MUS 150 - Engaging with Music I

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meets general academic requirement AR.
Meets requirement: RG
Prerequisite(s): Ability to read music and match pitch or MUS 102 Fundamentals of Music
What will musicians in the 21st century need to know and be able to do? How will we engage with musics from non-Western cultures, vernacular traditions, and Western European concert repertoires? Engaging with Music I will introduce and develop technical, analytical, and aural skills through hands-on music making exploring global conceptions of pitch, rhythm, timbre, texture, and formal structures through performance. We will engage written and oral traditions which may include Hindustani ragas, jazz, Western European tonal music, hip hop, Arabic maqāmāt, madrigals, and the blues. These activities will be framed by a critical examination of structures of power, privilege and function across issues of race, ethnicity, religion, gender and class.