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Spring 2025

Courses

The full list of music courses we offer can be found on the Registrar's website. Please note that courses and times are subject to change. 

The Timetable of Class Meetings is posted here.

In addition to the courses listed below, the following courses are offered every fall, winter, and spring term: MUS 53–58 (Individual Instruction Program), MUS 50.1–50.3 (Performance Laboratories), and MUS 59.1–59.6 (Hopkins Center Ensemble Performance and Leadership).

MUS 14.04 | Music and Healing in Cross-Cultural Perspective

  • Course description: This course explores from different disciplinary and cultural perspectives how music affects the body and the brain, and how culturally-rooted music therapies have leveraged the power of community in the service of
    socially inclusive health equity as a cultural practice. Casestudies are drawn from a range of therapeutic practices that include sound and music as a therapeutic agent among Indigenous peoples in Siberia, healing rituals and sound
    yoga in India and Pakistan, the theory and practice of music therapy in China, and new technologies of sound and music-based healing that work across race, class, and gender to provide access to health and wellness. Guest presenters, including musicians and clinical practitioners, will participate in many class sessions.
  • Instructor: Michael Casey
  • Time: 2A
  • Location: TBD
  • Prerequisites: MUS 1 or equivalent experience

MUS 14.05/COSC 89.29/COSC 189.03 | MUSIC AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

MUS 14.06 | Foundations of Sonic Practice: Embodiment, Listening, and Vibration (New course)

MUS 37 | SONGWRITING 2: Making the Album

  • Course description
  • Instructor: César Alvarez
  • Time: 2A
  • Location: TBD
  • Prerequisites: MUS 25 or MUS 36 or permission of the instructor. Previous experience in a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Ableton, Pro Tools or Logic is necessary for this course.

MUS 45.05 | Polyphony

  • Course description: Drawing from the world's rich and diverse musical traditions, each MUS 45 course focuses on music and musical life in a particular geographic region or on a specific topic addressed from a cross-cultural and/or interdisciplinary perspective. In this course, the focus is on polyphony--music composed or improvised by combining two or more distinct melodic lines. Examples will be drawn from contemporary and historical musical traditions of West Africa, Sardinia, Georgia, Tuva, and Western Europe. No prior musical experience is required.
  • Instructor: Theodore Levin
  • Time: 3B
  • Location: TBD

MUS 45.13 | GLOBAL SOUNDS

  • Instructor: Theodore Levin
  • Time: 10A
  • Location: TBD
  • Course description: Global Sounds explores world music, focusing each term on selected regions, countries, and cultures, and on how music has moved between East and West, past and present, and "roots" and popular styles. Course work includes critical listening/viewing, reading, and short weekly writing assignments as well as a final creative project or research paper. Where possible, guest artists are invited to offer live musical demonstrations. No prior musical experience is required. Not open to students who have received credit for MUS 004.

MUS 52.03 | The Art of Conducting: An Introduction to Choral and Orchestral Conducting

MUS 106 | Sounding Bodies: A Laboratory