Music
The Department of Music offers programs of study leading to the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Music and the Master of Arts (AM) in Music, with emphasis in either musicology or music theory. Each graduate program combines a course of advanced studies in one area of music studies with supporting studies in related fields of music. The number of graduate students admitted each year is small so that each student is assured individual attention. There are traditionally close rapports and mutually supportive interactions among graduate students in all areas of study.
The AM and PhD programs in musicology offer concentrations in historical musicology and ethnomusicology. Department faculty interests cover all eras of European art music, American popular musics, film and theatre music, jazz, and African and African diasporic musics. Methodological approaches cover a range of critical perspectives, placing music within its cultural and historical contexts and developing the student's ability to think and write about music and music-making. Intensive study in music theory is a required component of the programs, and diverse opportunities for performance are offered.
The AM and PhD programs in music theory focus on the creative analysis and critical examination of assumptions about music and musical discourse. The graduate program prepares students to undertake research in musical analysis and in the language and methodology of music theory. Preparation includes guiding each student in developing their own modes of thought and expression. Faculty interests include improvisation and intermedia, texture and form, music cognition and computational modeling, composition, Schenker, and the interplay of text and music in German art song.
Contact Info
| Contact: | Jessica Flannigan |
| Phone: | 314-935-5566 |
| Email: | flanniganj@wustl.edu |
| Website: | http://music.wustl.edu/graduate |
Chair
Patrick Burke
Professor
PhD, University of Wisconsin
Director of Graduate Studies
Paul Steinbeck
Associate Professor
PhD, Columbia University
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Todd Decker
Paul Tietjens Professor of Music
PhD, University of Michigan
Department Faculty
Christopher Douthitt
Lecturer
MFA, Princeton University
Ben Duane
Associate Professor
PhD, Northwestern University
Lauren Eldridge Stewart
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Chicago
Amy Greenhalgh
Lecturer
MA, Oxford University
Amanda Kirkpatrick
Senior Lecturer
MM, University of Missouri-Columbia
Esther Kurtz
Assistant Professor
PhD, Brown University
Jeffrey Kurtzman
Professor
PhD, University of Illinois
William Lenihan
Professor of Practice
BMus, University of Missouri-Columbia
Hugh McDonald
Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music
PhD, Cambridge University
John McDonald
Lecturer
DMA, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Craig Monson
Paul Tietjens Professor Emeritus of Music
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Dolores Pesce
Avis Blewett Professor Emerita of Music
PhD, University of Maryland
Robert Snarrenberg
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Michigan
Christopher Stark
Associate Professor
DMA, Cornell University
Alexander Stefaniak
Associate Professor
PhD, Eastman School of Music
Vince Varvel
Lecturer
BM, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
Parkorn Wangpaiboonkit
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Visit online course listings to view semester offerings for L27 Music.
L27 Music 500 Independent Study
Supervised independent study in areas in which there are no course offerings. Students must submit to the department chair an outline of work to be covered, the number of hours of credit requested, and the name of the instructor to supervise the research. Prerequisites: permission of the department chair and the instructor. Class hours variable, depending on credit. Refer to **section/faculty list at start of this departmental entry for faculty selections for this course.
Credit variable, maximum 6 units.
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L27 Music 501 Introduction to Musicological Research I
An introduction to research techniques, including library skills and the mechanics of scholarly writing and documentation. Prerequisite: graduate standing or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 5011 Elementary Technique of Electronic Music: Synth Lab
Individual and small group instruction in "classical" procedures and relevant electronic technology. Prerequisite: open to music majors; to others by permission of instructor. Credit contingent upon completion of Mus 402.
Same as L27 Music 401
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L27 Music 5021 Advanced Techniques in Electronic Music: Studio Songwriting
How does the act of recording and manipulating sound change the way we write songs? How can the tones and moods of a recording interact with notes and rhythms and words? We'll look for answers through experiments in composition, collaboration, and critical listening. Topics will include beatmaking, sound collage, vocal manipulations, sampling, and virtual spaces. Formal training is not required, though we will engage (and learn) basic music theory concepts. PREREQ: permission of instructor.
Same as L27 Music 402
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L27 Music 5022 Introduction to Popular Music Studies
This seminar offers an introduction to popular music studies from the perspective of the discipline of musicology. The course provides a background to the current state of scholarship, engages ongoing debates and methodological questions, and offers a starting point for research and teaching in this expanding area. Topics include: historiography of popular music studies, bibliography and discography, canon-making, academic and popular scholars and readers, genre definitions, interdisciplinary challenges and opportunities, approaches to institutions and technologies particular to the history of popular music (such as record labels and recording studios), and the study of mixed-media topics. The ability to read music is not required and students from across the disciplines are most welcome.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 503 Notation I
This course is designed to provide students with the skills needed for transcribing the black and white mensural notation in use from the 14th through 16th centuries. Prerequisite: graduate standing or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 504 Notation II
This course provides students with the skills needed for transcribing polyphonic notation from the late 14th through 16th centuries, as well as lute tabluture. The latter part of the course is devoted to the principles of editing 16th/17th and 18th/19th century repertories, with sample projects. Prerequisite: Music 503 or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 5061 Introduction to Schenker's Analytical Method
Heinrich Schenker's interpretive theory takes as its object the musical mind as manifested in the western European tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries. This introduction to Schenker's approach is based on close reading of Schenker's theoretical and analytical texts as well as contemporary redactions. The course also includes work in the analytical application of Schenker's ideas and systematic study of Shenker's mature theory. Prerequisite: Music 423.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 5062 Seminar: Schenker's Analytical Methodology
A continuation of Mus 5061. Students will refine their understanding through analysis of more complex works and continued reading in Schenkerian literature. Class time will be devoted to discussion of student analyses and of conceptual issues that arise from Schenker's analytical perspective. The final project will be a paper on a symphony movement or other piece of comparable breadth. Prerequisite: Mus 5061.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 508 Introduction to Contemporary Music Theory
An introduction to the concepts, idealogies, methods and musical issues of contempory music theory. Intensive reading and discussion of significant writings from the 1960s to the present. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 509 Introduction to Ethnomusicology
This seminar will provide an introduction to the discipline of ethnomusicology through an examination of the historical literature and a review of recent scholarship. In keeping with the field's multidisciplinary orientation, we will observe ethnomusicology as a part of wider trends in intellectual inquiry. As such, our discussions of major issues in ethnomusicology will be informed by consideration of related fields, including anthropology, historical musicology, literary theory, folklore, and cultural studies. Seminar members will have the opportunity to explore in depth those issues that are most germane to their own research interests while gaining a broader understanding of ethnomusicology as an academic discipline.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 5092 Critical Listening
In hearing, the material body senses vibration. We have multiple methods for measuring the generalized, able-bodied process of sound waves making the cilia on the inner ear dance. Yet listening proves a tricky topic of analysis, as it entails subjectivity, attention, motivation, and situatedness. While processes of hearing may engender some sound categorizations (noise from music from silence from voicing), habits of distribution are far from universal. In this course, we will explore and analyze multiple cultural, political, and philosophical issues that are brought to bear in what is called critical listening.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 5140 Topics in Embodied Communication
This course is about listening. We will begin by mediated and unmediated listening with the human auditory system and continue into an exploration of multi-modal listening, focusing on vibration and on somatic attention. We will work in the "studio," which will include a music studio, a dance studio, and the environment. Our investigation will include the study of sensing in more-than-human organisms as well as theoretical perspectives from sound studies, critical improvisation and history of science. The course will encourage the perspective that the practice of listening is a political act of tending to the invisible, the non-normative, and the incomplete.
Same as L15 Drama 4140
Credit variable, maximum 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L27 Music 519 Selected Areas for Special Study I: Music and Social Justice: The Aesthetics of Activism
Credit 3 units. EN: H
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L27 Music 5190 Sound Theory
The word sound in this course title carries three meanings: 1) solidly made, 2) ethical, and 3) pertaining to the experience of sonic phenomenon of all sorts. The word theory indicates the discourse of philosophers, historians, and scholars (academic and popular). Among the writers who may be included in the course are: Abdurraquir, Adorno, Attali, Auslander, Barthes, Benjamin, Berlant, Biancorosso, Butler, Chion, Chow, Cook, Derrida, Donnelly, DuBois, Foucault, Kittler, Murray Schafer, Ngai, Plato, Proust, Said, Sloterdijk, and Sterne. The class will be useful to graduate students concerned with the phenomenon of sound broadly speaking.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 521 Seminar in Music Theory
The Chamber Music of Brahms. Close readings of selected works using a variety of analytical approaches. Emphasis on crafting written communication of interpretive results. PREREQUISITE: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor. Credit 3 units.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 5223 Computational Models of Music Theory and Cognition
We will study computational models that simulate the perception of several aspects of music: phase structure, meter, melody, key, harmony, counterpoint, and texture. In addition to reading about and discussing these models, students will work with them directly by running them on their own. We will also spend some class time on perceptual experiments related to the models we study. Although the course will focus on models of perception, emphasis will be placed on ones that are also pertinent to music theory, and these connections will be discussed.
Same as L27 Music 3223
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L27 Music 5230 Analysis I
A study of structural principles underlying music of all periods: motivic usage, melodic shape, varieties of texture and structure with an emphasis on fugue, variation forms and proportional forms such as rondo and sonata-allegro. Prerequisite: graduate standing or permission of instructor.
Same as L27 Music 423
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L27 Music 5232 Graduate Keyboard Skills
Graduate Keyboard Skills prepares students to take the Keyboard Skills exam.
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L27 Music 529 Composition, Advanced
Individual training in free composition for various media, plus group technical projects. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Credit variable, maximum 3 units.
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L27 Music 530 Composition, Advanced
Individual training in free composition for various media, plus group technical projects. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Credit variable, maximum 3 units.
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L27 Music 5370 Music and Performance: Pleasure and Politics in Popular Music
Christopher Small has asserted that music is not a thing but an activity--something that people DO. Starting from this premise, this course explores popular music in performance and introduces students to the flourishing scholarship at the intersection of performance studies, sound studies, and popular music studies. We will attend to sound, music, listening, and voice-and we will consider these elements of performance in combination with costume, choreography, stage design, and audience participation and interaction. Exploring the choices of performers and the expectations of audience members in settings from gospel churches to Radio City Music Hall, this course moves through a wide variety of musical genres, including cabaret, blues, opera, musical theater, and rock. We will consider the pleasure and politics embraced by everyday people and activists who have used music in protest movements from the labor movement to Black Lives Matter. We also attend performances around St. Louis, guided by the interests of the class. Upper-level undergraduates and graduate students (enrolled under a 500-number) with an interest in music, theater, dance, cultural history, American studies, and African American studies are especially welcome.
Same as L98 AMCS 4370
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L27 Music 537B Advanced Orchestral and Band Instruments
Credit variable, maximum 3 units.
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L27 Music 538B Advanced Orchestral and Band Instruments
Credit variable, maximum 3 units.
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L27 Music 574A Introduction to Current Techniques in Experimental Music
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 581 Theory Qualifying Project I
An extended, detailed analysis of a single piece. While enrolled in Music 423, the student will choose, in consultation with the examination committee, a musical work for close analysis from either the tonal or the post-tonal repertoire. Analytical methodology should be determined in response to the issues raised by the piece. The student will prepare a lecture for a graduate-level audience, to be delivered in Music 502. The purpose of the presentaion is to demonstrate competence in intensive analysis and in the oral presentation of analytical materials.
Credit 1 unit.
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L27 Music 582 Theory Qualifying Project II
A project dealing with theoretical systems designed for understanding a particular repertoire of music. The music should be drawn from the repertoire (tonal or post-tonal) not chosen for Qualifying Project I. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate familiarity, competence, and flexibility in the use of theoretical systems. In contrast with the project described in Qualifying Project I, any musical analyses should illustrate the points made about theoretical systems under consideration. Ideally this project will also demonstrate the ability to extrapolate and extend existing systems. OR A project on a more abstract methodological or speculative topic. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate an ability to address the critical and philosophical issues that form the conceptual underpinning of analytical and theoretical work.
Credit 2 units.
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L27 Music 583 Theory Qualifying Project III
A project dealing with theoretical systems designed for understanding a particular repertoire of music. The music should be drawn from the repertoire (tonal or post-tonal) not chosen for Qualifying Project I. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate familiarity, competence, and flexibility in the use of theoretical systems. In contrast with the project described in Qualifying Project I, any musical analyses should illustrate the points made about theoretical systems under consideration. Ideally this project will also demonstrate the ability to extrapolate and extend existing systems. OR A project on a more abstract methodological or speculative topic. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate an ability to address the critical and philosophical issues that form the conceptual underpinning of analytical and theoretical work.
Credit 3 units.
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L27 Music 590 Research in Music
(Master's level). Credit variable, maximum 6 units. Refer to **section/faculty list at start of this departmental entry for faculty selections in this course.
Credit variable, maximum 6 units.
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L27 Music 600 Research in Music
(Doctoral level). Credit variable, maximum 9 units. Refer to **section/faculty list at start of this departmental entry for faculty selections in this course.
Credit variable, maximum 9 units.
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