Courses for Fall 2024 | Department of Music

Courses

Penn's Music department is committed to World-class undergraduate and graduate education. Non-majors and beginners can choose from many courses, ranging from music theory and histories of opera, world music, popular music, jazz, and the music of Africa. These introductory courses are numbered 0000-1999. More advanced undergraduate classes, intended for music majors and minors, are numbered 2000-4999. Offerings above 5000 are considered graduate courses. See here for a general description of all music courses.

	Title	Instructors	Location	Time	Description	Cross listings	Fulfills	Syllabus URL
MUSC 0050-040	College Music Program	Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Private study in voice, keyboard, strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, and non-western instruments. Such study is designed to meet the artistic, technical, and/or professional needs of the student. Note: This is not a syllabus. Course requirements and assessment will be determined by the private instructor. Private lessons in the College House Music cannot be taken Pass/Fail. Please visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/music/performance. Students cannot register through Penn In Touch. Registration will be maintained by the music department upon receipt of application and instructor permission. An additional lesson fee will be charged to student account for participation in this program.
MUSC 0070-001	Ensemble Performance: Univ. Wind Ensemble	Paul Bryan Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-002	Ensemble Performance: Univ. Orchestra	Thomas Tok-Young Hong Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-003	Ensemble Performance: Jazz Combo	Michael Ketner Daniel M Paul	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-004	Ensemble Performance: Penn Baroque&Recorder	Michael Ketner Gwyn Meredith Roberts	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-005	Ensemble Performance: Collegium Musicum	Margaret B. Gruits Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-006	Ensemble Performance: Penn Chamber Music Soc	Michael Ketner Thomas E Kraines	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-007	Ensemble Performance: Penn Chorale	Elizabeth Braden Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-008	Opera/Music Thea Wksp	Margaret B. Gruits Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-010	Samba Ensemble	Michael Ketner Michael Lacheen Stevens	IR 110	M 6:00 PM-7:14 PM	Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-011	Samba Ensemble	Michael Ketner Michael Lacheen Stevens	IR 110	M 7:30 PM-8:44 PM	Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-013	Penn Flutes	Michele C. Kelly Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-014	Arabic Percussion Beg: Arabic Percussion Beginner	Michael Ketner Hafez J. Kotain	LERN 101	R 5:15 PM-6:44 PM	Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0070-015	Arabic Percussion Adv: Arabic Percussion Advanced	Michael Ketner Hafez J. Kotain	LERN 101	R 7:00 PM-8:29 PM	Successful participation in a music department sponsored group. Ensemble groups: University Orchestra, University Wind Ensemble, Choral Society, University Choir, Collegium Musicum, Baroque and Recorder Ensemble, Chamber Music Society, Arab Music Ensemble, Samba Ensemble, Penn Flutes, Opera and Musical Theater, and Jazz Combo. This course must be taken for a letter grade (Pass/Fail registration option may not be utilized for this course).
MUSC 0100A-001	Marian Anderson Performance Program	Michael Ketner	NRN 00		Special instruction in vocal and instrumental performance for music majors and minors only. Students must demonstrate in an audition that they have already attained an intermediate level of musical performance. They also must participate in a Music Department ensemble throughout the academic year, perform in public as a soloist at least once during the year (recital), perform a jury at the end of the spring semester, and attend and participate in masterclasses.
MUSC 0180A-401	Music in Urban Spaces	Molly Jean Mcglone	COHN 237	F 1:45 PM-3:44 PM	Music in Urban Spaces is a year-long experience that explores the ways in which individuals use music in their everyday lives and how music is used to construct larger social and economic networks that we call culture. We will read the work of musicologists, cultural theorists, urban geographers, sociologists and educators who work to define urban space and the role of music and sound in urban environments, including through music education. While the readings make up our study of the sociology of urban space and the way we use music in everyday life to inform our conversations and the questions we ask, it is within the context of our personal experiences working with music programs in public neighborhood schools serving economically disadvantaged students, that we will begin to formulate our theories of the contested musical micro-cultures of West Philadelphia. This course is over two-semesters where students register for .5 cus each term (for a total of 1 cu over the entire academic year) and is tied to the Music and Social Change Residential Program in Fisher Hassenfeld College House which will sponsor field trips around the city and a final concert for youth to perform here at Penn, if possible. Students are expected to volunteer in music and drama programs in Philadelphia neighborhood public schools throughout the course experience.	URBS0180A401	Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. Humanties & Social Science Sector	https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=MUSC0180A401
MUSC 0181-301	On Belonging: Music, Displacement, and Well-Being (SNF Paideia Program Course)	Carol Ann Muller	VANP 452.1	R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM	The 2020s has begun as a time of global existential angst: we are all living with so much uncertainty and change. Think of the impact of the COVID pandemic and the questioning of science in the form of vaccine resistance; climate change challenges; a technological and educational revolution; growing income inequality; the urgency of BLM protests in the USA, moves against dictatorships, the need to decolonize universities, and the pressure to address human rights and refugee challenges. But it is also a moment of real excitement, with increased technological access and presence in our lives. In fact, the capacity to connect to others almost anywhere in the world, immediately, is truly revolutionary. As is the capacity to plug into the sound of the world’s music in an instant. Through personal music listening, for example, we can use music to soothe, to excite, to travel imaginatively, to focus, for meditation, as a soundtrack to our everyday lives, and as emotional regulation. But the work of music for personal wellbeing and collective healing is much larger than just an individualized listening experience. This seminar opens up the issue of emotional regulation and collective healing by examining the relationship between sound and musical practice, performance, and engagement, both locally and around the world. You might think about this seminar as a kind of reflexive moment as you arrive on campus: as undergraduates and members of communities you will think about the relationship between your own recent move/displacement and the work of music/sound as a strategy of individual and collective belonging. There will be an ABCS component to the class.		Arts & Letters Sector
MUSC 1250-301	Musical Interfaces and Robotics	Qiujiang Lu	OTHR IP	M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Musical Interfaces and Robotics is a skills and discussion-based class for students interested in learning the basics of electricity and physical computing specifically for musical purposes. Discussions will be organized around readings related to art and technology with a focus on sound-based works. Students will learn to program Arduinos that control DC motors and respond to physical buttons or sensors. We will learn how to integrate these tools with music applications that communicate with MIDI such as Reaper, Logic Pro, and/or Max/MSP. As a final project students will present a working prototype for a new instrument they've created or plans for an art installation featuring a kinetic sculptural element.
MUSC 1300-001	1000 Years of Musical Listening	Mary C. Caldwell J.W. Clark	LERN 101	TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	We know that we like music and that it moves us, yet it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly why, and harder still to explain what it is we are hearing. This course takes on those issues. It aims to introduce you to a variety of music, and a range of ways of thinking, talking and writing about music. The majority of music dealt with will be drawn from the so-called "Classical" repertory, from the medieval period to the present day, including some of the 'greats' such as Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, but will also introduce you to music you will most likely never have encountered before. This course will explore the technical workings of music and the vocabularies for analyzing music and articulating a response to it; it also examines music as a cultural phenomenon, considering what music has meant for different people, from different societies across the ages and across geographical boundaries. As well as learning to listen ourselves, we will also engage with a history of listening. No prior musical knowledge is required. (Formerly Music 021). Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.		Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector	https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=MUSC1300001
MUSC 1300-002	1000 Years of Musical Listening	Sophia Noelle Cocozza	LERN 101	MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	We know that we like music and that it moves us, yet it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly why, and harder still to explain what it is we are hearing. This course takes on those issues. It aims to introduce you to a variety of music, and a range of ways of thinking, talking and writing about music. The majority of music dealt with will be drawn from the so-called "Classical" repertory, from the medieval period to the present day, including some of the 'greats' such as Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, but will also introduce you to music you will most likely never have encountered before. This course will explore the technical workings of music and the vocabularies for analyzing music and articulating a response to it; it also examines music as a cultural phenomenon, considering what music has meant for different people, from different societies across the ages and across geographical boundaries. As well as learning to listen ourselves, we will also engage with a history of listening. No prior musical knowledge is required. (Formerly Music 021). Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.		Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis
MUSC 1340-001	Performers: Dancers and Musicians	Mary C. Caldwell	LERN CONF	TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	This course looks at the history of popular, vernacular, and art music in various time periods. Studying music from the ground up, we examine how performers have influenced music history. This introductory course examines the relationship of musicians and dancers from the Middle Ages up to the emergence of ballet. Engaging with musical scores, iconography, theoretical writings, and a range of other textual sources, we will consider the ways in which dance (and dancers) informed music (and musicians), and vice versa, over the course of several hundred years.			https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=MUSC1340001
MUSC 1400-401	Jazz Style and History	Amanda Scherbenske		CANCELED	This course is an exploration of the family of musical idioms called jazz. Attention will be given to issues of style development, selective musicians, and to the social and cultural conditions and the scholarly discourses that have informed the creation, dissemination and reception of this dynamic set of styles from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Fulfills Cultural Diversity in the U.S.	AFRC1400401	Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.	https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=MUSC1400401
MUSC 1420-001	Thinking About Popular Music	Kwame Kruw Ocran	LERN 101	MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	Catchy yet controversial. Fun but hard-hitting. Popular music is not just entertaining: it presents societal issues, raises questions, expresses ideas. This course considers how popular music of the 20th century manifested the hopes, contradictions, ingenuity, and challenges of life in the United States, as seen and heard through the experiences of musicians and audiences. We will address three core questions: (1) How is “talent” and “good” music distinguished? (2) What happens when we treat music as “property,” especially with respect to broader ideas of ownership and credit? (3) When, how, and why is music considered dangerous? We delve into these questions by profiling musicians’ lives, analyzing the musical traits of specific repertoire, investigating changes in how music circulates, and situating popular music in U.S. cultural history. This course is not a chronological survey and does not aim to cover all U.S. popular music (or global popular music). Instead, each core question is addressed through case studies. Over the course of the semester students learn listening and analytic skills, how to engage critically with a range of writings about music, how to develop compelling arguments and articulate them verbally in class discussions and in writing assignments.		Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. Arts & Letters Sector
MUSC 1500-401	World Musics and Cultures	Ryan L Tomski	LERN 101	MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM	This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.	AFRC1500401, ANTH1500401	Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis
MUSC 1500-402	World Musics and Cultures	Laurie Lee	LERN 102	TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.	AFRC1500402, ANTH1500402	Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis
MUSC 1510-401	Music of Africa	Carol Ann Muller		R 5:15 PM-8:14 PM	African Contemporary Music: North, South, East, and West. Come to know contemporary Africa through the sounds of its music: from South African kwela, jazz, marabi, and kwaito to Zimbabwean chimurenga; Central African soukous and pygmy pop; West African Fuji, and North African rai and hophop. Through reading and listening to live performance, audio and video recordings, we will examine the music of Africa and its intersections with politics, history, gender, and religion in the colonial and post colonial era. (Formerly Music 053). Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement.	AFRC1510401	Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis
MUSC 1700-001	Introduction to Theory and Musicianship	Jamuna S. Samuel	BENN 407	MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This course will cover basic skills and vocabulary for reading, hearing, performing, analyzing, and writing music. Students will gain command of musical rudiments, including notation, reading and writing in treble and bass clefs, intervals, keys, scales, triads and seventh chords, and competence in basic melodic and formal analysis. The course will include an overview of basic diatonic harmony, introduction to harmonic function and tonicization. Musicianship skills will include interval and chord recognition, rhythmic and melodic dictation and familiarity with the keyboard. There will be in-depth study of selected compositions from the "common practice" Western tradition, including classical, jazz, blues and other popular examples. Listening skills--both with scores (including lead sheets, figured bass and standard notation), and without--will be emphasized. There is no prerequisite. Students with some background in music may place out of this course and into Music 170, Theory and Musicianship I. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.		Formal Reasoning & Analysis
MUSC 1700-002	Introduction to Theory and Musicianship	Andrew Matthias Mcintosh Burke	BENN 407	TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This course will cover basic skills and vocabulary for reading, hearing, performing, analyzing, and writing music. Students will gain command of musical rudiments, including notation, reading and writing in treble and bass clefs, intervals, keys, scales, triads and seventh chords, and competence in basic melodic and formal analysis. The course will include an overview of basic diatonic harmony, introduction to harmonic function and tonicization. Musicianship skills will include interval and chord recognition, rhythmic and melodic dictation and familiarity with the keyboard. There will be in-depth study of selected compositions from the "common practice" Western tradition, including classical, jazz, blues and other popular examples. Listening skills--both with scores (including lead sheets, figured bass and standard notation), and without--will be emphasized. There is no prerequisite. Students with some background in music may place out of this course and into Music 170, Theory and Musicianship I. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.		Formal Reasoning & Analysis
MUSC 1700-003	Introduction to Theory and Musicianship	Max Allan Johnson	LERN 102	MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This course will cover basic skills and vocabulary for reading, hearing, performing, analyzing, and writing music. Students will gain command of musical rudiments, including notation, reading and writing in treble and bass clefs, intervals, keys, scales, triads and seventh chords, and competence in basic melodic and formal analysis. The course will include an overview of basic diatonic harmony, introduction to harmonic function and tonicization. Musicianship skills will include interval and chord recognition, rhythmic and melodic dictation and familiarity with the keyboard. There will be in-depth study of selected compositions from the "common practice" Western tradition, including classical, jazz, blues and other popular examples. Listening skills--both with scores (including lead sheets, figured bass and standard notation), and without--will be emphasized. There is no prerequisite. Students with some background in music may place out of this course and into Music 170, Theory and Musicianship I. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.		Formal Reasoning & Analysis
MUSC 1710-301	Materials in Jazz Improvisation	Tyshawn Sorey	LERN 102	MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	This course is an introduction to basic theoretical materials explored in improvisation as heard in traditional jazz practice. In this course we will discuss typical harmonic progressions, traditional jazz song structures, chord symbols, melodic constructions, form, solo transcriptions, rhythmic concepts, lead sheet notation, and improvisation using modes, chromaticism, and various types of scales and melodic patterns. Ear training, sight-singing, and weekly rhythmic dictation exercises will occur concurrently with theoretical discussion. The student must have some familiarity with a beginner-intermediate level of basic music literacy and notation; they should already be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of scales, major and minor triads, key signatures, and meters. However in special cases where students might not be familiar with music notation, those students are still encouraged to communicate with the professor ahead of time to discuss prior experiences in music making. Finally, the student must have some access to a musical instrument and/or be willing to sing, as jazz is an aurally learned music and learning it by ear and through consistent engagement with the materials is the best way.
MUSC 2400-001	Introduction to the Music Life in America	Jasmine A Henry	BENN 407	TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	This course surveys American musical life from the colonial period to the present. Beginning with the music of Native Americans, the European legacy, and the African Diaspora, the course treats the singular social and political milieu that forged the profile of America's musical landscape. Attention will be given to the establishment of the culture industry and to various activities such as sacred music, parlor music, concert and theater music, the cultivation of oral traditions, the appearance of jazz, the trajectory of western art music in the United States, and the eventual global dominance of American popular music. Prerequisite: MUSC 1700 or 2700, or equivalent; or by permission of the instructor. Preference given to music Majors and Minors. Fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. College Requirement.		Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.	https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=MUSC2400001
MUSC 2700-001	Theory and Musicianship I	Jamuna S. Samuel	BENN 407	MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	Introduction to and development of principles of tonal voice-leading, harmonic function, counterpoint, and form through written analysis, composition, improvisation, and written work. Course covers diatonic harmony and introduction to chromaticism. Repertoires will focus on Western classical music. Musicianship component will include sight-singing, dictation keyboard harmony. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.		Formal Reasoning & Analysis
MUSC 2700-101	Theory and Musicianship I	Catherine B Chamblee	BENN 407	F 12:00 PM-1:30 PM	Introduction to and development of principles of tonal voice-leading, harmonic function, counterpoint, and form through written analysis, composition, improvisation, and written work. Course covers diatonic harmony and introduction to chromaticism. Repertoires will focus on Western classical music. Musicianship component will include sight-singing, dictation keyboard harmony. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.		Formal Reasoning & Analysis
MUSC 3210-301	Recording Music: Theory & Methods	Eugene Lew	LERN 101	W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM	An introduction to music and sound recording with a focus on concerts and live performances. The entire process will be examined from start to finish, including the roles played by composers, musicians, listeners, performance spaces, and recording technology. Meetings will take place in the classroom, in concert spaces and in the studio. Music majors and minors will be given preference for registration.
MUSC 3323-401	Baroque Opera from Monteverdi to Gluck	Mauro P. Calcagno	LERN 210	TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM	We will explore the history of Baroque opera from the vantage point of its beginning and its end: Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) and Christoph Willibald Gluck‘s Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), both works setting into music narratives about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as told by Ovid, Virgil, and others. We will discuss not only the historical documents that survive about these two masterworks (scores, librettos, letters etc.) but also today’s productions available in video. Why was the myth of Orpheus central to creators and audiences? What do these two operas and their performances tell us about being human in the world, both back then and today? How do we approach and understand this 400-years old multimedia genre, and why do these works still attract worldwide audiences today? We will also investigate works by Sartorio, Lully, Charpentier, Purcell, Telemann, and Handel. These works are based on poetic texts (“librettos”) thus we will explore text/music issues, focusing on prosody. Students in ITAL/FIGS are not expected to know music (in technical terms) but will have an opportunity to be exposed to poetic texts (in Italian, French, and German) that, by supporting music, function differently from other texts.	ITAL3323401
MUSC 3740-301	Composition for Musicians	Anna T Weesner	LERN CONF	F 10:15 AM-1:14 PM	Music 3740 is a Composition Seminar that treats composing as both an end in itself and a means for thinking broadly and speculatively about music. We will work on various compositional techniques through exercises as well as 'free' composition, giving attention to skills as well as to personal voice. We will survey the current musical landscape through listening, analysis and dicussion. The question of musical style itself will be pursued, and while we will be oriented to western art music, we will consider a wide range of styles, including popular music. It is assumed that students will have fluency with musical notation. Prerequisite: Music 171, or permission of the instructor.
MUSC 4500-301	Drumming: Noise, Language, Politics, Movement	James Sykes		CANCELED	In this course, we take drumming seriously as a window onto understanding world history and central human functions like rhythm, temporality, bodily movement, connections, and displacements. But we also try to listen and have fun. Each class includes a discussion of a reading followed by a lecture, listening, and videos. Occasional demonstrations of drumming traditions and/or tutorials (by myself and visitors) will occur in the latter portion of the class, and students are encouraged to pursue ethnographic projects and attend performances. Though the foundations for our course are Western drumming (rock and jazz) and South Asian drumming (Indian and Sri Lankan), we will explore traditions from other regions such as West Africa, the Caribbean, East Asia, and the United States. We consider the entanglement of drumming in religious practices, political protests, noise regulation, theorists of rhythm (such as the philosopher and sociologist Henri LeFebvre), and unique drumming subcultures like America’s Drum Corps International. This is an advanced seminar, primarily for juniors and seniors who are prepared to engage deeply and critically with a specialized research topic in ethnomusicology. The topic of the seminar is determined by the instructor, and can focus on a particular theoretical concern (for example: postcolonial studies, sound studies, ethnicity, war), and/or on a genre or body of repertoire.
MUSC 6230-301	Composing For Performers	Tyshawn Sorey	LERN CONF	M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	This graduate level composition seminar brings active focus to composing for live performers. Class activities and assignments are designed to foster the exploration of what is possible through interpretation and collaboration, as well as how best to anticipate possibilities through notation. Students will study repertoire, both old and new. Course content will vary depending on the instructor. Students may take this course a second time with a different instructor.
MUSC 6301-401	Historical and Historiographic Approaches: Performance Studies	Mauro P. Calcagno	LERN CONF	W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM	This course focuses on theories and models of historical investigation. It explores the historiographies and methodologies of performance studies, opera/dance studies, and theater/drama studies, in their collisions, collusions, and resonances. The term performance signals “a ‘broad spectrum’ or ‘continuum’ of human actions ranging from ritual, play, life performances . . . to the enactment of social, professional, gender, race, and class roles, and on to healing . . . the media, and the internet” (R. Schechner). We will discuss work by (among others) B. Brecht, R. Wagner, A. Artaud, V. Turner, M. Carlson, W.B. Worthen, J. Rancière, J.L. Austin, J. Butler, R. Schneider, E. Fischer-Lichte, H.-T. Lehmann, G. Didi-Huberman, N. André, A. Cavarero, K. Thurman, N. Cook, C. Abbate, D. Levin, and S. McClary, dealing with topics such as agency, performativity, time, materiality, technology and mediation, multimodality, spectatorship, voice, embodiment, dance/movement, the “Baroque,” reconstruction and re-enactment, theatricality, intercultural and postdramatic approaches. Students are expected to elaborate their own critical categories to research performance objects selected not exclusively within the province of opera/dance/theater but also within the range of possibilities investigated by performance studies broadly intended.	FIGS6301401, ITAL6301401
MUSC 7200-301	Acoustica/Electronica	Kevin C Laskey	LERN 101	F 10:15 AM-1:14 PM	For much of the past hundred years, composers have used electronic machines (microphones, tapes, computers, and so on) as an impetus to create new music with acoustic, often traditional, means. In these works, the electronic machine is no longer present, yet seems to mediate or influence the compositional process and listening experience. In this course, we will examine electronic music and their projected and/or coincidental acoustic analogs in Western concert music. We will analyze the influence of electronic sound and aesthetics on works by Varese, Ligeti, Berio, Grisey, Di Castri, Saariaho, Lachenmann, Fure, Reich, Adès, Romitelli, Hearne, and Alarm Will Sound, with sidequests into recent Hip-Hop and Bluegrass. Supplementing our analytical work will be readings on theories of influence and mimesis in art, including those of Harold Bloom, Joanna Demers, Jennifer Iverson, Will Mason, and others. Assignments include listening/reading responses, themed composition exercises, and an analytical presentation. The class is geared toward composers, but scholars and performers are most welcome.
MUSC 7210-001	Composition Studio and Forum	Tyshawn Sorey	BENN 419	W 3:30 PM-5:29 PM	Composer's Forum is a regular meeting of graduate composers, often along with other members of the Penn composing community, in which recent performances are discussed, musical issues taken up, and visitors occasionally welcomed to present their work or offer master classes. In addition to weekly Forum meetings, students will be paired with a composer for individual lessons in composition. Ph.d. Candidates in Composition in their third year in the program will continue non-credit participation in both forum and lessons.
MUSC 7210-201	Composition Studio and Forum	Tyshawn Sorey			Composer's Forum is a regular meeting of graduate composers, often along with other members of the Penn composing community, in which recent performances are discussed, musical issues taken up, and visitors occasionally welcomed to present their work or offer master classes. In addition to weekly Forum meetings, students will be paired with a composer for individual lessons in composition. Ph.d. Candidates in Composition in their third year in the program will continue non-credit participation in both forum and lessons.
MUSC 7210-202	Composition Studio and Forum	Anna T Weesner	NRN 00		Composer's Forum is a regular meeting of graduate composers, often along with other members of the Penn composing community, in which recent performances are discussed, musical issues taken up, and visitors occasionally welcomed to present their work or offer master classes. In addition to weekly Forum meetings, students will be paired with a composer for individual lessons in composition. Ph.d. Candidates in Composition in their third year in the program will continue non-credit participation in both forum and lessons.
MUSC 7210-203	Composition Studio and Forum	Kevin C Laskey	NRN 00		Composer's Forum is a regular meeting of graduate composers, often along with other members of the Penn composing community, in which recent performances are discussed, musical issues taken up, and visitors occasionally welcomed to present their work or offer master classes. In addition to weekly Forum meetings, students will be paired with a composer for individual lessons in composition. Ph.d. Candidates in Composition in their third year in the program will continue non-credit participation in both forum and lessons.
MUSC 7340-301	Studies in 19th Century Music	Jeffrey L Kallberg	LERN CONF	R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Chopin’s Things This seminar will explore the meanings of historical intersections between material culture and Chopin’s music. These objects could be real (his watch), imagined (music boxes), or reified (his soul), but all were understood during his life to exist in close relationship to his music as it existed both on the printed page and in performance. Our larger goal will be to try to understand better the historical and cultural mechanisms that allowed materiality to figure into musical meaning in Chopin’s Paris of the 1830s and 1840s. Classroom discussions will focus equally on readings and repertoire (with particular emphasis on the ballades, nocturnes, and mazurkas).
MUSC 7400-401	Institutions, Intelligentsia, and Ideology in Black Music Historiography	Jasmine A Henry	LERN CONF	F 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Seminar on selected topics in African American Music. See department website (under course tab) for current term course description: https://music.sas.upenn.edu	AFRC7400401		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=MUSC7400401
MUSC 7500-301	Music and Political Anthropology	James Sykes	LERN CONF	T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Music and Political Anthropology What is the relationship between sound and sovereignty? What does anthropology tell us about different forms of hierarchy, territory, labor, music, and how these relate? What work does music history do for people (and for governments) in particular political contexts? In this course, we consider these and related questions by engaging classic and recent works in political anthropology and music studies. Though the regional foundations for our course will be South and Southeast Asia, the class will roam globally. We will delve into related work in media studies, linguistic anthropology, and religious studies. Along the way, we explore topics like protests, noise regulation, the voice (e.g., of the people), caste, plantation labor, and non-state spaces.Topics in Ethnomusicology. Open to graduate students from all departments. See department website (under course tab) for current term course description: https://music.sas.upenn.edu
MUSC 9999-640	Ind Study: Ethnographic Studies in Creative Music	Carol Ann Muller	NRN 00		Individual study and research under the supervision of a member of the faculty.