Introduction to Music Studies

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the study of music as an expression of history and culture by examining the ways in which music creates meaning, knowledge, archives, and identities. Musical examples will be drawn from a broad range of styles, chronological periods, and geographical locations; and students will engage with live performance as well as various forms of recorded music and mediated performance. Along with considering music as sound, the course will examine different modalities of writing about music-journalistic, academic, and creative-and we will think about how these musical texts, and those that the students produce, function to situate music as discourse. The course will develop critical thinking, writing, and presentation skills. (MUSIC-HC)