Anthropology of Music: Music & Spirituality
MUSIC-UA 153, Section 001
Instructor: Christine Dang
Mondays & Wednesdays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Course Description: This course explores the role of sound and music in human spirituality. We will probe the ways in which musical practices shape and are shaped by diverse spiritual experiences. Our case studies cover diverse cultural and historical contexts, and include: Islamic cantillation, Beethoven symphonies, Buddhist chant, Tuvan throat-singing, African American gospel, and New Age soundscapes. We will also explore the spiritual dimensions of popular music, such as hip hop, heavy metal, and EDM. Themes we discuss include: ideas of the sacred and the profane; ethics and aesthetics; music and healing; the politics of religious belonging; and contemporary experiences of spirituality outside of organized religion.
Area of Study: Music, History, and Culture
Aural Perception
MUSIC-UA 193, Section 001
Instructor: David Samuels
Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (SEM)
Fridays 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM (RCT) or Fridays 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM (RCT)
Course Description: This course considers a number of deep, long-standing, and telling contradictions in the study of music. It is a human universal, yet it must be learned, and musical “systems” are not easily calibrated to each other. Music presents itself as a symbolic form of communication, but what and how it symbolizes and communicates is often mysterious. It lives as sound in social interaction, yet its analysis often takes place in the silence of written forms (scores and articles). Through reading, listening, viewing, discussing, and performing, our goal in this class will be to arrive at a more fully embodied, immersive, and sounded (and thereby sound) understanding of how music works in our lives.
This is the foundational course for CAS music majors, but it is open to any students who wish to enroll. Students must also register for one of the two listed RCT sections.
Elements of Music
MUSIC-UA 20, Section 001
Instructor: TBA
Mondays & Wednesdays 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM (LEC)
Mondays 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM (LAB) or Wednesdays 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM (LAB)
Course Description: Explores the underlying principles and inner workings of the tonal system, a system that has guided all of Western music from the years 1600 to 1900. It includes a discussion of historical background and evolution. Focuses on concepts and notation of key, scale, tonality, and rhythm. Related skills in sight-singing, dictation, and keyboard harmony are stressed in the recitation sections.
Course does not count toward the Music major. Course can be counted toward the Music minor as a theory course.
Students must also register for one of the two listed LAB sections.
Music Theory I
MUSIC-UA 201, Section 001
Instructor: Elizabeth Hoffman
Mondays & Wednesdays 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM (SEM)
Mondays 12:30 PM- 1:45 PM (LAB) or Wednesdays 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM (LAB)
Course Description: Course Description: Students study principles of tonal music composition including 18th and 19th century harmonic, formal, and contrapuntal practices. Exercises in four-part voice-leading and species counterpoint are supplemented by analyses of music from around the world and from a variety of genres, including concert and popular music. Weekly lab sections are devoted to skills in musicianship and are required throughout the sequence.
Music Major Requirement. Students must also register for one of the two listed LAB sections.
Music Theory II
MUSIC-UA 202, Section 001
Instructor: TBA
Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM (SEM)
Mondays 4:55 PM - 6:10 PM (LAB) or Wednesdays 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM (LAB)
Course Description: Chromatic harmony as developed and practiced by composers of the 19th century and beyond. Introduction to score reading and principles of musical analysis applied to larger musical structures. Continuation of species counterpoint and an introduction to invertible counterpoint and fugue.
Music Major Requirement. Students must also register for one of the two listed LAB sections.
Performance & Analysis
MUSIC-UA 206, Section 001
Instructor: Louis Karchin
Wednesdays 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Course Description: Students will study and learn to perform works from various periods of music, with a focus on interpretation and analysis. The works may be studied as individual or group projects (solo pieces or chamber music), and regular coachings will be supplemented with sessions delving into analysis of the music. A brief audition is required to establish proficiency on an instrument, and students should contact the music department to set up an audition time. May be repeated for credit. For spring 2021: students may submit a brief sound file or video of their playing to Prof. Louis Karchin (lsk1@nyu.edu).
Area of Study: Sonic Art
The Art of Listening
MUSIC-UA 3, Section 001
Instructor: Joel Rust
Tuesdays & Thursdays 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Course Description: Students acquire a basic vocabulary of musical terms, concepts, and listening skills in order to describe their responses to musical experiences. Considers the structure and style of influential works in the Western art music repertoire, popular music, or other musical cultures, with attention to the wider social, political, and artistic context.
Course does not count toward the Music major. Course can be counted toward the Music minor as an elective.
Principles of Composition
MUSIC-UA 307, Section 001
Instructor: Joel Rust
Thursdays 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Course Description: Course Description: Explores various compositional techniques, with an emphasis on modern-day writing procedures. Students write music regularly and receive suggestions from the instructor intended to foster the development of their individual compositional voices. Students also study specific musical scores corresponding to their areas of interest. PREREQUISITE: MUSIC THEORY I
Area of Study: Sonic Art
Ensemble IV: The Afro-Cuban Creative Jazz Ensemble
MUSIC-UA 508, Section 001
Instructor: Yunior Terry
Tuesdays 4:55 PM - 7:25 PM
Course Description: The Afro Cuban ensemble will focus on the different popular styles and genres of the rich Cuban repertoire. Focusing on the best-known composers and traditional forms to get an understanding of the nuances and complexity of the music. (Open to all)
Area of Study: Sonic Art
Special Topics Seminar: Handmade Electronic Music
MUSIC-UA 901, Section 001
Instructor: Jaime Oliver
Mondays & Wednesdays 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM (SEM)
Tuesdays 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM (LAB) or Thursday 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM (LAB)
Course Description: This course is probably unlike any course you've taken so far, at least in the sense that your professor, me, has barely taught it before and is somewhat of a beginner in most of this field. I don't know much about electronic engineering (as opposed to computer programming which people call “electronics”) and even if I – or you – did, it would probably be besides the point. The point is to learn things that cannot really be taught, but only experienced through hacking and experimenting with sound, and which are often hard to replicate. You cannot DIY if you don't DIY.
While most music today is made with some combination of traditional musical instruments and computers, some musicians build or transform (“hack”!) their own electronic devices to discover new sounds. In this course we will develop skills and learn techniques to make sounds by hacking electronic devices to acquire new music making skills and finding new sound sources, but also as a means to explore and be better able to understand the work of composers and sound artists that have created or defined the field of electronic music in some way. This field, if we can call it a field, comprises artists that build or “hack” unique devices with which they make music and sonic arts of different kinds. As you'll see, many of them challenge or work at the fringes of what has traditionally been called music and many of them do not consider themselves musicians.
We will follow the book “Handmade Electronic Music” by Nicolas Collins, which is required and to which the course owes its name. It is available through ebrary in the NYU library if you'd prefer to stay digital in your reading, but a hard copy is always useful to have. We will adopt a tinkerer and DIY philosophy to learn through active exploration rather than through theory. No prior knowledge of electronics is required; we will learn basic concepts and skills along the way. You will be required to buy some basic tools and materials which will not be very expensive, to find and bring old electronic devices to hack, and to bring an open mind ready for experimentation.
As we equip ourselves with various sound techniques and with the experience of soldering and building our own devices, we will listen to, analyze, and often recreate the work of artists like John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, David Tudor, Gordon Mumma, David Behrman, Christina Kubisch, and many other lesser known artists, often completely unknown to most of academia, in a field that spans a wide variety of practices such as sound sculpture, sound installation, live electronics, music composition, experimental music, circuit bending, and so on.
Students must also register for one of the two listed LAB sections.
Area of Study: Sonic Art
INTERNSHIP
MUSIC-UA 981, Section 001
Permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies Required
INDEPENDENT STUDY
MUSIC-UA 997, Section 001
2 or 4 credits
Permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies Required
INDEPENDENT STUDY
MUSIC-UA 998, Section 001 and Section 002
2 or 4 credits
Permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies Required