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).

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).

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).

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).

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).

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.

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.

The term “weird” has long been used pejoratively to describe music that people don’t understand, which sounds to them like some combination of extreme, bad, pretentious, or indecipherable (“strange”). The term “weird” may be laced with racism and ignorance, such as when one chooses to say another culture’s music is “weird” rather than try to understand it. “Experimental,” by contrast, elevates music that is perceived as intending to push boundaries. Thus, both conjure up what they are not: “normal” music, such as a mainstream pop song. In this class, we take a journey through some of the world’s “weirdest” music and in the process question musical normativity and taste. We consider music deemed by its makers (or by outsides observers) as too loud, soft, fast, slow, complex, meandering, or simple; we study global histories of experimentalism, including experimental instruments and tuning systems, subversive and/or humorous uses of digital and analog technologies, and the “slow movement” and related DIY and punk subcultures; and we explore alternative ways of conceptualizing the structure and function of music that lie far outside the mainstream music industry. Questioning how capitalism makes its musical object, and moving beyond exoticism, we will seek greater insight into the fraught role of musical outsiders and cultural difference in mainstream capitalist culture. Why does some music strike us as weird? What role has the music industry played in shaping conventions? What strategies might we use to better respect musical difference?

This is a graduate level composition course in which explicit and active attention will be brought to what is perhaps more typically an implicit focus in the composition of music, that is, the anticipation of what performers bring to the interpretation and performance of live, acoustic music. Students will study repertoire, both old and new, with a concentration on music for string quartet. Students will be encouraged to take risks through the composition of short exercises as well as more involved original work. The Daedalus Quartet, Penn’s professional string-quartet-in-residence, will be actively involved with the class, both to discuss their current repertoire and to workshop student pieces.

Interested undergraduates should request permission from the instructor.

In this course, you will collaborate with your peers to create a public-facing, digital exhibit that communicates research about a local problem posed by the climate crisis. First you will encounter theories for communicating climate research in sounds, images, and embodied practices. You will apply these theories to analyze exemplary audiovisual projects. Then you will connect with your university’s digital scholarship librarian and visit a media lab to help you shift from theoretical to technical aspects of creating a digital exhibit and recording sounds and images. After agreeing on a local climate problem that the exhibit will address, you will then form teams focused on creating different components of the overall exhibit: on the sound team, you might combine field recordings and recorded interviews into a short podcast episode; on the image team, you might create photo or video essays; on the education team, you might create public educational resources like DIY monitoring kits, reading lists, or create/improve relevant Wikipedia articles; on the interface team, you might link your skills in electrical engineering or environmental monitoring to build interfaces that connect bodies with real-time, local air quality measurements. Or you might devise an altogether different team in consultation with the professor. The course culminates in a public showcase of each team’s contribution to the digital exhibit. You will share your projects with peers, faculty, project participants/interviewees, and other community members. * Audiovisual Climate Research © 2022 by Andrew Niess