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 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 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 612: Popular Music
  This special topics engages with aspects of popular music. 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 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 634: Special Topics: Music in the Classical Period
  This course explores topics related to Western Art Music in the Classical Period.
• CFA MH 636: Special Topics: Music: 20th Century
  This special topics engages with aspects of art music of the 20th century. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• CFA MH 637: Special Topics: Music: Post-1945
  This special topics engages with aspects of art music after 1945. The specific topic will vary by semester.
• CFA MH 670: Special Topics: US Music
  This course explores topics related to Western Art Music in the Classical Period.
• CFA MH 720: Pro-Sem in Mus+eth
  This course provides an overview of the historical development of the disciplines, explores research techniques, and introduces influential theoretical perspectives, including: empiricism, psychology, criticism, representation, gender, and globalization. 3 cr.
• CFA MH 771: Special Topics in Ethnomusicology
  Case study of specifically defined areas in the forefront of ethnomusicological research. Individual research papers and class research projects as assigned by the instructor. 3 cr. May be repeated for credit.
• CFA MH 799: Master's Thesis
  Ongoing work toward completion of Master's Thesis. 3 cr.
• CFA MH 820: Prosem Mus+eth
  Required for graduate students in Musicology and Ethnomusicology. This course provides an overview of the historical development of the disciplines, explores research techniques, and introduces influential theoretical perspectives, including: empiricism, psychology, criticism, representation, gender, and globalization. Fall Semester. 4 credits.
• CFA MH 827: Seminar: Special Topics in Musicology
  Close study of specifically defined areas in the forefront of musicological research. Individual research papers and class research projects as assigned by the instructor. Permission of instructor. 4 cr. May be repeated for credit. (Meets with CFA MH 727.)
• CFA MH 854: Music and Culture
  Examines music as both artifact and agent of broader cultural developments. The seminar will focus on specific musical repertories and practices within their relevant historical, social, and political contexts. 4 cr. May be repeated for credit.
• CFA MH 871: Special Topics in Ethnomusicology
  Case study of specifically defined areas in the forefront of ethnomusicological research. Individual research papers and class research projects as assigned by the instructor. 4 cr. May be repeated for credit.
• CFA MH 899: Independent Project/Directed Study
  Specialized, individually tailored and guided work on projects not connected with a thesis, dissertation or other terminal document, but of particular interest to the graduate student. Variable credit.