Anthropology of Music: African American Women and Music
MUSIC-UA 153, Section 001
Instructor: Maureen Mahon
Mondays & Wednesdays 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM
Course Description: Moving from the recordings of 1920s blues women to those of Beyoncé, we will examine the musical practices of African-American women in different genres at different periods in the 20th and 21st centuries. Our goal is to learn about the significance of music and music-making for these producers and the audiences that supported them. We will use an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on perspectives from African-American studies, Black feminist thought, anthropology, ethnomusicology, musicology, and history to learn about these producers, their music, and the social, political, and historical contexts in which they worked.
Area: Music, History, and Culture
Anthropology of Music: Music of Africa
MUSIC-UA 153, Section 002
Instructor: Christine Dang
Mondays & Wednesdays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Course Description: This course explores sounds and politics of music-making in postcolonial Africa. Drawing on sources in literature, history, and cultural studies—in addition to analysis of recordings and films—we study the ways African individuals and communities use music to represent their beliefs and practices and to respond to the institutions dominating their societies.
Area: Music, History, and Culture
The Art of Listening
MUSIC-UA 3, Section 001
Instructor: Martin Daughtry
Mondays 3:30 PM - 6:00 PM
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.
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.
Ensemble: Vocal
MUSIC-UA 505, Section 001
Instructor: Alice Teyssier
Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Course Description: This ensemble will gather interested students into an open, supportive community space for collective vocalizing and music-making. Students will be invited to propose repertoires, as well as engage with works from a variety of eras, styles and approaches. In addition to tutti projects, solos and small groups will break apart from within the class and will share their work for one another’s feedback. Several performance opportunities will be provided for participants, including an end-of-semester showcase performance.
A brief virtual audition is required to enroll. Please contact the instructor, Alice Teyssier, at at141@nyu.edu to schedule.
Area: 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: Sonic Art
Music Theory I
MUSIC-UA 201, Section 001
Instructor: Elizabeth Hoffman
Mondays & Wednesdays 11:00 AM- 12:15 PM (SEM)
Mondays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (LAB) or Wednesdays 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM (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.
All students must pass an entrance test in order to remain enrolled in this class. Please reach out to fas.music@nyu.edu for more information and to sign up for the test.
Music Theory II
MUSIC-UA 202, Section 001
Instructor: TBA
Tuesdays & Thursdays 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM (SEM)
Mondays 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM (LAB) or Wednesdays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (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.
All students must pass an entrance test in order to remain enrolled in this class. Please reach out to fas.music@nyu.edu for more information and to sign up for the test.
Music Analysis and Model Composition
MUSIC-UA 203, Section 001
Instructor: Lou Karchin
Tuesdays & Thursdays 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM (SEM)
Course Description: Analysis of music of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and the creation of imitative compositional models based on works studied as well as on principles acquired earlier in the sequence. Additional topics will include whole-tone and octatonic scale systems, atonality, serialism, and an introduction to post-modern and spectral techniques.
Area of Study: Sonic Art
Prerequisite: Music Theory I or equivalent.
Popular Music in Latin/o America & The Caribbean
MUSIC-UA 154, Section 001
Instructor: Yunior Terry
Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Course description: A study of the relationship between popular music and literature in Latin America. Explores the multiple interactions between the written word, the oral text, and the sonic dimension sof music, both within literary texts and within musical compositions
Area of Study: Music, History, and Culture
Special Topics Seminar: Computer Music Theory and Techniques
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 introduces students to the general theory of digital sound signals, and the techniques to synthesize and transform them. The main objective of the course is to create the skills that allow students to design and program computer music applications, compositions, and art works. The open source programming language Pure Data (Pd) is introduced and taught extensively, though these techniques can be programmed in any programming language/environment. Broadly, the course includes the following topics: sampling theorem and sine waves; samples, reading/writing arrays; additive synthesis; filters and subtractive synthesis; frequency shifting, and amplitude and frequency modulation; delays, pitch-shifting, and reverb; and brief introductions, to video and graphics in GEM, MIDI interfacing, and physical computing. At the end of this course, the student should be able to use Pd to replicate classic devices such as synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and effects processors, as well as design their own interactive music systems.
Students must also register for one of the two listed LAB sections.
Area: Sonic Art
Special Topics Seminar: Race and Vocal Harmony in the United States
MUSIC-UA 901, Section 010
Instructor: Clifton Boyd
Mondays & Wednesdays 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
Course Description: This course will explore the complex and racially hybridized history of vocal harmony and close-harmony singing in the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Of particular interest will be how white America in the early twentieth century and beyond sought to both create racial boundaries around musical genres and appropriate the contributions of Black musicians and other musicians of color. Genres covered will include (but not be limited to) country, rock and roll, gospel, barbershop, doo-wop, R&B, motown, jazz, and contemporary a cappella. There are no prerequisites, but students who are able to read music, transcribe music, or have other specialized musical skills will have the opportunity to employ them in their assignments and course participation.
Area: Sonic Art or Music, History and Culture
Special Topics Seminar: K-pop
MUSIC-UA 901, Section 008
Instructor: Stephanie Choi
Mondays & Wednesdays 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM ONLINE
Course Description: Unlike the MTV era when television networks played a crucial role in determining American audience’s musical tastes and listening practices, it is not difficult for us today to seek out and enjoy non-American pop songs on online platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora. In this course, we will discuss the multicultural flows of ideas, images, products, and lifestyles that are mediated and reshaped in the global circulation of East Asian popular music cultures. While we attempt to acquire media literacy through literature review and song and music video analyses, we will also explore the production and consumption processes of popular musics of China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan in relation to the discourses of identity politics of gender/sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, generation, and nationality, in the context of globalization, nationalism, and (post/neo-)colonialism. Listening ability is required.
SAME AS EAST-UA 951-001: Topics in Korean Studies: Korean Culture and Society through K-pop
Area: Music, History, and Culture
Special Topics Seminar: Drama Queens: Opera, Gender and the Poetics of Excess
MUSIC-UA 901, Section 009
Instructor: Eugenio Refini
Tuesdays & Thursdays 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM
Course Description: What is a drama queen? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a drama queen is “a person who is prone to exaggeratedly dramatic behaviour” and “a person who thrives on being the centre of attention.” While drama queens certainly exist among us in real life, the world of opera is indeed one of their ideal environments. Echoing back to their tragic fates, the powerful voices of Dido, Medea, Violetta, and Tosca never ceased to affect their empathetic public. In fact, excess and overreactions are two main features of the operatic experience both on stage and in the audience. By focusing on the ways in which operatic characters are brought to life, the course explores the social, political, and gender dynamics that inform the melodramatic imagination. Along with a broad introduction to the development of the operatic genre and the opera libretto from 1600 to 1900, the course will provide students with a theoretical background across literature and musical culture, reception, voice/sound and gender studies. Case studies include highlights from operas by Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini as well as readings from works by authors such as Balzac, Tolstoy, D’Annunzio, and theoretical writings by Abel, Butler, Dolar, Koestenbaum, among others. Students will have the opportunity to attend screenings and live performances. No musical skills required. This course will be taught in English.
SAME AS ITAL-UA 180: Drama Queens: Opera, Gender and the Poetics of Excess
Area: Music, History, and Culture
Words & Music
MUSIC-UA 140, Section 001
Instructor: David Samuels
Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Course Description: Is writing about music really like dancing about architecture? In this class we will explore the question of effective writing about music and sound in three ways: reading and analyzing outstanding and effective writing about music by others; by thinking and learning about approaches to writing; and by conducting independent research projects.
Area of Study: Music, History, and Culture
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