Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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CFA MH 405: French Modernisms
In this course, we will explore the various types of aesthetic modernisms in France, covering roughly the fin de si?cle through the Fourth Republic (which ended in 1958). Rather than moving by genre of Western art music (opera, ballet, and so forth) we will group our study under larger cultural topics (technologies, spectacles, leisure). Underpinning our historical study of France during this period is an interrogation of the term "modernism" itself. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Writing-Intensive Course. -
CFA MH 406: Nineteenth-Century Virtuosos
Are virtuosos a different order, separate from proficient and even excellent musicians? Is virtuosity admirable, or a quality only a philistine would venerate? Perhaps something in between? In this course, we will broach these and other questions in the context of the nineteenth century. In its broadest iteration, the objective of this course is to historicize the different guises of virtuosity, and thus to encourage you to develop your own critical apparatus for reading, writing, and thinking about issues of virtuosity. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Writing-Intensive Course. -
CFA MH 407: Sonic and Visual Culture and Modern East Asia
This is a course about music as sonic and visual culture. Focusing on East Asian cultures in the Boston Area, students in the course will explore a diverse range of sounds, images and ideas across geographies. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy. -
CFA MH 408: Bob Dylan: Music and Words
This course examines Bob Dylan's music and lyrics from 1962 to 1975 in the context of his life, artistic influences, and milieu. We will explore the wealth of criticism and reaction his songs have inspired, paying special attention to questions concerning the nature of his art--for example, his dependence on musical tradition or the relationship between song lyrics and poetry--and past and current critical discussion about his legacy. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Writing-Intensive Course. -
CFA MH 410: The Poetics and Politics of Hip Hop
Students engage with hip hop history, including aesthetic trends, some important artists and works, regional styles, and relationship with the larger sociocultural context. Students will critique and remake hip hop canons. They will identify how hip hop is shaped by race, class, and gender issues and reflect on their own positionality. They will acquire and apply listening, viewing, and reading skills to interpret primary and secondary sources and bring their analyses of these sources to bear. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness. -
CFA MH 423: Baroque Music
Prereq: CFA MH 201/211 and 202/212. Special topics in music from ca. 1600-1750, including examinations of opera, cantata and oratorio, monody, instrumental genres, and composers, from Monteverdi to J.S. Bach. For College of Arts and Sciences music majors or permission of instructor, 4 cr. -
CFA MH 431: Music & Social Protest
No prereq; open to all students. Selected topics concerning non-western music and culture, including colonialism and post-colonialism, orientalism, anthropological perspectives, modernization, transmission, migration, diaspora, and the influence of technology. 4 cr. -
CFA MH 432: History of Jazz
No prereq; open to all students. A chronological study of the history of -- and topics in -- jazz, from its beginnings to the present, focusing on styles, major performers and recordings, individuality and sound, instruments, voices, and forms, as well as social and cultural issues, such as race, popularity and commercialism, the individual versus and within the group, American identity and global rejection/admiration. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking. -
CFA MH 433: Popular Music & Culture
No prereq; open to all students. Selected topics exploring the relationship between popular music and culture, from American popular song and musical theatre, to worldbeat, blues, R&B, rock, Hip-hop, and techno. 4 cr. -
CFA MH 436: Musical Cultures of the World
This course offers both an introductory look at four selected regions/countries among the diverse musical cultures around the world. Through these musical practices, we will investigate the ways in which many of these styles are the product of long running intra/intercultural dialogues, struggles, and negotiation processes that continue to produce new hybrid forms. You will gain an understanding of the myriad ways people use music to construct and individual group identities, the diverse ways groups incorporate music into their lives, and how to understand music in this course and beyond. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy. -
CFA MH 499: Independent Study: Undergraduates
Individual projects arranged between undergraduate students and faculty, often in areas outside of the regular curriculum. Plans must be submitted in advance of registration. Variable credit. -
CFA MH 561: World Music Ensemble
Learn to perform traditional world music in the context of an ensemble taught by specialists of African, Balinese, Latin American, and many other types of world music. The specific musical style and type of group will change with each semester. Improve your rhythmic skills; lower performance anxiety. Enrollment is open to all students. No previous musical experience is necessary. 1 cr. May be repeated for credit. -
CFA MH 563: World Music and Culture
Read, discuss, and begin to understand many traditions of World Music through performance and discussion taught in the oral tradition. Enrollment is open to all students, and no previous musical experience is necessary. No prereq. [Var cr.] -
CFA MH 611: Music Research Techniques
Introduction to materials about music history and performance. Topics include research methods, primary and secondary sources, reading and writing about music, editions and editing, and sound recordings. 2 cr. -
CFA MH 620: SP Tpcs Musicol
This course description is currently under construction. -
CFA MH 629: Early Music Studies
Mini-course offered by the Center for Early Music Studies. Taught by eminent figures in the field of early music, this course is an intensive, laboratory-style immersion in early music scholarship and performance on selected topics, composers, and repertories, covering vocal and instrumental styles from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century. 1 cr. Can be repeated for credit. -
CFA MH 631: Individual Composers
This course will study the work of a single composer in depth, analyzing the work as a product both of individual style and of historical and cultural context. 3 cr. May be repeated for credit. -
CFA MH 722: Music in the Renaissance
Sacred and secular music from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century. Development of larger religious and secular polyphonic forms: mass, psalmody, hymnody, chanson, frottola, madrigal. Early instrumental forms. Music of Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Gesualdo, Lassus, Palestrina, Gabrieli, and Byrd. Meets with CFA MH 822. 3 cr. -
CFA MH 723: Special Topics in Musicology
Topics may include madrigals, monody, early opera, sacred and secular cantatas, individual composers' and national styles, instrumental music, reception, cultural context, notation, analysis, and performance of Baroque music. Permission of instructor. Meets with CFA MH 823.3 credits.May be repeated for credit. -
CFA MH 724: Music of the Classic Era
Topics may include opera, symphony, chamber music, the Lied, sacred music, individual composers' and national styles, cultural context, reception, notation, analysis, and performance of Classic music. Permission of instructor. Meets with CFA MH 824. 3 credits. May be repeated for credit.