21M.011 | Fall 2024 | Undergraduate

Introduction to Western Music

Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hour / session

Recitations: 2 sessions / week, 1 hour / session

About the recitations: Two parallel tracks are presented on this site, which cover roughly the same material but reflect different approaches by the two instructors.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Subject Summary

This subject will offer a broad overview of musical works that are generally described as Western classical music. Beginning with the earliest notated music in Western Europe (plainchant used in worship services) and ending with recent works written by contemporary composers, 21M.011 considers this repertoire to be part of a living tradition of composition, performance, and listening. Our goal as instructors is to encourage you to engage as fully and thoughtfully as possible with this repertoire, whether you consider yourself an experienced musician or a novice listener. For every student, there will be new skills to learn, new sounds to hear, and new ways of thinking and communicating about music.

This course is a designated Communications-Intensive in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CI-H), HASS-A subject.

Course Objectives

As listeners, you will learn to respond to music in ways that are detail-oriented and precise, developed through iterative, mindful aural experience. 

As writers and communicators, you will articulate and elaborate informed opinions and observations about what you hear by using technical vocabulary specific to music. 

As historians, you will place different sounds in the cultural and historical contexts that led to their creation and reception. As critical thinkers, you will become aware of personal and cultural biases underpinning our assumptions about music.

Grading Policies

Weighting of the course components is indicated below. Late written work may be assessed a penalty. Attendance in lecture and recitation is mandatory. Your recitation grade also includes in-class work and participation in informal discussions.

Lecture 18%
Recitation 20%
Quiz 1 3%
Quiz 2 3%
Quiz 3 3%
Presentation 3%
First Impressions 10%
Paper 10%
Paper revision 10%
Concert reflection 1 5%
Concert reflection 2 5%
Concert reflection 3 10%

Quizzes

The purpose of requiring quizzes in this class is threefold:

  1. to support a more intimate knowledge of selected works through a process of immediate recall.
  2. to facilitate the extrapolation of style characteristics of specific genres that can then be applied to other works.
  3. to apply appropriate musical terminology to specific works as well as to genre as a whole.

Three short listening quizzes will build on the listening assignments by testing your ability to recognize assigned listening as well as comprehend and describe unknown musical pieces corresponding to the styles covered in those weeks.

  • Quiz 1: on lecture listening assignments from Weeks 1–3
  • Quiz 2: on lecture listening assignments from Weeks 4–6
  • Quiz 3: on lecture listening assignments from Weeks 7–9

Written Work

This is a CI-H course, with 50% of the course’s credit coming from c. 5000 words of written work. Assignments and in-class activities will help prepare you to write successful, well-reasoned papers. Please note that all submitted work should be thoroughly proofread and of “final draft” quality. Papers are not research-based and must consist primarily of your own listening experience, ideas, analysis, and interpretation. However, any sources must be thoroughly and specifically cited. Plagiarism from any source (in print, online, or from peers) will lead to a failing grade and carries the risk of expulsion from the Institute.

The use of AI or text-generating / paraphrasing software for this class is not necessary. Each assignment is designed so that you can express your opinions and ideas about the music you are experiencing freely. There is no need to use any resources beyond the materials provided. If, however, you choose, in consultation with your instructor, to delve deeper into a piece, or consult any other resource, each source—digital, AI, print, audio, etc.—must be acknowledged. The use of unacknowledged sources does not align with the ethics of this class and will be treated as plagiarism. For information about how to format your papers and acknowledge sources, please see the format guide.

There will be three types of written work for this class:

  1. Informal responses to the assigned listening and/or reading
  2. First Impressions (approximately 100 words each) to paper and paper expansion
  3. Concert reflections: written summaries of your experiences attending three (3) concerts

Team Presentations

 As part of your study of 20th- and 21st-century music, you will work in teams to prepare a presentation to be shared in your recitation during weeks 12 and 14.

Course Info

As Taught In
Fall 2024
Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments
Media Assignments
Editable Files
Presentation Assignments