UG Course Descriptions

Ensemble provides opportunities to rehearse and perform Jazz Combo, Big Band, and Jazz Ensemble literature. Open to all students by audition. Fulfills small ensemble requirement. (Offered fall and spring semesters)

Open to students of all musical disciplines, this ensemble provides performing experiences for vocalists and instrumentalists. Chamber Ensemble is by audition only. Fulfills small ensemble requirement. (Offered fall and spring semesters)

This course is designed to be a theoretical and practical study of the art of Jazz Improvisation. Students will learn the basic and standard 12-bar blues progressions as well as other forms of Jazz Improvisation to include the study of jazz harmonies and rhythms. (Prerequisites: MUSC 132 and MUSC 133) Offered upon request.

Overview of teaching procedures for beginning class instruction. Methods and techniques for learning basic performance skills on various orchestral string instruments with applications for music teaching and learning theory. (Offered every fall)

Overview of teaching procedures for beginning class instruction. Methods and techniques for learning basic performing skills on various woodwind instruments with applications for music teaching and learning theory. (Offered every spring)

This course builds on foundations laid in Theory I and II. Content includes: secondary functions, chromaticism and altered chords within sequential patterns; modulation, shifting tonal levels and tonicization; various modulatory techniques; analysis of larger musical forms; mode mixtures; the augmented sixth chords and wide range of resolution potential. (Co-requisite: MUSC 231) (Offered every fall)

Classroom and computer-assisted ear-training will include medium to advanced melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic dictation. Sight-singing will incorporate chromatic and modulatory melodies with increasing attention to non-scalar passages. Rhythmic skills will extend to include asymmetrical and changing meters (Co-requisite: MUSC 230) (Offered every fall)

Having reached the close of the 19th century, this course moves in new directions. Content includes: enharmonic spellings, interpretations, and modulatory effects; new harmonic vocabulary and late 19th century tonalities; introduction to twentieth century music and Impressionism; new scale materials and chord structures; new concepts in sound, rhythm and meter; wholly new post-tonal approaches and directions. (Co-requisite: MUSC 233) Offered every spring)

Class and computer-assisted ear-training will be used to strengthen dictation skills with advanced melodic lines and harmonic progressions. Sight-singing will include advanced 3-4 part singing in major, minor, and modal excerpts, and melodic lines in various non-traditional scales, atonal, jazz, and contemporary styles (Co-requisite: MUSC 232). (Offered every spring)

Sequential development of functional piano skills with emphasis on improvisation, transposition, scales and chords in the minor mode (Prerequisite: MUSC 136 or permission of the instructor) (Offered every fall)