Music

An introduction to the fundamental materials of a variety of music, including Western concert music, jazz, and popular music. Course activities center around interrelated theoretical, compositional, and analytical projects that serve to explore issues of music theory, style, and creativity.

An introduction to the procedures, structures, and aesthetics of tonal music. Composing, singing, playing, analysis of music such as 18th-century chorale, and 18th- and 19th-century piano music. Emphasis on fluency in handling tonal materials as a means of achieving a variety of formal and expressive ends. Two lectures, two precepts, one session in practical musicianship.

An introduction to the procedures, structures, and aesthetics of tonal music. Composing, singing, playing, analysis of music such as 18th-century chorale, and 18th- and 19th-century piano music. Emphasis on fluency in handling tonal materials as a means of achieving a variety of formal and expressive ends. Two lectures, two classes, one session in practical musicianship. Prerequisite: ability to read music.

An introduction to the principles of voice leading and linear construction through a series of systematic compositional exercises. Prerequisite: 106 or equivalent.

An introduction to the syntactic structure of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries through exercises in analysis and composition.

A continuous cycle of creation, discussion, and response based on the creative musical activity of the students. Varieties of kind and style--notated composition, multimedia music, multitracking, and improvisation--are encouraged. Prerequisite: instructor's permission.

Preparation for performance of instrumental chamber music of the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, both canonic and non-canonic repertoire. Includes weekly coaching with an assigned member of studio faculty and masterclasses with the Ensemble-in-Residence and/or the Program Director of Music Performance. Preparation for performance of ensembles. Each ensemble's repertoire will be determined in consultation with the instructors during the first week of classes. Admission of pre-formed chamber ensembles is by audition.

Taught by a rotating roster of voice faculty members, this course guides students through a series of curated topics in vocal performance, including vocal and performance techniques, repertoire, and interpretation. Typically open to vocalists and pianists, though others may be welcome depending on topic. Admission may be by audition in some cases.

The course focuses on building a structure of physical technique that will communicate good rhythm, musical shaping and character, and also verbal and non-verbal communication. Proper rehearsal strategies will be addressed in the later weeks of the course, and the final exam will be a public performance of a short work.

An introduction opera from its beginnings in the late sixteenth century to the present, focusing on drama, vocal style, gender and sexuality, singers, and stage production; includes a consideration of non-European operatic traditions.

A survey of vocal literature (excluding opera) from the fifteenth century to the present day. Lectures focus on representative works that illustrate historical developments in musical style, vocal texture, and text-music relationships; attention is also given to choral music's role as an institution of social engagement, an expression of collective identity, and the societal ability to rejoice, celebrate, critique, and mourn on an impersonal level.

A study of the development of the symphony from its origins in the mid-18th century through the first half of the 20th. Representative works will be chosen for detailed study in the class meetings.

Major developments of Western music up to about 1400, including some of the following: the origin and growth of chant, its liturgical context and musical properties; medieval secular song; early polyphony and Parisian organum; the French ars nova and Machaut; the Italian trecento; English medieval music.

Introduction to the history and current scholarship of European music in the period 1400-1600. The principal thread is compositional history; in addition, the course includes extensive coverage of these topics: aesthetics, orality/literacy, improvisation, gender and sexuality.

An introductory survey of style developments, aesthetic trends affecting music, and principal vocal and instrumental genres (opera, cantata, concerto, sonata, and suite) of the period 1600-1750. Major figures to be considered include Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Lully, Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel, and J.S. Bach. Two lectures, one preceptorial. Prerequisite: any music course or instructor's permission.

Introduction to the history of 18th-century music, giving equal attention to pre-Classical and Classical periods, and covering France, England and Italy as well as Germany. The course features Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and numerous other significant figures. The chief narrative thread is the history of musical style and taste. A separate storyline running alongside this is the imaginative retelling of Dr. Charles Burney's musical journeys through Europe in the early 1770s. Extensive playlist and readings of contemporary texts (diaries, letters, travel accounts, music treatises, opera libretti, translated into English).

A study of major styles and issues in European music from the death of Beethoven through the generation after Wagner, as seen against the aesthetic and cultural backgrounds of the time. Selected works from Schubert through Strauss and Mahler may be included. Two one-hour lectures and one one-hour class. Prerequisite: any music course, or some musical background, or instructor's permission.

An overview of modernism in European and Euro-American art music, including movements such as symbolism, expressionism, and neoclassicism. Required listening includes music of Bartók, Berg, Copland, Debussy, Ives, Mahler, Milhaud, Satie, Schoenberg, Scriabin, Stravinsky, and Varèse. Students may find it useful to have some prior experience with classical music, whether as listeners or performers. Ability to read music not required. Prerequisite: any music course, some classical music background, or instructor's permission.

European and American music since World War II. Study of many recent approaches to music and their cultural, social, and philosophical bases. Topics include: postwar European avant-garde, American extensions of serialism, technological developments, influences of popular and folk cultures, American avant-garde. Prerequisite: any music course, some musical background, or instructor's permission.

This course will delve into the many historical themes, social issues, and musical aspects that arise from surveying and comparing the diverse musical traditions of Mexico, the U.S., and Canada.

This course will examine the musical, historical, and cultural aspects of jazz throughout its entire history, looking at the 20th century as the breeding ground for jazz in America and beyond. During this more than one hundred year period, jazz morphed and fractured into many different styles and voices, all of which will be considered. In addition to the readings, the course will place an emphasis on listening to jazz recordings, and developing an analytical language to understand these recordings. A central goal is to understand where jazz was, is, and will be in the future, examining the musicians and the music that has kept jazz alive.

Examines post-World War II blues, rock music mostly of the late sixties and early seventies, and the connections between them. Explores wider musical and extramusical connections.

A "hands-on" course that explores music from before 1600 using the pedagogical methods of the period. Medieval and Renaissance techniques of sight-singing, memorization, improvisation, and harmonization will be learned. Modern computer technology will also be used to investigate the deeper mystical and philosophical content of music from this period. Prerequisite: ability to read modern music notation comfortably.

Offers students the opportunity to gain a working knowledge of the ways in which dance, dance/theater, and body-based art are created and performed today. Primarily a studio course that stresses learning through doing. Students will have the opportunity to work with leading experimental creators. Topics, prerequisites, and formats will vary from year to year.

An introduction to a variety of 20th-century approaches to composition. Emphasis on understanding different techniques, syntaxes, and musical languages through exercises in compositional emulations and in performance projects of student and studied works, using available performance skills of participants. Prerequisite: 206 or instructor's permission.

The course will deal closely with a small number of works from the tonal repertoire and will serve as a critical introduction to several pertinent and influential analytical methodologies, including motivic, formal, semiotic, and voice-leading analysis. The focus will be on the musical and aesthetic values that each method either enhances or attenuates. Prerequisite: 206 or instructor's permission.

A composition course for independent, self-directed composers. Most of the class will be spent working on a single piece. Students will present their work-in-progress to the class weekly or biweekly depending on enrollment. We will have a concert of final projects at the end of the semester, with all student pieces to be performed by So Percussion, the music department's world-renowned ensemble-in-residence.

An introduction to the fundamentals of computer and electronic music in the context of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk). The music and sound programming language ChucK, developed here at Princeton, will be used in conjunction with Max/MSP, another digital audio language, to study procedural programming, digital signal processing and synthesis, networking, and human-computer interfacing.

Compositional projects involving computers and synthesizers. Some work may involve interactions between live and electronic sounds. Prerequisite: 314 or instructor's permission.

A special topics course designed to build upon and/or enhance existing program courses, taking into consideration the strengths and interests of program concentrators and the availability of appropriate instructors. Topics, prerequisites, and formats will vary from year to year.

The contrasting careers and oeuvres of the two greatest representatives of the late baroque in music will be considered both individually and comparatively. Prerequisite: a year of theory or instructor's permission.

A detailed survey of Russian national and international composers. Topics of discussion and analysis will include magic opera, realism, orientalism, the relationship between composers and poets of the Russian Symbolist era, the World of Art movement and the Ballets Russes, Soviet film music, Soviet arts doctrine, and musical aesthetics (especially as they pertain to authorship and identity). Prerequisites: MUS 105 or permission of instructor.

Topics chosen from, but not limited to: a group of works by a single composer (Leonin's organa, Monteverdi's madrigals, Brahms's symphonies); a certain genre (19th-century choral works, Hindustani Khayal, contemporary rock, late 16th-century madrigal); a specific theoretical or historical problem (atonal theory, composers' sketches and musical analysis, the origins of opera).

Topics chosen from, but not limited to: a group of works by a single composer (Leonin's organa, Monteverdi madrigals, Brahms's symphonies); a certain genre (19th-century choral works, Hindustani Khayal, contemporary rock, late 16th-century madrigal); a specific theoretical or historical problem (atonal theory, composers' sketches and musical analysis, the origins of opera).

This team-taught seminar examines texts, objects, periods and themes from an interdisciplinary perspective. Although designed to be the capstone course for students pursuing a certificate in Humanistic Studies, it is open to other students if space is available. The specific topic varies each year depending on the focus of the faculty team.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.