2017-18 Academic Catalog

Women’s music is everyone’s music. In this seminar, we will use feminist critical perspectives to understand how women shaped the course of music history. Women have filled almost every role in music activities public and private, as music businesspeople—patrons, sponsors, and impresarios—and creators—muses, performers, and composers. We will analyze the work of such women as Hildegaard von Bingen, Maria de Medici, Catherine the Great, Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Germaine Tailleferre, Caroline Shaw, Meredith Monk, and Julia Wolfe. Reading and listening assignments will prepare students to research an original topic for a final essay.

An introduction to the interdisciplinary study of musical rhythm. In this class you will, among other things, design and make a clock, invent a new form of rhythmic notation, read some Greek philosophy, recreate some classic experiments in time perception, study the nuances of musical performance, and explore the neurobiological underpinnings of "groove." Class readings will be drawn from philosophy, psychology, music theory, evolutionary biology, anthropology, phonology, and mathematics. Musical examples discussed will range from Gregorian chant to Stevie Wonder. Course assignments will involve group projects and various short writing assignments. No prerequisite, though the ability to read music will be helpful.