Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CFA MH 420: Western Composers and Bali
  This course considers the fascination of Western composers with Indonesian gamelan music. Starting with the Paris World's Fair of 1889, we will explore subsequent works by Debussy, Britten, Glass, McPhee, Tenzer, and Ziporyn. Through reading, listening, and analysis, we will unpack the vast array of Balinese and Javanese gamelan musical influences within the compositions of American, Canadian, and European composers since 1903, while considering the historical context. Students will also learn to perform Balinese music on authentic instruments and they will compose music as a creative project. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Historical Consciousness
• CFA MH 433: Popular Music and Culture
  This course engages with special topics in popular music and culture, varying depending on the semester. Topics might include specific artists or bodies of work, historical periods, theoretical issues, or methodological and disciplinary concerns about popular music studies.
• CFA MH 436: Musical Culture
  This course offers both an introductory look at four selected regions/countries among the diverse musical cultures around the world: West Africa, Bulgaria, Brazil, and Korea. 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. Because of the vast array of people and cultures within each selected area, this course is necessarily selective and introductory. A variety of scholars and performing artists will be invited to give a workshop on music/dance and discuss their lives as musicians. Over the course of the semester, 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 within a broader historical, political, and economic context. You will also be introduced to basic musical concepts and terminology, and acquire listening skills that will enable you to better encounter and 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.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CFA MH 499: Directed 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 609: African-American Spirituals and Their Influence on Contemporary Art, Music, Literature and Dance
  Examines how Spirituals have served as essential touch points for all styles of African-American music, ranging from gospel to classical, and are even frequently samples in hip-hop. Students will study how African American classical composers, including Florence Price, visual artist Aaron David, choreographer Alvin Ailey and American novelist Toni Morrison have utilized spirituals as reference material through direct quotations, themes, variations and performances. By focusing on this musical expression and the strength of human spirit expressed through this music, students will learn how enslaved peoples maintained their dignity, resisted the dehumanizing impact of slavery, and fought to preserve key cultural and linguistic elements even in the midst of the horrible oppression of slavery. Finally, students will examine why Spirituals have played a significant role as vehicles for protest at intermittent points during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries around the world including Russia, Eastern Europe, China and South Africa. Some of today's well-known pop artists continue to draw on the spirituals tradition in the creation of new protest songs. Examples include Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song' and Bill Bragg's 'Sing their souls back home.'
• CFA MH 610: Writing about Music
  This course provides students with the tools to write about music across genres. Relying on existing examples, from various historical periods, of program notes, album liner notes, concert and album reviews, and academic, creative, and journalistic writing about music, students will learn the conventions of these different formats of musical writing and hone their own writing skills in order to write about music in the ways necessitated by their professional and personal goals.
• CFA MH 611: Music in Contemporary Life
  Explores the role of music and sound as social practice, political catalyst, market commodity, site of nostalgia, environment, identity tool, and technology of the self. Enables students to write about sound and music. Addresses music as mood manipulation; noise pollution; musical taste and identity; gendered music; 'urban tribes' and musical subcultures; amateur vs. specialist music-making; the music industry; music as power; notions of authenticity; sound technology. Case studies may include: gym, study, and slow jam playlists; karaoke; the racial politics of crossover; Guitar Hero; music conservatories; mood music and ¿cock rock¿; barbershop quartets; amateur brass bands; suburban heavy metal; Muzak; advertising jingles; car and café soundscapes.
• CFA MH 612: Popular Music
  This special topics engages with aspects of popular music. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• CFA MH 613: Special Topics: Music, Media, Technology
  This special topics engages with music, media, and technology. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• CFA MH 614: Special Topics: Music, Dance, and the Body
  This special topics engages with themes related to music, dance, and the body. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• CFA MH 620: Topics in Musical Style
  This course will use original sources, a range of recordings, musicological scholarship, and performer testimonials to examine issues in early music performance through a series of case studies from ca. 1600 to around 1900. We will look at the pertinent scholarship involved in preparing performances, the controversies that arise, and possible solutions. In dealing with music before 1600, issues of instrumentation, notation, ornamentation, and context are both complicated and crucial, and we will examine the relevant scholarship and recordings. After 1800, performance issues can be just as difficult to confirm. One of the goals of the course is to introduce you to the value of using original sources and the many issues - execution, context, flexibility, tempo and other markings and choice of instrument - that arise from them, so that your own performances take into account the various historical issues that are critical for performing, and teaching, this repertoire. The seminar-style course will be based around weekly assignments, student presentations, and classroom discussion.
• CFA MH 623: History and Literature of Opera
  Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini; sociopolitical backgrounds of Italian opera in the nineteenth century; Verdi: Aida, Otello, Falstaff; verismo and its exponents. Influence of Wagner on Italian opera; Giacomo Puccini. 3 cr.
• 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 630: Special Topics: Music in Europe
  This special topics engages with aspects of music in Europe. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• 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 632: Special Topics: Music: Medieval and Renaissance
  
• CFA MH 633: Special Topics: Music: Baroque
  This special topics engages with the Western European Art music from the Baroque period. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• CFA MH 634: Special Topics: Music in the Classical Period
  This course explores topics related to Western Art Music in the Classical Period.
• CFA MH 635: Special Topics: Music: Romantic Period
  This special topics engages with aspects of Western art music of the Romantic period. The specific topic will vary by semester.