MUSIC HISTORY & LITERATURE (MUHL)
MUHL 208 - SOUNDS OF SUMMER: CHICAGO FESTIVALS, THEIR PLANNERS, PARTICIPANTS, AND SOUNDTRACKS
Course covers who plans summer festivals, their origins, festivals as identity, ideology, and political conveyers. Examines summer festivals as revealers of cultural identity, class identity, demographic trends, and as nostalgia. Course features site visits to Chicago summer festivals.
Credits: 3
Course Notes: Class field trips meet off-campus in Chicago accessible, via public transit.
MUHL 210 - THE VERNACULAR MUSIC OF THE UNITED STATES
American popular song, musical theater, ragtime, jazz, blues, gospel, country, bluegrass, folk, Latino, Cajun, and rock. Roots of American folk and popular music in African, Anglo-Celtic, and other musical cultures. Introduction to world music studies, including perspectives and methods of ethnomusicology.
Credits: 3
MUHL 251 - HISTORY OF WESTERN MUSIC I
Thematic exploration of European musical culture before 1600 (the Middle Ages and Renaissance). Gregorian chant, secular monophonic song, the rise of Medieval polyphony, the development of sacred and secular Franco-Flemish polyphony, the development of the motet and madrigal, and the rise of instrumental music. Artistic endeavors as ontextualized by study of the people involved, their lives, institutions, and intellectual and cultural movements.
Credits: 3
MUHL 252 - HISTORY OF WESTERN MUSIC II
Thematic exploration of European musical culture in the 17th and 18th centuries (Baroque and Classical eras). The rise of monody, developments in the concerto, oratorio, Mass, symphony, string quartet, and opera. Artistic endeavor as contextualized by study of the people involved, their lives, institutions, and intellectual and cultural movements.
Credits: 3
MUHL 253 - HISTORY OF WESTERN MUSIC III
Thematic exploration of Western cultivated traditions from the 19th to 21st centuries (the Romantic Era to the present). Romantic piano music, art song, symphonic compositions, chamber music, and opera. The expansion and dissolution of tonality at the turn of the 20th century. Competing forces in national identity, experimental art traditions, the role of technology, instrument development, and notation. Artistic endeavors as illuminated by fundamental questions of how composers and performers have defined their art, preferences, and musical techniques.
Credits: 3
MUHL 308 - SOUNDS OF SUMMER: CHICAGO'S FESTIVALS, THEIR PLANNERS, PARTICIPANTS, AND SOUNTRACKS
Course covers who plans summer festivals, their origins, festivals as identity, ideology, and political conveyers. Examines summer festivals as revealers of cultural identity, class identity, demographic trends, and as nostalgia. Course features site visits to Chicago summer festivals
Credits: 3
Course Notes: Class field trips meet off-campus in Chicago accessible via, public transit.
MUHL 321 - PERFORMANCE PRACTICE: INFLUENCES, DECISIONS, & POSITIONS
Music as a series of (sub)conscious influences on and decisions made by performers and listeners in response to their environments. Primary focus on four differentiated periods: classical, late-romantic, mid-20th c. and 21st c. Through performances of their own repertoire, students will consider performance practice findings derived from treatises, published statements and other historical documents; recent scholarship; and interviews conducted on today’s performers. Students will (re)evaluate the positionality of hearing (and seeing) performance practice through able-bodiedness, gender, nationality, and race. The course will enable students to formulate and execute a more holistic understanding of what it means to be engaged in 21st-century performance practice.
Credits: 3
MUHL 351 - SPECIAL TOPICS IN MUSIC LITERATURE
Exploration and cultural contextualization of musical developments, repertories, and figures, with the goal of understanding music in both artistic and sociopolitical terms, through readings, class discussions, group and individual presentations, and research papers. The course can be repeated with a change in topic.
Credits: 3
MUHL 385 - OVERVIEW OF COMMON PRACTICE HARMONY
Review of tonal music theory (including chromaticism and form). Required of MM students not sufficiently prepared for music academic coursework
Credits: 1
MUHL 386 - OVERVIEW OF MUSIC HISTORY AND STYLE
Review of music history (including stylistic developments through the late 20th century).
Credits: 1
MUHL 395 - INDEPENDENT STUDY
Individual research under departmental guidance.
Credits: 1-6
Course Notes: Consent of instructor