MUS 328 - Methodologies & Epistemologies in Music

Course unit(s): 1
Prerequisite(s): MUS 151 Engaging with Music II or permission of the instructor
What does it mean to study music? How do we understand music’s meanings? What are the methods and approaches we use to do so? In this course, students will reflect on how we construct knowledge in music by practicing the ethnographic, historical, and analytical methodologies that correspond most commonly with ethnomusicology, musicology, and music theory. Students will also examine approaches to thinking about meaning in music whose influence stretches across these subfields and out towards other disciplines (sound studies, phenomenology, semiotics, etc.). The final project will draw from a combination of these methodologies and approach a subject of the student’s own choice.