Music Appreciation is a survey of diverse compositions that represent the art and popular musics of the world, with some emphasis on the Western tradition and perspective. The course will examine specific works of music to demonstrate important techniques, processes, and concepts relevant to them, and provide the student with the tools to understand their musical experiences and embrace new ones.

MUS 131: Introduction to Music Literature, provides students with a foundation in music history. It allows students to hone skills that are important for success in the School of Music’s curriculum, including score analysis, close reading of musical works, and familiarity with a broad repertoire considered “basic knowledge” for students trained in an institution like ours. Most practically, MUS 131 is designed to prepare music concentrators for the more in-depth surveys of our upper-division courses (MUS 341, 342, 343, 345, 347, 348), and for our topical courses at the 400 level (MUS 491, 492, 493). This class is a prerequisite for those upper-division courses. You may also pass this course by exemplary performance on the placement examination, which you should have already taken in a previous semester. If you have not yet taken the placement examination and you think that you might pass out of this course by taking it, please see the instructor to inquire about taking the placement exam.

Students from outside the School of Music are welcome to enroll in this class with instructor permission. A high level of score reading ability and a passing familiarity with Western Classical Music is assumed. Those students interested in a more casual survey of music history might be interested in MUS 121: Music Appreciation, which is aimed at non-concentrators.

MUS 341 is a survey of major works, artists, and styles examined in the cultural, political, and social context of Western European civilization from the Middle Ages through the Baroque period (ca. 800–ca. 1750). The class will examine individual works closely to understand musical genres and performance traditions ranging from monophonic liturgical chant to mid eighteenth-century instrumental music and opera. The course lays the groundwork specifically for further study of any musical tradition that draws on the legacy of European art music.

Historical survey of significant musical artists and works from about 1750 to 1900, studied in the context of pertinent compositional, performance, cultural, and societal issues.

Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Passing grade on the music history placement examination or successful completion of MUS 131. Successful completion of MUS 202.

Notes: Fulfills the UNLV General Education International Requirement.

Explores global perspectives on music through the lens of ethnomusicology. Designed primarily for music majors, this course uses the perspectives of ethnomusicology to journey through the richness and diversity of music and sound on a global scale. 

This course surveys the history of music and sound in the cinema. Our primary texts will consist of a wide variety of films, ranging from silent film (and its musical accompaniment) to contemporary production, including both orchestral scores and compilation soundtracks. In addition to feature films, we will study genres such as documentaries, cartoons, and experimental film. Hollywood productions will be at the heart of this survey, but we will also touch on alternative approaches from European and Asian cinema, particularly with attention to how the norms of Hollywood practice have been challenged. We will also read theoretical texts and historical studies.

Study of the historical development of opera from Monteverdi to the present with emphasis on representative works and composers.

Prerequisites
Satisfactory completion of  MUS 690 or equivalent; and either a satisfactory score on applicable entrance exam(s), or successful completion of MUS 603.

This course helps students write about and talk about film music, using Hollywood practices as a measuring stick. Attempting to combine discussion of music and film and the ways in which they interact with one another in finished filmic products raises many problems. Music is a sound-based medium, inherently un-visual, and therefore difficult to describe. Music also moves temporally; it is not a static object, but a developing phenomenon with a sometimes questionable relationship to the written score. Film, although a visual medium, is certainly not a “static” object, either; these “moving pictures” are every bit as ineffable as musical sound, temporally unfolding before our eyes and, after the advent of synchronized sound, to our ears. From the fact that composers and directors are sometimes not forthcoming about the musical production process to the inaccessibility of many important studio film scores, the challenges of the two media are compounded when one tries to talk about movie music.

The course will introduce students to the ways in which scholars have addressed these challenges. We will survey both historically based and interpretive writing from the main periods of film music research (the 1980s to the present). We will also practice our own interpretive and research skills through course presentations, writing assignments, and the generation of a capstone paper presentation.

The Doctoral Research Seminar allows D.M.A. candidates to examine a range of research principles, methods, and topics found in the various disciplines of music studies. These disciplines include historiography, biography, source studies and text criticism, ethnomusicology, performance practice, and music analysis and criticism. Class meetings will usually accommodate various types of activity, including class discussion and criticism of music-historical literature, collaborative exercises in analysis and interpretation, and class discussion and criticism of students’ individual research pursuits.

The purpose of the seminar is to ensure that D.M.A. candidates are well prepared to meet the full range of performance, scholarly, and teaching responsibilities commonly shared by college or university-level faculty.

Music Appreciation is a survey of diverse compositions that represent the art and popular musics of the world, with some emphasis on the Western tradition and perspective. The course will examine specific works of music to demonstrate important techniques, processes, and concepts relevant to them, and provide the student with the tools to understand their musical experiences and embrace new ones.

MUS 341 is a survey of major works, artists, and styles examined in the cultural, political, and social context of Western European civilization from the Middle Ages through the Baroque period (ca. 800–ca. 1750). The class will examine individual works closely to understand musical genres and performance traditions ranging from monophonic liturgical chant to mid eighteenth-century instrumental music and opera. The course lays the groundwork specifically for further study of any musical tradition that draws on the legacy of European art music.

Music History III is a survey of major works, stylistic currents, and artists in cultural, political, and social contexts from about 1880 to the present. The class examines individual works from diverse regions and cultures ranging from the avant-gardes of early twentieth-century Europe and Russia to the postmodern and cross-cultural musical practices of the present. The course will link the narrative of Western classical music history begun in MUS 341 and 342, and trace its submersion into the tide of globalization and popular music. The course lays the groundwork for further studies in music, ethnomusicology, and more generally for an understanding of contemporary music-cultural developments and debates. Fulfills the UNLV General Education International Requirement.

“Issues in American Music” is a flexible survey of major works, stylistic currents, and artists of the United States and its cultural satellites, examined in cultural, political, and social contexts from the colonial period to the present. The class will examine individual works—ranging from the sacred repertoires of the colonial period to postmodern and cross-cultural musical practices of the present. The course will draw attention to issues of perennial, vital interest, including the peculiar colonial foundations of high culture in the United States, the unique role of African-American people and culture in the development of American music, the exceptionally rich cultural “melting pot” from which American music emerges,  and the role of the United States as a cultural hegemon in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The course will place an emphasis on writing, in-class discussion, critical reading, and research skills. 

This course examines the peoples of Japan, Korea, and China (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) as consumers, interpreters, and producers of global popular culture: music, film, television, literature, fashion, and internet-based forms. No prior knowledge of East Asian languages and cultures is required, although there will be opportunities to make use of such knowledge. By the end of the course you will be able to articulate salient aesthetic features of global Asian popular culture and articulate their relationships with social, political, and cultural aspects of the originating and receiving cultures.

MUS 690 introduces the basic tools and skills required for successful, thorough, systematic, and ethical bibliographic research and writing. Students learn to find printed, online, and recorded source materials housed in libraries, archives, and databases, and make use of them in support of writing and creative activities. This course is required for Masters students and may be beneficial to Doctoral students depending on their prior experience with bibliographic research.

This seminar examines the history of the philosophies, performance techniques, and controversies surrounding historically informed performance, particularly as it coalesced from the mid-twentieth century and onwards. We will grapple with issues of “composer’s intent,” museumification, publicity and marketing, “authenticity,” the challenges of bridging the gap between notation and sound, instruments, editions, manuscripts, ornamentation, recordings, and historical records.

This course examines the practice of transcription, the creation of notation from musical sound–a central practice to ethnomusicology, an important skill for Jazz and Commercial music specialists, and a useful skill for all musicians. Using a combination of readings, listenings, and hands-on transcription projects, this course engages with the fixing of musical sound as a technical, cultural, and political process. Previous experience with music transcription may be helpful but is not required.

Examination of composers, musical genres and styles, and their historical contexts between ca.1900 and the present.