and near the Hyde Park campus. Singers may also work with instrumentalists involved in the Chamber Music Program or Piano Program, and may collaborate with graduate and undergraduate composers on new works. They are eligible to audition for the Concerto Competition hosted by U of C Orchestra, as recommended by their teacher.

Instructor(s): Patrice Michaels     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Solo singers are provided with a collaborative pianist at no cost for University-sponsored performances.

MUSI 17029. Percussion Ensemble. 000 Units.

Percussion Ensemble provides students with a wide background of experience the opportunity to develop practice, rehearsal, and performance techniques in a small ensemble format. Repertoire focuses on integrating many forms of percussion such as mallets, drums, world, and found instruments to familiarize students to a variety of compositional styles and processes. Percussion Ensemble presents two or more concerts per season, featuring works for solo, duo, and small ensembles.

Instructor(s): John Corkill     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Rehearsals and coachings are held weekly on Thursdays, 7:30-10pm.

MUSI 20719. Music and Mind. 100 Units.

This course explores research on music in the mind and brain sciences as it has developed over the past three decades. During this time, we have come to an increasingly refined understanding of the ways the brain processes sound. It remains the case, however, that not all sound is music, and in this course we will investigate how musical sound is organized to make it musical, and how this organization reflects the capacities of the human mind. Interactive lectures (Mondays and Wednesdays) and discussion sections (Fridays) will engage both scientific and humanistic literature. Among the topics the class will engage are the origins and functions of music, absolute pitch, music and memory, how music shapes emotional responses, movement and music, connections between music and images, and the relationship between music and language.

Instructor(s): Lawrence Zbikowski
Equivalent Course(s): SIGN 26066

MUSI 21800. Conducting. 100.00 Units.

This two-quarter course will provide a conceptual and practical introduction to the art, the craft, and the practice of orchestral conducting. The course is targeted particularly toward graduate students in Music Composition, but it is open to advanced musicians with orchestral performance experience as well. Ideally, students enrolled in the course should have had some experience playing or singing in a performance ensemble, and/or have a basic familiarity with orchestral instruments and traditional repertoire. Proficiency in sight reading, ear-training, and basic keyboard skills are prerequisites for the course, but will not be specifically included in the curriculum.

Instructor(s): Barbara Schubert     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 31800

MUSI 22022. The Maqam Chamber Course. 100 Units.

The Maqam Chamber Course gives instrumentalists and vocalists the opportunity to explore maqam repertoire, theory, improvisation, and performance practices through a hands-on approach. Students in this course study maqam, the microtonal modal and phrasing system used in throughout North Africa, Southwest Asia, and Transcaucasia. Students meet on a weekly basis to learn and practice repertoire from these regions, with a focus on interpretation, ornamentation, extended techniques and improvisation skills. Through group rehearsals and exercises, students acquire skills necessary to contribute within a small ensemble setting.

Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 32022

MUSI 22507. Algorithmic Music Online. 100 Units.

In this course, students will learn how to use JavaScript and web-based technologies to create algorithmic musical compositions and experimental web-based instruments. Through the use of the WebAudio API and JavaScript libraries like tone.js, students will learn how to programmatically generate and manipulate sound, creating interactive and generative audio works that can be shared online. Along the way, the class will also survey works by artists working in this field and will feature a visiting artist who will walk students through their own practice. Themes of generative art, randomness and chance, originality and machine creativity, and the cultural implications of influential musical algorithms will also be explored. This class is an intermediate level programming course. A beginner to intermediate level understanding of core programming concepts (ideally in JavaScript) is required. While a background in music can certainly be beneficial, it is not required for success in this course.

Instructor(s): Nick Briz     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 22506

MUSI 23125. Oral Performance and Gender from the Middle Ages to Slam Poetry. 100 Units.

Italian culture has been continuously enriched by oral artistic practices. While the written page has allowed these practices to endure over time, they were also, and often primarily, transmitted through the bodies of performers. Is it possible to reconstruct the voices beyond the page? How does thinking about performance enhance our understanding of the artistic product and, moreover, of the society where this product originated? What are the political implications of the binary division between the written page and the human voice? Why are oral practices largely excluded from the literary canon? Is there a correlation between marginalized oral practices and queerness? The content of this course will consist of various Italian oral practices, ranging from the courtly lyric poetry of the Middle Ages to the contemporary spoken word scene. Additionally, the course will focus on female and queer voices, with the goal of tracing a parallel between the ephemerality of performances and the marginalization of communities. The course will integrate artistic content with theoretical material on the topic of voice, as well as insights from feminist and queer studies, media studies, and performance theory. At the end of the course, students will produce their own creative project with the purpose of answering the following question: how does thinking about performance from a practical point of view help to inform our understanding of performance from a theoretical perspective?

Instructor(s): Alessandro Minnucci     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Class will be conducted in English with a separate discussion section available for students seeking credit for the Italian major/minor. Readings will be in Italian and in English.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 24125, TAPS 20223, ITAL 23125

MUSI 23221. Music in the Indian Ocean. 100 Units.

In this course, we gather sound and music to afford new ways to understand the history and culture of a geographical region. Instead of an area study, we concern ourselves with listening to sound worlds, local and global. We balance the reading of primary and secondary sources-the writings of travelers and practitioners alongside theoretical treatises and modern ethnomusicological scholarship-with the different listening practices, especially collections and assemblages of recorded sound and film. Each student will develop her or his own means of entering different sound worlds. Accordingly, students with varying degrees of musical background will be able to navigate the Indian Ocean World in ways suitable to their own backgrounds and interests. Students from the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Divinity are welcome. Both College students and graduate students may register for the course, with the only distinction being in the scope of the final project.

Instructor(s): Phil Bohlman     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 33221, RLST 28221, MUSI 33221, SALC 23221, RLVC 33221

MUSI 23300. Introduction to the Social and Cultural Study of Music. 100 Units.

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 (i.e., "culture," "subculture," "style," "ritual," "globalization") and methods (i.e., ethnography, semiotics, psychoanalysis, Marxism). In the last part of the course, students learn and develop component skills of fieldwork documentation and ethnographic writing.

Terms Offered: Spring

MUSI 23321. Bollywood Beats: Music and Sound in Popular Hindi Cinema. 100 Units.

This course explores the music and sound of popular Hindi cinema from aesthetic, social, cultural, economic, historical, and political perspectives. Students will be introduced to the musical conventions and practices of the genre, and to changes in Bollywood musical style over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will watch select films with keen attention to music's imbrication with cinematic visuality, narrative, technology, and dance, and with consideration of issues like emplacement, gender, caste, religion, capitalism, nationalism, and transnationalism. Bollywood is a cosmopolitan music, drawing from and contributing to a range of regional and international music practices; we also venture into some of those streams.

Instructor(s): Anna Schultz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 33321, MUSI 33321, CMST 23321, CMST 33321, SALC 23321

MUSI 23322. Setting Sound Standards: Music, Media, and Censorship in South Asia. 100 Units.

This course aims to introduce students to various musical and performance traditions in South Asia and their evolution within regimes of institutional, legal and media censorship. The course aims to understand how media environments and cultures of censorship are in some ways fundamental to shaping performance cultures in South Asia in the twentieth century. How do traditions of musical performance entrenched in the politics of caste, communalism, religion, sexuality and gender interact with regimes of censorship and new media? How do the latter remake and unmake said traditions? Be it the mid-century ban on film music by All India Radio to reflect the aspirations of a newly-emerging nation or the appropriation and urbanization of 'folk' musical practices within the recording studios in Nepal by upper-caste, upper-class male performers- censorship and media infrastructures have been integral to the current ontologies of diverse musical genres in South Asia. Through the analysis of a variety of primary and secondary texts on performance and musical aesthetics, media and music ethnographies, reception and production histories as well as critical listening/viewing exercises, this course seeks to complicate mainstream Euro-American narratives that tend to posit media-modernities as global and uniform. We will seek to understand how South Asian musical cultures and sound practices enter into a creative interplay with musical discourses and media-materialities emerging in the West.

Instructor(s): Ronit Ghosh     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 10325, SALC 25325, TAPS 20215

MUSI 23324. The Human Form in Contemporary Art. 100 Units.

In a present where humanity faces planetary challenges with an unprecedented urgency, the human form - what Marx calls our "genus-being" (Gattungswesen) - has become a focus for artistic production of all sorts. The thesis of the class is this: Contemporary art is an actualization of the human form that doesn't presuppose the form, doesn't take it for granted, but instead troubles the form and poses it as a question. The class considers presentations of the form in performance art (Tino Sehgal, Anne Imhof, Wu Tsang), sculpture (Kara Walker, Cai Guo-Qiang, Cecilia Vicuña), writing (Friederike Mayröcker, Layli Long Soldier, Tracie Morris), sound (Maria Chavez, Christina Kubisch, Samson Young), and painting (Michael Armitage, Tammy Nguyen, Mark Bradford). The class contextualizes these artists with theoretical work by Sylvia Wynter, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Peter Sloterdijk, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Jane Bennett, Achille Mbembe, Eva Horn, and Emanuele Coccia. Readings and discussion in English.

Instructor(s): Florian Klinger     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 23324, ARTH 23324, GRMN 23324

MUSI 23410. Music of the Middle East. 100 Units.

Historically one of the most complex and contested regions in the world, Israel/Palestine has a music culture that bears witness to processes of connection and separation. The politics of music in Israel/Palestine grow from conflicted beliefs about authenticity and ownership, the sounds of difference and sameness. The sacred and the secular intersect, and boundaries of practice and genre both divide and unite. Local practices have never been independent of global movement, be it in diaspora, pilgrimage, or the distant residence of refugees. The musical landscape of the region, therefore, has shifted throughout history, accessible primarily through the archaeology of music scholarship. In this proseminar we shall look at specific moments when the musics of Israel/Palestine converged, responding to and shaping historical change and conflict. We shall explore musical repertories and practices of all kinds, whether sacred or secular, vernacular or élite.

Instructor(s): Erol Koymen     Terms Offered: Winter. Israel/Palestine
Prerequisite(s): 100-level music course or consent of instructor.
Note(s): Students in the College and graduate students from Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Divinity School will all be welcome. The course will intersect with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies. The ability to read music is not a prerequisite, though familiarity with some way of understanding and discussing sound in its many contexts will be helpful.
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 23410, MUSI 33410

MUSI 23509. Eurovision. 100 Units.

Each May since 1956 popular musicians and fans from Europe gather in a European metropolis to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), a competitive spectacle in which musicians from one nation compete against one another. Organized, funded, and broadcast by the European Broadcasting Union, the largest conglomerate of national radio and television networks in the world, the ESC is extensively participatory, creating its own communities of fans, musicians, musical producers, and ordinary citizens, who join together at all levels of society to interact with the politics and historical narratives of Europe. From the moment of heightened Cold War conflict at the birth of ESC to the refugee crisis and the rise of right-wing nationalism in the present, ESC has generated public discourse that not only reflects European and global politics, but provides a conduit for local and national citizenries to respond and shape such public discourse about gender and sexuality. The weekly work for the course draws students from across the College into the counterpoint of history and politics with aesthetics and popular culture. Each week will be divided into two parts, the first dedicated to reading and discussion of texts about European history and politics from World War II to the present, the second to interaction with music. Students will experience the ESC through close readings of individual songs and growing familiarity with individual nations with a participatory final project.

Instructor(s): P. Bohlman     Terms Offered: Various
Prerequisite(s): 100-level music course or consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 23509, TAPS 23509, SIGN 26044

MUSI 23622. Performing the U.S. Supreme Court. 100 Units.

How do American Supreme Court justices engage with performance? How do performing artists engage with the United States Supreme Court? This class explores the intersections between music, theater, dance, and "the highest court of the land." We will discuss how the court has defined "performance" in various intellectual property and arts-related opinions. We will analyze recent justices' own performances in the courtroom, at the Washington National Opera, and on the salsa dance floor. And we will watch, listen to, and interpret songs, operas, plays, and films that set the text of Supreme Court opinions. By the end of the quarter, students should understand how performance shapes the making and the memory of American law, and how law shapes the concept and the content of artistic performance. Weekly readings and screenings will include excerpts from secondary sources, Supreme Court oral arguments and opinions, and musical and theatrical performances. To gain experience both reading law and presenting in public, students will perform a short spoken, danced, and/or musical setting of a Supreme Court opinion (this can be an existing artistic setting or one of students' own devising), and will write a five-page paper analyzing how their chosen artistic setting inflects the judicial rhetoric of the opinion.

Instructor(s): C. Dowd     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 20240

MUSI 23706. Music of South Asia. 100 Units.

The course explores some of the music traditions that hail from South Asia-a region defined by the countries of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Maldives, and their diasporas. The course will study music and some of its inextricably linked forms of dance and theatre through the lens of ethnomusicology, where music is considered in its social and cultural contexts. Students will develop tools to listen, analyze, watch, and participate in South Asian forms of music-making, using case-study based inquiries as guides along the way.

Instructor(s): Anna Schultz
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20800, MUSI 33706, RLST 27700, SALC 30800

MUSI 23804. Rock. 100 Units.

This course has as its focus the varied social agents, discourses, processes and institutions that contribute to current and historical understandings of rock. Issues of musical style, questions of historiography, the technologies and techniques of audio recording, the structures of the recording industry, the status of so-called subcultures and mainstreams, and the politics of gender, race and sexuality are among the items which our readings, class discussions and assignments will explore. As such, the inculcation of an "appreciation" of rock, the transmission of a canon and the validation of individual musical tastes are projects that are antithetical to our inquiry. Students will also be encouraged, through select readings and listening assignments, to contextualize rock within a broad field of twentieth- and twenty-first century music-making and attendant social, political and economic processes.

Instructor(s): Travis Jackson
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 33804

MUSI 24080. New Musical Development: Writing Team. 100 Units.

This class explores and replicates the professional theatrical process of new musical development, beginning with the concept for a show and ending with its premiere performance as an invited staged reading. Students will serve as book writers, lyricists, composers (Writing Team), and/or directors, music directors, actors, singers, and dramaturgs (Artistic Team) as they work together to craft and polish a new and viable work of musical theater. This class studies the art and theory behind theatrical storytelling, songwriting, directing, and originating new roles as actors, and students will work on their feet each week to bring their unique perspectives and skills to the creation of a new musical script, score, and performance. Creators with any amount of material towards a new musical (a full-length draft, a portion of a script and score, OR an outline) are encouraged to submit their work to selmegreen@uchicago.edu and lbdanzig@uchicago.edu beginning in Spring Quarter 2024, before this course is offered in Fall 2024. Students interested primarily in writing and/or composing should enroll in TAPS 24080 New Musical Development: Writing Team, while students primarily interested in acting, directing, music directing, and dramaturgy should enroll in TAPS 24081 New Play Development: Artistic Team. Questions? Curiosities? Please contact Scott Elmegreen (selmegreen@uchicago.edu) and Leslie Buxbaum (lbdanzig@uchicago.edu). Consent required.

Instructor(s): S. Elmegreen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 24080, TAPS 34080

MUSI 24081. New Musical Development: Artistic Team. 100 Units.

This class explores and replicates the professional theatrical process of new musical development, beginning with the concept for a show and ending with its premiere performance as an invited staged reading. Students will serve as book writers, lyricists, composers (Writing Team), and/or directors, music directors, actors, singers, and dramaturgs (Artistic Team) as they work together to craft and polish a new and viable work of musical theater. This class studies the art and theory behind theatrical storytelling, songwriting, directing, and originating new roles as actors, and students will work on their feet each week to bring their unique perspectives and skills to the creation of a new musical script, score, and performance. Creators with any amount of material towards a new musical (a full-length draft, a portion of a script and score, OR an outline) are encouraged to submit their work to selmegreen@uchicago.edu and lbdanzig@uchicago.edu beginning in Spring Quarter 2024, before this course is offered in Fall 2024. Students interested primarily in writing and/or composing should enroll in TAPS 24080 New Musical Development: Writing Team, while students primarily interested in acting, directing, music directing, and dramaturgy should enroll in TAPS 24081 New Play Development: Artistic Team. Questions? Curiosities? Please contact Scott Elmegreen (selmegreen@uchicago.edu) and Leslie Buxbaum (lbdanzig@uchicago.edu).

Instructor(s): L. Buxbaum     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 34081, TAPS 24081

MUSI 24321. Songwriting for Musical Theater. 100 Units.

This course is a practical introduction to the art and craft of songwriting for musical theater. Students will analyze and practice song form, storytelling through music, and the writing of lyrics and melody for character and tone. In addition to sharing and workshopping new song material weekly, students will learn about orchestration, arrangement, and the structure of the theatrical score by discussing standout examples of the genre. Students will develop a catalog of character- and story-driven songs to be presented at the end of the quarter. A basic knowledge of music theory is expected; experience in songwriting is not required.

Instructor(s): S. Elmegreen     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 34321, TAPS 21860, TAPS 31860

MUSI 24322. Advanced Musical Theater Writing. 100 Units.

This course is an advanced, project-oriented writing workshop with an emphasis on dramatic structure, storytelling through music, and the exploration of character as practical matters. Each student will propose a new, full-length musical and will work towards the creation of a first draft over the course of the quarter. In addition to presenting and workshopping new scene or song material weekly, students will study, discuss, and draw inspiration from standout examples of the genre. Students will present excerpted readings from their musicals at the end of the course. Some experience in writing for musical theater is expected.

Instructor(s): S. Elmegreen     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 22360, MUSI 34322, TAPS 32360

MUSI 24417. Making and Meaning in the American Musical. 100 Units.

The history of the American musical in the 20th century is paradoxical. While the genre is often denigrated as staging lyrical utopias of romance and adventure allowing audiences to escape depressing quotidian realities, many musicals did seek to engage some of the most pressing social issues of their day. In this course, we will look-and listen-closely to four differing musicals from the 20th century, studying their creative origins, while also analyzing their complex social meanings revealed through the story, music, lyrics, staging, and dance. An Excursion to a professionally staged Musical later in the quarter is planned.

Instructor(s): Thomas Christensen
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 28467, SIGN 26009

MUSI 24422. Introduction to Musical Theater Writing. 100 Units.

This course is a practical introduction to writing for musical theater. Students will analyze and discuss character development and dramatic structure across musical theater scripts, scores, and songs, and they will apply these lessons to their own writing. Students will develop treatments and excerpts towards new works of musical theater, and as individuals or in teams they will write, workshop, and present ten-minute musicals at the end of the quarter. No prior experience in script writing or songwriting is required.

Instructor(s): S. Elmegreen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 21810

MUSI 24520. Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung in Performance. 100 Units.

This seminar, open to undergraduates and beginning graduate students, serves as a critical introduction to and intensive exploration of Richard Wagner's 19th century tetralogy. In addition to critical readings (e.g., by Wagner, Adorno, Nietzsche, Badiou, Dahlhaus, et al.) and screenings of a host of productions, we will travel downtown to Lyric Opera to attend performances of the Ring cycle in David Pountney's new production. Our discussions of the Chicago production will be supplemented by conversations with members of the Lyric Opera production team, including Anthony Freud, Lyric Opera's General Director. No previous knowledge is required although a curiosity about opera, German culture, media history, and/or theater & performance studies will be essential.

Instructor(s): David Levin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 23419, GRMN 33419, CMST 22119, MUSI 32520, CMST 32119, GRMN 23419

MUSI 24722. Music and Environment. 100 Units.

Over the last four centuries, how have the creators and practitioners of Western art music imagined nature as a recurring other-a foil to the art and artifice of our human world? This course is a trans-historical survey of the multifaceted relationships between musical creators, audiences, and the natural world. Over the 10-week course we will explore humankind's evolving relationship with the environment, calling upon a diverse array of composers, performers, and artists. While music offers a space in which to contemplate our relationship with nature, the natural world has long offered an opportunity for artists to expand their horizons, suggesting new sonic resources, new ways of performing, and new understandings of temporality. The course is organized in three large modules: listening to the environment, representing the environment, and speaking for the environment. The first introduces a set of listening practices-deep listening and soundwalks-to explore how these listening practices open up a range of possibilities for the interpenetration of natural sounds within musical performances, and musical performances in outdoor spaces. The second module turns our focus toward transliterations of natural phenomena and animal sounds, mediated through instrumental or electronic renderings. The final module examines the ways in which music can engage with, critique, and perform (or fail to perform) environmental activism.

Instructor(s): Clay Mettens     Terms Offered: Spring

MUSI 24820. Video Game Music Production and Sound Design. 100 Units.

The advent of video game soundtrack releases and live game music concerts substantiate the importance of music and sound in games, not just as accompaniments but as essential aspects of the gaming experience. This production course surveys the history of sound effects, music, and design in games beginning with the bleeps and bloops of the 1970s and concluding with the ambient, nonlinear soundscape of many contemporary games. Following the timeline media theorist Karen Collins presents in her documentary Beep, this course will explore electronic sound technologies including virtual analog synthesis, frequency modulation, bit reduction, General MIDI, and sample-based production. Each student will compose a game soundtrack demo for their final project. This course welcomes students who are both new to and experienced in sound production; the complexity of each assignment can be adjusted based on experience.

Instructor(s): Takashi Shallow     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 24820

MUSI 24822. Video Game Music and Sound. 100 Units.

From 8-bit audio tracks to orchestral concerts of video game music, from the percussive clicks of keyboards and controllers to menu noises, sound is tightly tied to the experience of playing video games. In this course, we'll explore how game music and sound interact with narrative, the embodiment of play, and musical environments outside of the games themselves. Our engagement with game music and sound will be mostly analytical, but there will be an opportunity for a creative final project for those students who might be interested. No prior music courses are required, although some familiarity with musical terminology and experience playing video games may prove useful.

Instructor(s): Will Myers     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 14822

MUSI 25020. Opera Across Media. 100 Units.

Open to all undergraduates. Over the course of the last hundred and twenty years, opera and cinema have been sounded and seen together again and again. Where opera is commonly associated with extravagant performance and production, cinema is popularly associated realism. Yet their encounter not only proves these assumptions wrong but produces some extraordinary third kinds-media hybrids. It also produces some extraordinary love affairs. Thomas Edison wanted a film of his to be "a grand opera," and Federico Fellini and Woody Allen wanted opera to saturate their films. Thinking about these mutual attractions, "Opera across Media" explores different operatic and cinematic repertories as well as other media forms. Among films to be studied are Pabst's Threepenny Opera (1931), Visconti's Senso (1954), Powell and Pressburger's Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Zeffirelli's La traviata (1981), De Mille's Carmen (1915), Losey's Don Giovanni (1979), Bergman's The Magic Flute (1975), and Fellini's E la nave va (1983). No prior background in music performance, theory, or notation is needed. Students may write papers based on their own skills and interests relevant to the course. Required work includes attendance at all screenings and classes; weekly postings on Canvas about readings and viewings; attendances at a Met HD broadcast and a Lyric Opera live opera; a short "think piece" midway through the course; and a final term paper of 8-10 pages.

Instructor(s): Martha Feldman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Open to all undergraduates
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 25020, ITAL 25020, CMST 24617, SIGN 26058, MADD 13020, TAPS 26516

MUSI 25100. Analysis of Music of the Classical Period. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the compositional norms of the "galant" and "high classical" styles of the eighteenth century, especially the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. We will approach this repertoire from different angles, engaging literature on Formenlehre, schema theory, rhythm and meter, and topic theory. Ultimately, we will explore how conventions and deviations thereof participate in the construction of musical meaning and expression.

Instructor(s): Various     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): MUSI 15300 or equivalent
Note(s): This course is typically offered in alternate years.
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 30809

MUSI 25200. Analysis of Nineteenth-Century Music. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the tonal language of nineteenth-century European composers, including Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, and Wagner. Students confront analytical problems posed by these and other composers' 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. We will also address the ways in which these analytical perspectives might impinge on or influence matters of performance; students with a performance background will be invited to propose a final project that involves both performance and analysis.

Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): MUSI 15300 or equivalent
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 35200

MUSI 25300. Analysis of Twentieth-Century Music. 100 Units.

This course introduces theoretical and analytical approaches to twentieth-century music. The core of the course involves learning a new theoretical apparatus-often called "set theory"-and exploring how best to apply that apparatus analytically to pieces by composers such as Schoenberg, Bartók, and Stravinsky. We also explore the relevance of the theoretical models to music outside of the high-modernist canon, including some jazz. The course provides an opportunity to confront some foundational questions regarding what it means to "theorize about music."

Instructor(s): Various     Terms Offered: Various
Prerequisite(s): MUSI 15300 or equivalent
Note(s): This course typically is offered in alternate years.
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 35300

MUSI 25421. Bach Yesterday and Today. 100 Units.

Johann Sebastian Bach is somewhat of a cipher, one whose image and meaning has changed remarkably over the centuries. In this class, we will look at many of these shifting images of the famous Leipzig composer. Was he the pious Thomaskantor dutifully churning out his cantatas and passions or the intellectual wizard of an abstract and dying fugal art? A belated hero of German nationalism, or a universal icon of musical humanity celebrated by many as the greatest composer of all time? We will do a fair amount of readings that reflect many of these changing views of Bach. But we will also spend much of our time listening to-and studying-his music, seeing what clues he has offered to help us understand this most enigmatic of composers. While an advanced understanding of music theory is not a prerequisite for this course, it will be important that you can read music and helpful to have a foundational understanding of harmony and counterpoint.

Instructor(s): Thomas Christensen     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 25422

MUSI 25422. Hearing Popular Music. 100 Units.

For decades, popular music has been the soundtrack to many Americans' lives. This class explores the structure, function, and impact of a range of vernacular musics from the 20th and 21st centuries. Our approach to popular music will be by turns historical, analytical, and sociological. Students will learn about formal designs of pop songs, from verse-chorus to much more elaborate structures, along with antecedents in the Great American Songbook tradition. Students will learn to analyze the harmonic and melodic conventions in various genres, and also spend significant time with groove analysis and design. Finally, the class will interrogate the sociological relevance of vernacular musics, weaving in discussions of relevant social issues from radio play to popularity, and from subcultural appeal to racial identity. This class is open to anyone who listens carefully and with passion, and who wants to grow their ability to write about music. Experience as a practitioner of any type of music and/or a passing knowledge of music theory will be helpful, but it is not necessary to read notated music for this course.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Iverson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SIGN 26090, MADD 12422

MUSI 25622. Listening to Flamenco. 100 Units.

Alluring dance, virtuosic guitar playing, and deep song. This course provides and introduction to the history and theory of flamenco-developed by the oft-marginalized gitano people (Spanish Roma) and recognized as World Heritage Treasure by UNESCO. Students will learn to describe musical and choreographic techniques and to distinguish between the different subgenres that constitute flamenco. Through a study of the music and complementary readings, we will learn about gitano culture and explore issues of identity, representation, class, gender, and ethnicity.

Instructor(s): Olga Sanchez Kisielewska     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Knowledge of Spanish and/or ability to read music will be helpful but is not required.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 25622, SPAN 35622, MUSI 35622

MUSI 25721. Music of the Black Radical Tradition. 100 Units.

Black artists are often written out of the history of musical experimentalism. John Cage's place in the canon is secure, but what of Cecil Taylor's? Or Anthony Braxton's? Or Matana Roberts's? Labels like "jazz" or "free jazz" segregate these artists from white experimentalists, suggesting that their music is best understood within a narrowly racialized genre category, rather than as part of the experimental mainstream, with its assumed whiteness, institutional support, and inbuilt prestige. This course redresses this imbalance by centering the music of Black radical composers in the latter half of the twentieth century. We will study the music of a wide range of composers, including many associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), one of the most venerable musical collectives of the twentieth century, rooted right here in Chicago's South Side. The course will tack between studies of the music's sounds and its historical, political, and ideological contexts. We will develop critical and analytical language for engaging the often-bracing sound worlds of those composers while building out a contextual understanding of their work as at once capaciously experimental and situated in a political context of resistance.

Instructor(s): Steve Rings     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 25721

MUSI 25722. The Musical Interface: Constraint and Creativity. 100 Units.

Music-making involves constraint: the layout of a keyboard or guitar, the poetic systems of an epic storyteller, the practice techniques of a singer who cultivates a certain sound, or even the lines of code that an algorithmic music-maker strings together. New technologies bring new rules, as well as new ways to break the rules: autotuned vocals are no longer derided, and tools like Melodyne are now a standard part of music production. Constraint, then, produces creativity-but how does this look with particular instruments and traditions? How do artists make the most of their tools? In this hands-on class, we will explore the interface through the concepts of affordance, interval systems, algorithms, and generalizable schemas. You won't just analyze art: you will also produce it and discuss your experiences with each type of interface. Our topics will include electronic music constructed on digital audio workstations and through code, the piano keyboard, the harmonica, Korean p'ansori sung storytelling, streaming platforms and recommendation algorithms, and the Italian solfeggio tradition. This class includes a creative final project in the sonic medium of your choice.

Instructor(s): Andrew White     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 25722

MUSI 26100. Introduction to Composition. 100 Units.

Designed for beginning composers to practice and hone the nuances of their musical craft, this course introduces some of the fundamentals of music composition through a series of exercises as well as several larger creative projects. Professional musicians will perform students' exercises and compositions. This is primarily a creative, composing course. Through a combination of composition assignments, listening, discussion, analysis, and reading, we will explore and practice the fundamental aspects of music composition. Repertoire study, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, orchestration, timbre, form, transformation, and several other pertinent essentials are included in the curriculum. This laboratory-style, practical course is interactive and discussion-based.

Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Any two quarters of music theory, inclusive of 14300 and 15153, or permission from the instructor

MUSI 26200. Advanced Composition. 100 Units.

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.

Note(s): Enrollment is open to students who have taken Introduction to Composition or have permission of the instructor.

MUSI 26251. Introduction to Sonic Arts. 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): Senem Pirler      Terms Offered: Spring

MUSI 26521. Introduction to Sonic Arts. 100 Units.

This course provides a historical, theoretical, and practical introduction to aesthetic technologies of sound. Open to students in Music, DOVA, TAPS, and MAAD, this course is geared toward a broad spectrum of creators including material musicians, mixed-media artists, dramaturges, game designers, etc. who use sound in their artistic practice. The course will include a historical overview of the porous relationship between sound and music from the birth of electricity, futurism, and Dada to recent conceptions and innovations of the sonic arts in computer music, intermedia, installations, gaming, and performance art.

MUSI 26618. Electronic Music: Composing with Sound. 100 Units.

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.

Instructor(s): TBD
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 36618, MADD 24618

MUSI 26715. 16th Century Counterpoint. 100 Units.

This class explores sixteenth century counterpoint through the lens of species counterpoint training as codified in the eighteenth century. Students will produce compositions and exercises for two and three voices, with a brief excursion into four voice counterpoint. The class will develop a critical ear and a mind towards good counterpoint with in-class critique and discussion. Each class will also be devoted to discussing counterpoint in repertoire from medieval to present, focusing on sixteenth century masterworks, in tandem with assignments in which students complete brief lines of missing voices in existing repertoire, comparing their own solutions with the original. We also compare and discuss famous examples of student counterpoint from Mozart, Beethoven, and others.

Instructor(s): James Kallembach     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): MUSI 153 or equivalent
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 36720

MUSI 26718. Electronic Music: Approaches to Electronic Music. 100 Units.

Hand-built circuits, tape loops, feedback, filters, ring modulators, turntables, live-processing software environments, microphones, and human-machine interface designs. In this course, we will study current and historical approaches to the performative use of hardware and software environments in music, and will follow the practice as it continues to redefine music composition and improvisation in the 21st century. Study will be repertoire-based, drawing from the work of artists ranging from David Tudor to Herbie Hancock to Grandmaster Flash to Kaija Saariaho.

Instructor(s): TBD
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 16718, MUSI 36718

MUSI 26725. Staging Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung in the 21st Century. 100 Units.

This team-taught course explores the challenges of staging Richard Wagner's sprawling 19th-century tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung in the 21st century. The course will offer an introduction to The Ring, including its complicated place in history (including its reception and production history), and how it has been thought about in recent musicology and critical theory. But first and foremost, we will be exploring how the piece is being staged today. To that end, we will explore four productions of the tetralogy that are currently being prepared at leading opera houses around the world - in Munich, London, Berlin, and Oslo - speaking, via Zoom, with artistic directors and the production teams about their ideas and ambitions. What are the interpretive challenges and opportunities in staging this mammoth work? How do these productions seek to engage the tetralogy's exceedingly complicated aesthetic ambitions, political baggage, and production history? And how do specific geographical, cultural, and historical conditions affect the artistic project of each production? Our discussions will encompass a range of fields, approaches, and topics. Among the themes we plan to examine are the aspiration to aesthetic totalization, the politics of community, the relationship between canonicity and critique, the notion of distress or emergency (the German term is Not), and some astonishingly lurid fantasies of family life-mostly of family dissolution. Moreover, we will approach the questi

Instructor(s): David Levin, Hedda Høgåsen-Hallesby     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 36725, GRMN 36725, TAPS 36518, GRMN 26725, TAPS 26518

MUSI 26780. Caribbean Music, Performance, and Popular Culture in the Age of Precarity: 1990 to the Present. 100 Units.

This course explores the concept of precarity and its influence on artistic and cultural expressions within contemporary Caribbean popular culture, primarily from the 1990s to the present day. Precarity is broadly defined as the feeling or experience of instability resulting from various social, economic, political, and environmental factors, including structural adjustments, climate change (such as hurricanes and earthquakes), and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of art in shaping popular responses to precarity, including significant events like mass protests, the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests, uprisings against the deportation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, as well as interrelated international movements like #LifeinLeggings and #Metoo. The course delves into how Caribbean performance and popular music have engaged with these issues, with a focus on music genres like dancehall, wylers, soca, reggaetón, and the individual artistic works of Caribbean artists such as LaVaughn Belle, Helen Ceballos, Joiri Minaya, and others. These artists use their work to explore themes of precarity and to envision potential alternatives to the contemporary challenges of insecurity, touching on issues related to gender, sexuality, and race.

Instructor(s): Jessica Baker and Danielle Roper     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 36780, MUSI 36780, SPAN 26780, RDIN 26780, SPAN 36780

MUSI 26817. Electronic Music: Introduction to Computer Music Programming. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to computer-based sound art and live electronic music performance. Our primary tool for this course will be MAX/MSP, a computer music programming language designed for composition and real-time music applications. Through this language we will explore the foundations of computer music, including digital instrument design, sequencing, live processing, sound diffusion, and various approaches to algorithmic music generation.

Instructor(s): David Bird     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 36817, MADD 24817

MUSI 27100-27200-27300. Topics in the History of Western Music I-II-III.

This sequence is a three-quarter investigation into Western art music, with primary emphasis on the vocal and instrumental repertories of Western Europe and the United States. This sequence is now offered every year, allowing students to complete the music major within the space of two years.

MUSI 27423. Divas, Idols, Material Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Music Videos. 100 Units.

The stark black and white of Madonna's "Vogue" and the pinks and sparkles of "Material Girl." The explosive surprise releases of Beyoncé's BEYONCÉ and Lemonade visual albums. The lavish cinematic spectacle of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" and the fanbait intertextuality of SM Entertainment's Aespa. Since MTV's advent in 1981, hit music videos have made a number of pop songs inextricable from iconic imagery and choreography; ubiquitous digital devices and the rise of platforms like YouTube and TikTok have only increased pop music's audiovisuality. Looking at and listening to female pop icons raises fraught questions of agency, representation, race, sexuality/sexualization, bodies, commodification, and capital. In this course, students will gain a vocabulary for talking about both the audio and visual parameters of music video, and they will use this vocabulary to engage with critical frameworks for examining meaning, circulation, and reception in contemporary music videos. Assignments across the course will allow students to experiment with a range of writing and media genres, including critical close readings, micro-reception histories, thinkpieces, podcast episodes, and video essays.

Instructor(s): Paula Harper     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 14723, GNSE 20135

MUSI 27523. Issues in Pop Music. 100 Units.

TBA

Instructor(s): Paula Harper     Terms Offered: Winter

MUSI 27623. Theories and Aesthetics of Remix. 100 Units.

Remix, mashup, bricolage, borrowing, sampling, collage - transformative creative techniques pervade 20th- and 21st-century musical and artistic practice. The spectrum of remixing spans virtuosically across hip hop and DJ culture, through classical and avant-garde composition, to the crudest deep-fried internet memery. Taking a topical approach, this course will use readings, texts, and practices of remix-in many guises-to explore questions of aesthetics, agency, economics, and politics. Topics under consideration include: intertextuality, aesthetics and form, technology and hardware/software affordances, genre and identity, AI, politics, appropriation and copyright, humor and value, memes and shitposts. Assessments will include hands-on creative projects using a spectrum of techniques, media, and software.

Instructor(s): Paula Harper     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 20623

MUSI 27624. New Forms in DJing. 100 Units.

This course will briefly explore the history of the media of DJing, then to invent a new form in the lineage through practice. Conventional history including disco, broadcasting, and Youtube, to name a few, and more experimental history including underground hip-hop, musique concrete, and contemporary performance art. The course will begin with student research and presentation on such topics followed by predictions about what may come next or brainstorming ways to deconstruct existing forms, then attempting to enact those ideas.

Instructor(s): Takashi Shallow     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): To be taken in sequence with MUSI 27623: Theories and Aesthetics of Remix
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 20624

MUSI 27702. Music and Love in South Asia. 100 Units.

This course explores the relationship between the musical arts and forms of love in South Asian history. We will trace the complex and ambivalent contours of love in several genres including premodern poetry, stage performance, and Bollywood movies. We will examine issues such as poetics and theology, opposition to orthodox social conventions, the intensity of emotion expressed through multiple senses, the social sites of forbidden love, women and gender as poets and performers, and the intersection of sexuality and spirituality.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan; Anna Schultz     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 27703, RLST 27702, MUSI 37702, HREL 37702, RLVC 37702, GNSE 27702, GNSE 37702, SALC 37703

MUSI 28222. Talking All That Jazz. 100 Units.

This course explores the various roles jazz music has been assigned in the construction, maintenance, and representation of American and African American religion. We will read and listen to musicians' religious manifestos and seek to locate them within the broader context of the history of religions in the Americas. At the same time, we will also consider the ways "jazz" has been figured as a threat to religious integrity, the quintessential sound of people's spiritual struggle, and the promise of America as a nation, among other themes. Listening to good music will be required.

Instructor(s): Matt Harris     Terms Offered: not being offered 24-25
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 28222, ANTH 28222, RLST 28222

MUSI 28500. Musicianship Skills. 000 Units.

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).

Instructor(s): Olga Sánchez-Kisielewska     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): MUSI 15300. Open only to students who are majoring in music.
Note(s): 100 units credit is granted only after successful completion of the year's work.

MUSI 29500. Undergraduate Honors Seminar. 100 Units.

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.

Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Open only to third years who are majoring in music and wish to develop a research project and prepare it for submission for departmental honors.

MUSI 29900. Senior Essay or Composition. 100 Units.

Prerequisites: MUSI 26100 and MUSI 26200 (26200 can be taken concurrently with 24000) MUSI 15100, 15200 and 15300 Consent of instructor Students may enroll in this course more than once as an elective, but it may be counted only once towards requirements for the music major or minor. Students must also register for MUSI 24100, Seminar: Composition.

Instructor(s): David Bird     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Consent Form.