Upper Division
These courses may or may not be open to students outside the School
of Music. Please read the descriptions carefully and check the current
course schedule for more information.
MUS 337 Music in Film Sound
This course will focus on the three achievements in the history of film
sound: the introduction of sound, the introduction of stereo, and the
introduction of digital sound. We will explore the thesis that each
of these technological advances alters the structural relationships
among the three relatively autonomous components of the soundtrack:
the dialogue, music, and sound effects. To work out this thesis, we
will develop methods for analyzing and interpreting the soundtracks
of films, paying particular attention to music’s role in the soundtrack
and the overall relation between soundtrack and image-track. We will
also address historical questions of music in film, especially with
regard to style, genre, and influence. This course is open to all university
students with upper division standing.
MUS 342 History of American Music
An inclusive survey of the history, culture, and literature of music
in the United States from the early 17th through late 20th centuries.
Folk, popular, and concert musics will be examined in the context of
a developing American musical tradition as well as in relation to social,
political, and cultural issues in American history.
MUS 342 American Music in the Fifties
Study of a wide range of American musical life within a narrow slice of history,
with special focus on the place of music in mid-century intellectual history.
Topics include art music composition and performance, bebop and cool jazz, rock and roll,
exotica, film musicals, music of film noir.
MUS 342 American Popular Song, 1920–1970
It consists of a tour through five decades of American popular song,
beginning with the great “standards” composed by Irving
Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers.
Tin Pan Alley, the Broadway and movie musical, ragtime and blues, the
jazz tradition, the rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll traditions of
the Fifties, the folk music revival, and the varieties of Sixties rock,
ending at the time of the break-up of the Beatles. Consideration of
the social influences upon popular music and how popular song is reflective
of its culture. Listening in class will include frequent video clips
and some live performance. This course is open to both music majors
and non-majors; the only prerequisite is upper division standing.
MUS 342 Women and Texas Music
The contributions women have made in the promotion and development of
Texas music have not been fully recognized or appreciated. This course
examines the lives and contributions of Texas women composers, performers,
historians, patrons, and members of the Texas Federation of Music Clubs
and their various roles in the promotion and advancement of the state's
music. From Mary Austin Holley to such contemporaries as Tish Hinojosa
and the Dixie Chicks, we will focus on the changing roles of women and
their part in the history of Texas music. We will also consider class,
race, and other identity issues. This course will be conducted in both
a lecture and class discussion format. Open to both music and non-music
majors, there are no prerequisites for this course. The assignments
will contain a substantial writing component and will fulfill part of
the basic education requirement in writing.
MUS 342 Race and Class in American Music
This course focuses on the intersection of race and class in American
music. Examining such genres as blackface minstrelsy, contemporary rap,
mariachi, classical music in the 19th century, and traditional country
music, we will consider the ways in which music participates in the
construction of racial and class-based identities, touching on the following
questions: How does music negotiate racial difference? Can music express,
subvert, or transcend the experience of marginalization or oppression?
How do class structures in the United States affect the production and
reception of both art and popular music? Does classical music belong
to the highest class? How might class consciousness forge racially integrated
musical communities? Ultimately, we will relate various individual musics
and identities to a conception of “American music” as a
whole. The course is open to all university students with upper division
standing and will fulfill part of the basic education requirement in
writing.
MUS 342 Regionalism and American Music
This course traces the relationships between music, place, and identity at local, regional,
and national levels. Selected case studies will be drawn from a wide
variety of musical styles and genres, including southern rock, Nashville country,
the West Coast sound, Delta blues, New Orleans jazz, and
such concert works as the Grand Canyon Suite, Niagara Symphony, and
Three Places in New England.
MUS 342 A Change is Gonna Come: American Music in the 1960s
An inclusive survey of American music in the 1960s, including urban folk,
popular gospel, concert works, psychedelic rock, free jazz, soul, and Motown.
We will focus on the music of such artists as Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Aretha Franklin,
the Supremes, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, George Rochberg, John Coltrane, Terry Riley,
and Janis Joplin, with particular emphasis on the ways in which the music of these
diverse artists responded to the social, political, and cultural challenges of the 1960s.
The popular and concert music of the 1960s will be examined in the context of the
Civil Rights movement, black nationalist movement, feminism, and the Vietnam War. No prior
musical experience or knowledge is required.
MUS 376 Feminine Voices: Women Composers in
the American Experimental Tradition
The last quarter of the twentieth century has witnessed an increasing
presence of women composers in the American musical scene. A significant
number of these women have chosen to highlight their gender through
their musical practice; this is especially true of composers associated
with the post-Cage “experimental” (sometimes known as “downtown”)
movement. This course examines the work, context, and compositional
philosophy of several of these women, notably Pauline Oliveros, Meredith
Monk, Laurie Anderson, Diamanda Galás, among others, with the
aim of exploring the multiplicity of issues inherent in establishing
a “feminine voice” is the American concert tradition. This
course is open to both music majors and non-majors; the only prerequisite
is upper division standing.
MUS 367J Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century
This writing intensive course explores the effects of recording technology on the production and consumption
of popular music in the United States during the twentieth century. How has the history of sound
technology affected the ways people define music: what it is, where they listen to it, who owns it, and how
it functions within their everyday lives? How did each technology influence the creative processes of
musicians as they explored its possibilities and adapted to its limitations? How have new inventions
changed the ways artists and listeners invest music with meaning, be it emotional, historical or
spiritual? This course approaches sound technologies as a fundamental part of the story of American popular
music and culture throughout the century.
MUS 379k The American Symphony during Depression
and War
The 1930s and 1940s were the fervent years of the American symphony,
when composers devoted their energies to the genre as never before.
Between 1933 and 1951, for example, Roy Harris wrote seven symphonies
and William Schuman, six. Elliott Carter and Leonard Bernstein each
completed his first symphony in 1942; David Diamond composed four symphonies
between 1940 and 1945. Conductors encouraged such compositional activity
by commissioning and performing more American orchestral music during
these decades then ever before. Of particular importance was Serge Koussevitzky,
whose Koussevitzky Music Foundation sponsored numerous major orchestral
works by American composers, including Copland’s landmark Third
Symphony. This course will focus on a selection of symphonies by American
composers and explore the decisive cultural and contextual forces that
influenced the extraordinary blossoming of the American symphony in
the era of Depression and War. This course is designed for music majors
and those with extensive musical training.
MUS 379k The American Symphony
A discussion-oriented, writing-intensive course featuring close
analysis of Dvorak’s Ninth, Beach’s Gaelic Symphony, Ives’s Fourth,
Still’s Afro American Symphony, Barber’s First, Harris’s Third, Copland’s Third,
Corigliano’s First, Del Tredici’s An Alice Symphony, Zwilich’s First, and
Albert’s RiverRun. Texts: scores and readings compiled by instructor.
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General Undergraduate
Upper Division
Graduate Seminars |
