Course Descriptions

MUS 101 - Introduction to Music
In this course, students will develop the listening skills and musical vocabulary that will equip them to think, and write, about music from analytical and critical perspectives. Students will explore topics such as musical form, improvisation, and the intersection of music with race, gender, and culture. A diverse listening repertoire for this course will be drawn from the folk, popular, and art music traditions of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. No musical background is needed. May not be counted towards the music major or minor.
Meets general academic requirement AR.

MUS 102 - Fundamentals of Music
An introductory survey of the main aspects of music theory and practice, including rhythm, intervals, scales and keys, melody, harmony, and form. Analysis of listening processes will involve some psychological principles of music perception. Some music reading, creative writing, and analytical studies in various styles and periods are included. Primarily for students without extensive musical training. This course can be used as preparation for Engaging with Music I.
Meets general academic requirement AR.

104 - Pop, Rock & Soul
In this course students will explore the vital role of popular music in U.S. society, gaining a deeper understanding of this music's relationship to politics, the marketplace, technology, and racial, sexual, and class identities. Students will develop music analytical skills to help them identify key stylistic features of pop music's various genres, including rhythm & blues, rockabilly, doo-wop, soul, folk rock, psychedelia, progressive rock, funk, disco, new wave, and hip hop. Throughout the semester, we will investigate these styles by studying a repertory of hits by performers and producers including Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Phil Spector, The Supremes, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, The Clash, and Public Enemy. In discussions, listening exercises, and writing assignments, students will engage with recent scholarship from the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, history, sociology, and popular culture studies.
Meets general academic requirement AR.

MUS 140 - Music & Technology
This course will consider contemporary and historical classical, popular, and experimental genres of music that use twentieth- and twenty-first century mechanical, analog, and digital technologies from the player piano to the laptop orchestra. It will invite students to ask ethical questions about using recorded samples; grapple with philosophies of technology and notation; and explore changing definitions of sound and music. Students will also create original works using the program Ableton Live. Projects will include designing an original ringtone, constructing a soundscape, and an individual final project that, depending individual interests, might take any of the following forms: writing an EDM song or hip hop track, recording a multi-track solo a cappella recording, building your own electronic instrument, or constructing a sound walk.
Meets general academic requirement AR.

MUS 150 - Engaging with Music I
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.
Prerequisite: Ability to read music and match pitch or Fundamentals of Music.

MUS 151 - Engaging with Music II
Engaging with Music II will build on the skills, knowledge and conceptual framework of Engaging with Music I. We will continue our study of musics from non-Western cultures, vernacular traditions, and Western European concert traditions taking a recursive approach in which we circle back upon previously-studied musics and cultures developing higher-level skills grounded in greater depth of understanding and positionality. These abilities will, in turn, be extended through engagement with further musics and cultures in non-Western, vernacular, and Western European concert traditions.
Prerequisite: Engaging with Music I or permission of the instructor.

MUS 217 - “One Nation Under a Groove”?: American Music
What makes “American” music? What are the stakes in defining “American Music”? Who decides what is “American”? These are the questions that guide us as we study music from a variety of traditions that may include iconically American genres—jazz, blues, folk musics, popular styles and American “experimental” music—as well as traditions of immigrant and migrant communities with transnational ties and connections, including salsa, Cantonese opera, and klezmer traditions in their U.S.-American manifestations.
Meets general academic requirement DE.

MUS 219 - Opera
Operatic performance is at once a historical and a living tradition. Accordingly, we will examine operas as historically embedded works, shaped by the economic and political circumstances, cultural contexts, and aesthetic expectations of particular composers and audiences at particular times. Yet because opera realizes historical works in the present context, we will also study operatic performance itself as a text, examining the ways that the very pliability of the operatic tradition allows contemporary directors and audiences to question, probe, or revise standard interpretations of a given work.
Prerequisite: Ability to read music or permission of the instructor.
Meets general academic requirement HU.

MUS 221 - Western Music History I: Medieval to 1750
This course concerns the history of music from the early Christian period through the mid-eighteenth century and addresses current debates in historical musicology. Readings, score analysis, listening, and writing assignments trace the development of composition and performance practices and their relationship to cultural and intellectual perspectives. In these ways, students will consider music as a way of knowing our world and the composers, performers, patrons, and listeners who made this music possible. Topics may include Gregorian chant, the development of polyphony, sacred and secular vocal music during the Renaissance, the rise of national styles, the music of the Lutheran Baroque, ending with the High Baroque, and music by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Fredric Handel.
Prerequisite: Ability to read music or permission of the instructor.
Meets general academic requirement AR and W.

MUS 222 - Western Music History II: 1750 to the Present
This course concerns the history of music from the mid-eighteenth century through the present and addresses current debates in historical musicology. Readings, score analysis, listening, and writing assignments trace the development of composition and performance practices and their relationship to cultural and intellectual perspectives. In these ways, students will consider music as a way of knowing our world and the composers, performers, patrons, and listeners who made this music possible. Topics may include mid-eighteenth century musical styles and schools, the Viennese classicists (Haydn and Mozart), Beethoven and the Romantic expansion of form and technique, opera, the beginnings of modernism (Debussy, Stravinsky), and more recent developments since World War II extending into the twenty-first century.
Prerequisite: Ability to read music or permission of the instructor.
Meets general academic requirement AR and W.

MUS 223 - Jazz Theory & Improvisation
A study of improvisational techniques from the Jazz tradition. Readings and listening assignments; analysis and performance projects.
Prerequisite: MUS 152 Engaging with Music II or permission of the instructor.

MUS 229 - World Music
A study of the role of music and musical-theoretical systems in non-Western cultures. Class discussions based on primary and secondary source readings and writing assignments are balanced with music practicums to insure musical-theoretical, historical, and cultural issues are grounded in musical performance. Issues of authenticity, power, and cultural confluences are examined through a variety of methodological approaches to develop analytical and creative thinking skills. A culminating research paper and aural presentation provide students with an opportunity to explore an area of their own interest in greater depth, refine their written and aural communication skills, and increase breadth of knowledge for the entire class.
Prerequisite: Ability to read music or permission of the instructor.
Meets general academic requirements AR, DE, and IL.

MUS 235 - History of Jazz
History of Jazz will trace the roots and origins of Jazz from the late nineteenth century to recent innovations in the twenty-first century. Swing, the big band, bebop, modal jazz, free jazz, and “modern” jazz will be explored applying three methodological approaches: musical-theoretical, ethnomusicological, and historical. The musical theoretical approach will focus on structural and technical aspects of the music from a compositional and performance perspective. Ethnomusicological approaches will be used to examine issues of race, power, and identity from social, political, and economic perspectives through primary and secondary “texts” including books, articles, films, and interviews. Finally, historiographic readings of musical-theoretical and ethnomusicological methodologies will be considered to evaluate the ways in which methodological theories and practices evolve over time.
Meets general academic requirements AR, IL and, DE.

MUS 238 - Empire, Madness, & Decadence in Vienna
In this course, we examine music in Vienna (and beyond, to the broader Hapsburg empire) alongside broader shifts in Viennese culture from the time of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the early post-WWI era. By focusing on this relatively narrow temporal and geographical span, we will examine the interconnections among the arts in Vienna in late romanticism and early modernism. Questions that will shape our discussions include “How are political trends— Viennese liberalism and the reaction against it—reflected in the arts and discourse about them,” “What consequences did the revolutions in thought about psychoanalysis, gender, and sexuality have for in the arts, and how did artistic works in turn shape the ways these ideas were understood?,” “How did the mythology around Beethoven shape not only music of the romantic era but romantic art more broadly?” and “What role did artists play in shaping ideas about identity in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic state like the Hapsburg empire?” Texts studied may include texts by Freud, Schnitzler, Hofmaansthal, art by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka, architecture by Otto Wagner, Gottfried Semper, and Adolph Loos, and music by Beethoven, Hugo Wolf, Gustav and Alma Mahler, and Johann and Richard Strauss.
Meets general academic requirement IL.

MUS 244 - Music & Gender
In the last thirty years, work in musicology and ethnomusicology has dramatically altered the ways that we understand gender and its role in shaping the way music is created, performed, produced, consumed, and understood. This class builds upon the foundations of that scholarship. In it, we will think both historically and comparatively about the ways that ideas about the meanings of gender and its role in shaping ideas about and roles within particular musical practices. Reading may include selections from feminist theory, queer theory, musicology, and ethnomusicology, and listening examples may include examples of concert music by women composers (from Hildegard to Tania Leon), Western and Chinese operas, popular and traditional music from around the globe, blues and jazz.
Meets general academic requirement DE and IL.

MUS 246 - Musics of Brazil
This course examines Brazilian musics in the folk, popular, and concert traditions attending particularly to the way Brazilian musics articulate ideas about ethnic, racial, regional, and national identities in a globalized world. We consider the ways Brazilian music takes shape within and against the country’s tumultuous political history, examining moments of political and cultural critique and collaboration. Texts for the class are drawn from both secondary sources-articles and books written by scholars-and primary sources, including movement manifestos, song texts, and first-person accounts by performers and composers. Many of the traditions that we will discuss are aurally and orally transmitted, and we will perform them in order to develop a visceral understanding of the music’s organization.
Meets general academic requirement AR and DE.

MUS 248 - Music & Race
This class uses music as a lens to interrogate the ways race and racial hierarchies are constructed, reified, or challenged in transnational contexts. Traditions studied in the course may include Afro-diasporic traditions associated with resistance to racism and colonialism in both national and global contexts (jazz, soul, funk, hip-hop, maracatu, reggae), works and styles that cross and problematize racially-coded generic boundaries (“symphonic jazz,” Peking-Western opera fusions like Tan Dun’s The First Emperor, Babatunde Akinboboye’s “hip-hopera”), and the works of minoritized composers within Western concert music.
Meets the general academic requirement DE.

MUS 251 - Theory & Practice in Western Tonal Music
Focused development of skills and concepts from Engaging with Music I and II, engaging with harmonic syntax, phrase structures, melodic embellishment, tonicization, modulation, borrowed beat divisions, syncopation, swing rhythm, and improvisation.
Prerequisite: MUS 152 Engaging Music II or permission of the instructor.

MUS 313 - Form & Analysis
A survey of musical forms from the smallest units of structure (motive, phrase) through binary, ternary, rondo, and sonata forms, as well as fugal practices. Constant analysis of music of all periods embodying various structural principles. Reading and listening assignments; semester project.
Prerequisite: MUS 251 Theory & Practice in Western Tonal Music.

MUS 317 - Counterpoint
A study of counterpoint focusing on the contrapuntal practices of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Analysis and written exercises leading to several composition projects. Readings from historical treatises; secondary source readings and listening assignments.
Prerequisite: MUS 251 Theory & Practice in Western Tonal Music.

MUS 328 - Methodologies & Epistemologies in Music
What does it mean to study music? How do we understand music’s meanings? What are the methods and approaches we use to do so? In this course, students will reflect on how we construct knowledge in music by practicing the ethnographic, historical, and analytical methodologies that correspond most commonly with ethnomusicology, musicology, and music theory. Students will also examine approaches to thinking about meaning in music whose influence stretches across these subfields and out towards other disciplines (sound studies, phenomenology, semiotics, etc.). The final project will draw from a combination of these methodologies and approach a subject of the student’s own choice.
Prerequisite: Engaging with Music II or consent of instructor.

MUS 331 - The English Ayre
A study of the English Ayre and its cultural role in late-Elizabethan and Jacobean England. This course will examine the structural and rhetorical practices shared by poets and composers, applying analytical techniques specific to the ayre’s texts, music, and their synthesis as song. These analyses will be placed within the social and political contexts of the period to demonstrate the ways in which the ayre reflected its cultural milieu and articulated social trends. Texts for the course will include treatises on poetic, music-compositional, and performance practices from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and secondary source readings in literary theory and musicology. The analyses of musical, literary, cultural, and performance practices will be applied in weekly practicums in class to create informed performances of the English Ayre repertoire culminating in a concert performed by the class.
Prerequisite: Engaging with Music II or permission of the instructor.

MUS 340/341 - Composition Workshop I & II
Introductory group classes in composition with emphasis on the creation of original work. Students will complete multiple short pieces exploring specific parameters such as pitch, rhythm, texture, form, and text setting, as well as projects based on individual interests. Students will regularly share their works with the class, and organize performances of their music for an end-of-semester concert. The class will also study a diverse repertoire of music with the goal of developing compositional technique and an individual expressive voice.
Prerequisite: Engaging with Music II or consent of instructor.

MUS 350 - Orchestration
A systematic study of the capabilities of the instruments of the orchestra in musical composition. A thorough understanding of these capabilities will be mastered through a study of selected works for solo instruments, chamber works, and orchestral literature. Readings and listening assignments; analysis and written exercises; semester project.
Prerequisite: Theory and Practice in Western Tonal Music or permission of the instructor.

MUS 351 - Theory & Practice in Western Chromatic Music
Focused development of skills and concepts of Western chromatic music including: mode mixture and altered scale degrees, enharmonic practices, chromatic sequences, common-tone chords and modulations, chromatic key relationships, as well as the melodic and rhythmic features of concert music, ragtime, jazz, the blues, and popular music, including super- subdivided beats, asymmetric meters, cross rhythms, and improvisation.
Prerequisite: Theory and Practice in Western Tonal Music or permission of the instructor.

MUS 352 - Theory & Practice in Western Post-Tonal Music
An exploration of the extraordinary variety of trends that have evolved in Western concert music since 1900. Students will use appropriate analytical methods for understanding these musics, engage with primary and secondary source readings to understand their context, and compose short pieces using the techniques studied. Topics may include minimalism, atonality, serialism, modernism, impressionism, noise, polystylism, chance operations, improvisation, electronic music, and performance art.
Prerequisite: Theory & Practice in Western Tonal Music or permission of the instructor.

MUS 440/441 - Composition Workshop III & IV
Individual weekly lessons in advanced music composition. Students will complete substantial self-directed projects leading to performance. Listening and analysis will be assigned as needed. These courses may serve as the CUE in the theory/composition concentration, and may be repeated for credit.
Prerequisite: Composition Workshop II or permission of the instructor.

MUS 960 - Music Internship
Each internship is to be designed in consultation with a faculty sponsor and an on-site supervisor and will include an academic project to be defined by and submitted to the faculty sponsor for evaluation. Will be graded pass/fail.

MUS 970 - Music Independent Study/Research
Each independent study/research course is to be designed in consultation with a faculty sponsor.

Applied Music

Study in voice, piano, organ, and the various string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Department permission is required for enrollment. Depending on the instructor, students take either thirteen 45-minute lessons or ten 60-minute lessons per semester. A minimum of five hours of individual practice time per week is expected for each student. An additional fee is charged for this instruction which is not refundable after the drop deadline. Applied may not be taken on a pass/fail basis and may only be taken as an audit when it constitutes and overload and when it does not constitute the initial semester of a student’s applied music study; permission from both the instructor and department chair is required in this exceptional case. Two semesters of Applied may be used to complete the general academic requirement in the Arts (AR).

MUS 900 - Class Applied Music (0.5 course unit)
Individual lessons. Extra fee is charged.

MUS 901 - Individual Applied Music (0.5 course unit)
Individual lessons. Extra fee is charged.

MUS 911 - Individual Applied Music – Second Area (0.5 course unit)
Individual lessons in another area. Extra fee is charged.

MUS 921 - Beginning Vocal Techniques (0.25 course unit)
Vocal technique development for students involved in the Moravian Music Education Certification Program.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MUS 922 - Beginning Woodwind Techniques (0.25 course unit)
Woodwind technique development for students involved in the Moravian Music Education Certification Program.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MUS 923 - Beginning Brass Techniques (0.25 course unit)
Brass technique development for students involved in the Moravian Music Education Certification Program.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MUS 926 - Beginning Percussion Techniques (0.25 course unit)
Percussion technique development for students involved in the Moravian Music Education Certification Program.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MUS 927 - Beginning Piano Techniques (0.25 course unit)
Piano technique development for students involved in the Moravian Music Education Certification Program.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MUS 928 - Beginning Music Technology Techniques (0.25 course unit)
Music technology technique development for students involved in the Moravian Music Education Certification Program.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MUS 931 - Applied Music - Senior Recital I (0.5 course unit)
Preparation for a senior recital. Extra fee is charged.

MUS 932 - Applied Music - Senior Recital II (0.5 course unit)
Preparation for a senior recital. Extra fee is charged.

Performing Ensembles

Ensembles are offered only as zero course unit experiences graded on a satisfactory (S) or unsatisfactory (U) basis.

MUS 935 - College Choir (O course credit)
College Choir is a large mixed chorus, open to all students by audition or permission of the instructor. Previous choral experience and music literacy skills are helpful but not required. Students are introduced to a wide variety of sacred and secular music in various styles and languages. In addition to learning pieces for performance, students also investigate their repertoire in terms of historical context, social significance, religious and philosophical tradition, stylistic interpretation, textual meaning, poetic construction, and music compositional techniques. Singers hone their musicianship skills (hearing, sight-reading, intonation, ensemble awareness), increase their musical vocabulary, expand their stylistic horizons, improve their abilities in diction and text interpretation, and develop a confident and professional stage presence. The College Choir rehearses twice weekly, performs several times each semester, and constitutes the musical core of the annual Candlelight Carols services in December.

MUS 936 - Chamber Choir (O course credit)
Chamber Choir is a small, select choral ensemble open to all students by audition or permission of the instructor. Advanced musical skills are required. Students are introduced to a wide variety of sacred and secular music in various styles and languages. In addition to learning pieces for performance, students also investigate their repertoire in terms of historical context, social significance, religious and philosophical tradition, stylistic interpretation, textual meaning, poetic construction, and music compositional techniques. Singers hone their musicianship skills (hearing, sight-reading, intonation, ensemble awareness), increase their musical vocabulary, expand their stylistic horizons, improve their abilities in diction and text interpretation, and develop a confident and professional stage presence. The Chamber Choir rehearses twice weekly and performs several times each semester, including the annual Candlelight Carols services in December.

MUS 937 - Women’s Ensemble (O course credit)
A treble-voiced ensemble open to students by audition or permission of the instructor. Previous choral experience is recommended but not required. The Ensemble meets once a week. Because there are two to four student-led sectionals each semester, students are expected to spend additional time learning music independently. Women’s Ensemble performs concerts of various styles each semester on campus and, occasionally, off-campus.

MUS 938 - Opera Workshop (O course credit)
The Opera Workshop is designed to give advanced vocalists an opportunity to explore and perform operatic solo and ensemble pieces. Members should be concurrently enrolled for Individual Applied Music or College Choir. Open to advanced students by instructor permission.

MUS 939 - Collegium musicum (O course credit)
The Collegium musicum is a select group of vocalists and instrumentalists. The ensemble is dedicated to the performance of late Renaissance and early Baroque music. Vocalists develop their skills singing one voice per part and instrumentalists perform on period instruments. The Collegium musicum performs one concert per semester.

MUS 940 - Chamber Orchestra (O course credit)
The Chamber Orchestra consists of 20-30 string players plus winds, brass, and percussion, and performs works from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. The ensemble performs one concert each semester.

MUS 941 - Musica da Camera (O course credit)
This ensemble performs chamber music for winds and strings from the Baroque to the twentieth century. Rehearsals are collaborative, and students take leadership roles. One concert each semester and special events by request.

MUS 942 - Wind Ensemble (O course credit)
The Wind Ensemble provides performance opportunities in traditional and contemporary concert music for interested and qualified wind and percussion players. Open to all students with permission of the director. Rehearsals are held twice weekly. Participation in all performances required.

MUS 943 - Jazz Big Band (O course credit)
The Jazz Ensemble is a select group of 20-25 members that performs a wide variety of jazz styles. There is one rehearsal a week and several performances take place during the year.

MUS 944 - Jazz Improvisation Ensemble (O course credit
This group is devoted to the study and performance of improvised music. Students participating in the ensemble explore traditional, progressive, and experimental forms of jazz in order to develop a wide range of approaches to improvisation. The ensemble performs one concert each semester.

MUS 950 - Small Ensembles (O course credit)
Various types of small groups including flute ensemble, percussion ensemble, chamber music, etc.