Music

This course explores the various genres of keyboard music throughout history and the composers who have gained widespread popularity, and also examines the works of those who have received less attention. Topics include variation sets, preludes, fugues, suites, studies, and single-movement works. Students think critically about the significance and evolution of each genre over time. This course is for students who can read Western Classical music notation fluently (particularly in bass and treble clefs). Students may contact the instructor and state their prior experience with music to ascertain if this course will be feasible for them.

In this course we want to explore together how German music changes and which historical contexts are reflected in popular music. We will look at selected artists and songs from German music history and discuss their cultural and musicological meanings. The course deals with German music history and its most formative works. The focus is on the period from 1920 to the present. The aim is to bring together historical developments with their manifestations music and to discuss which changes, especially in popular music, can be identified and analyzed musicologically. We will look at compositions, song lyrics and historical backgrounds in order to gain an understanding of the developments that led us to the forms of contemporary German music.

This course provides readings on Musicological fieldwork theory and practice, considering different approaches to writing musical ethnographies. During the second half of the term, students are expected to participate in several fieldwork trips in Tokyo, later writing up the results as a group project. Students are expected to have taken several music and/or anthropology courses at ICU.   

This course examines the history of music-making in Japan from the 20th century onward. By considering genres such as Western classical music, jazz, and pop genres, as well as new innovations based on Japanese traditions, it considers how modernity and Westernization have influenced Japan’s musical culture. 

The course includes topics such as: School songs; Japanese composers in Western music idioms; Japanese pop music, etc. It also considers the intersections of music with questions of gender, politics and other societal issues. 
 

This course examines the role and purpose of music for individuals and communities, and the ways people engage with music to regulate their mood and emotions in ways that reinforce their overall wellbeing.

What is the Chinese poetry? Why is it called “shige (literally, song-word)”? How does it imagine a lyrical way to express the individual feelings or the collective narrations about the body, life, nature and the universe of the Chinese people? Through a cross-cultural perspective, this course is intended to help foreign students understand, appreciate and experience the beauty of classical Chinese poetry, especially its unique tradition of musicality. This is a taught course over 16 weeks through the spring term. Class time will consist of lectures, poetry readings, seminars, discussions, with a workshop and a poetry recital where appropriate. Students are asked to join all the activities.

The course will lead you to explore Shijing (The Book of Songs) & The Lyrics of Chuci (The Lyrics of Chu) in pre-Qin peroid, Yuefu (Music Bureau Poems) in the Han Dynasty, “Nineteen Old Poems”, Shi Poetry in the Tang Dynasty, Ci Poetry in the Song Dynasty, and Qu Poetry in the Yuan Dynasty.

The course creatively combines poetic criticism with poetry performance by integrating the theoretical methods of Chinese poetics, musicology and vocal performance. The course aims to help students enjoyably and engagingly overcome language and cultural barriers, to experience the charm and the profundity of the Chinese language and culture by reciting and chanting the classical Chinese poems.

This course is a general arts course for all students. The course is based on the achievements of historical documents, audio and video, creation and other fields in the music art discipline, combined with the weekly explanation and performance of excellent music works at home and abroad, highlighting the stage teaching practice activities with on-site effects, expanding the resonance of elegant music in the campus, and improving the musical literacy of students of all majors. At the same time, the participation of the network and film and television media inside and outside the university is organized to carry forward the achievements of excellent campus culture in a timely manner, and actively expand the social influence of campus music culture of Tongji University. Its teaching purpose is to make students understand the basic history of the development of music art and explore related issues in the field of aesthetics through undergraduate teaching, so as to reveal the aesthetic principles and basic rules contained in music creation and performance, learn to appreciate excellent works in music art, and understand the relationship between art development and social history and culture. Students are required to understand the basic historical facts in the development process of music history, as well as the basic laws of music creation, performance and appreciation, appreciate a certain number of excellent music works, and cultivate students' analytical ability.

This course examines music-making in the European art music tradition during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in its social, cultural and historical contexts. By examining musical works, historical documents, and modern scholarship, students explore both the development of new musical styles as well as the reimagination of older styles. It examines how post-WWI institutions, discourses and technologies have reshaped the lives of musicians and listeners, with a particular focus on the overlapping political-economic contexts of capitalism, liberalism and globalization.  

Students will develop the knowledge, competencies and skills necessary for music performance. Areas to be covered include advanced study of instrumental or vocal technique, and specialization in all related aspects of music performance. Formative feedback in individual and group settings will be provided across the semester. The course involves participation in individual lessons, instrument/voice classes, performance class and/or assigned ensemble activities. 

This course examines the ways in which music contributes to well being and health. Students will learn about connections between music, well being and health through exploration of a range of practices across different cultural contexts and considering individual through to population perspectives. The well being and health affordances of music will be examined through integrated theory and research from interdisciplinary music and psychology perspectives.