Music

This course provides a platform to understand traditional music repertoire and practice more fully, and to contextualize traditional music through listening and/or playing, analysis, critical evaluation of leading scholarship, and discussion. The discipline of ethnomusicology, which seeks to understand music in its social and cultural contexts and from the perspectives of those who make it, is emphasized throughout the course. This is supported by the introduction and development of key skills of fieldwork and descriptive analysis. In this course, traditional music is viewed through a Scottish lens and international examples and connections feature throughout. Seminar topics, themes and case studies respond to the interests of course participants and can include: Scotland's "national" instruments, "broken" tradition: Scottish harp, Niel Gow and 18th century dance music, composers and collections, 20th century revival: search for authenticity, tradition and community, electronic tradition, advances in harmony, and contemporary practice: seeking genre parity. In addition to essay and presentation, class tasks provide the opportunity to engage with archive materials, historically-informed performance, creative/contemporary performance, and a range of traditional music notation.

The course examines stylistic characteristics of music in major geo-cultural regions of the world, illustrated through selected recordings, performance organization, musical instruments, concepts of aesthetics, artistic, and philosophical values. The course surveys various musical cultures including Africa, Native America, Black America, Caribbean, South America, Eastern Europe, South India, Indonesia, China, and Japan.

This course examines the techniques used in the production and performance of electronic music, including synthesis, and the use of relevant software and analogue and digital hardware. Students are supported in the development of commercial and experimental outcomes via practical, creative, and technical approaches.

This course provides thirty-minute voice lessons where students each choose a song they wish to improve. Each student in the group gets a few minutes to work on their song with the professor.

Students must obtain approval from the department before taking this course. Students develop skills and knowledge in the areas of composition, music notation, and music theory.

This course covers the essential techniques of orchestral writing. It examines the capabilities of the individual instruments, section by section, using practical demonstrations wherever possible. Students learn to blend instruments within their family groups and eventually to combine these groups into full orchestral textures. Examples used are drawn mainly from Classical and Romantic orchestral literature, together with some pieces from the early 20th century.

History and repertoire of electronic music, basic principles of electronic music and sound theory, introduction to MIDI and its applications, notation software, digital recording and editing. Emphasis is placed on the practical nature of the processes with students involved in the course assignments. Knowledge in music information technology is preferred. There will be an interview before the start of an academic year.