Music

Program Objectives

The Bachelor of Music degree will prepare students to be citizens in a global, diverse, and contemporary musical environment. It seeks to prepare students who can perform, compose, improvise, and teach music. These students should also be able to think critically about music and converse meaningfully about it with people of diverse backgrounds, both at home and abroad.

Learning Outcomes

• Content Knowledge: Create, interpret, analyze, and teach music derived from diverse sources, including Eurological, Afrological, and other world traditions. Think critically about music and write about it meaningfully. Compose and arrange music suitable for contemporary use, utilizing notated scores as well as electronic technology.
• Applied and Integrated Learning: Perform fluently as a vocalist, instrumentalist, or both, using notation and/or improvisation. Think critically and write reflectively about one’s integration of the various musical disciplines (theory, history, and literature, improvisation, technical and performance studies) and the resultant influence on the act of musical performance.
• Civic Engagement: Rehearse and perform with other musicians in various groups, negotiating the discourse and personal dynamics inherent in working together toward the common goal of creating and performing music. Engage in meaningful verbal and musical conversation with audiences from every segment of society, at home and abroad.

Means of Assessment

Students are assessed in content knowledge through the completion of musical projects, including compositions for various media (using European instruments and notation as well as electronic technology); analyses and reflective writing on scores, recordings, and performances of various styles of music; and class presentations demonstrating interpretation, performance techniques, improvisation, and analysis.

Students are assessed in applied and integrated learning through regular performances in recitals, master classes, and juries. In addition to being assessed in their performance every term by representatives of the music faculty (both instrumental and vocal), they are periodically assessed by experts outside of the faculty. These outside experts including visiting artists and clinicians, as well as adjudicators, clinicians or juries at regional competitions, conferences, and festivals. Their reflective writing about music is assessed every term by applied faculty in the form of concert reviews, recital program notes, book reviews, and practice journals. Students are assessed in civic engagement by evaluation of their participation in ensembles, their discourse with other students in the ensemble, their engagement with culturally diverse texts and forms of expression, and their communication with audiences in local and regional performances. Students are expected to explore multiple viewpoints and interpretations, to listen and communicate actively, and to demonstrate flexibility and inclusiveness in the process of creating music in an ensemble.

Programs

• Music Major

• Music Minor

• Music Typical Four Year Curriculum