An Introduction to Western Music

Catalog description

MUSIC 5 is a course on listening, with emphasis on the relationship between musical style and historical context. Students will learn the basic skills of informed music-listening: how to hear and describe melody (phrase structure; motive; developmental strategies), harmony (the basic principles of the tonal system), rhythm (meter, tempo, and their application), timbre (including a full knowledge of the instrumental families [strings, winds, brass, percussion] and voice types), and texture (monophony, homophony, polyphony). Students will also become familiar with the eras of western musical history, and to consider relationships between musical style and non-musical developments (e.g. the intellectual environment of the Enlightenment and the Classical style in music). The course begins with an introduction to the elements of music. The goal of this section is to give all students, whether or not they have previous experience as performers, the basic skills necessary to approach any musical work as informed listeners. This activity takes four weeks. The remaining portion of the course is spent surveying the history of western music, with that history treated as a series of case studies: particular works are considered stylistically but also with regard to the historical circumstances of their production and consumption. From this activity students gain experience considering artworks in discipline-specific terms, even as they learn to relate particular artistic features to non-musical factors of culture and society. Two methods of evaluation are used. Examinations (the number determined by the instructor) test the students' mastery of the course material. Concert reports (again in a number determined by the instructor) give students the opportunity to apply that knowledge to the act of listening in an authentic performance setting. Ample time is provided in lectures for questions and discussion of the course material and of repertoire and issues suggested by the students.