Music (MUSC)

This course provides an introduction to the art of music listening and musical principles. A wide variety of musical literature is introduced, ranging from classical music, theater and film, to jazz and popular music. The main focus of this course is to provide students with broad-based musical knowledge to form the foundation for musical listening skills and music theory. This course functions as the introductory course for the music performance minor as well as a general education elective for all students.

This course is designed for all students pursuing careers in which music plays a vital role. The course focuses on the fundamentals of music: notation, rhythm, scales, tonality, keys and modes, intervals, transposition, and chords. Rhythmic, harmonic and melodic principles are investigated through a variety of individual and group activities including written and aural exercises.

American popular music reflects the cultural, social, and artistic influences that have shaped contemporary music industries. This course examines major genres, artists, and historical developments that contributed to the evolution of popular music in the United States. Students develop critical listening and analytical skills while exploring music's impact on culture and entertainment. The course proceeds chronologically, from nineteenth-century popular song, blues, and Tin Pan Alley through jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, funk, disco, punk, hip-hop, and the streaming era. Throughout, students track the forces that recur in every chapter of the story: the technology of the day, the economics of who owns and profits from a song, and the routes by which Black American musical innovation has been absorbed, marketed, and often uncredited by the mainstream industry. Because this course is built for performers, listening is analytical rather than passive. Students name what they hear, place it in its moment, and connect it forward to the recording and performance practices they will work in.

The American South has played a central role in the development of numerous vocal and musical traditions. This course explores the historical, cultural, and musical influences that shaped southern musical styles, including gospel, blues, country, folk, and early popular music. Students examine how these traditions continue to influence contemporary artists and performance practices. The course treats the South as a place with specific geography and specific history rather than as an abstraction. Students work through the spiritual and the ring shout, shape-note and Sacred Harp singing, the Delta and Piedmont blues, Appalachian ballad and string band traditions, Black gospel and the quartet tradition, honky-tonk and the Nashville industry, soul in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, and the roots of rock and roll. The through-line is the voice: how southern singers produce sound, ornament a line, bend a pitch, and carry text. Studying in Savannah, students sit inside the region they are researching. The course uses archival recordings, digital collections, and local and regional resources, and it asks students to trace living lineages from a historical tradition to a contemporary artist working today.

This course directly applies fundamental music theory skills towards musical composition. The course includes a variety of assignments and exercises to further develop written and aural musical skills, including aural ear training exercises, analysis of previously composed work and completion of short written composition exercises. Singing and/or instrumental experience is assumed as well as a strong interest in composition.

The American musical has evolved from theatrical stages to become a global entertainment phenomenon across film, television, and digital media. This course examines the development of the musical genre, focusing on landmark works, influential creators, and changing production practices. Students explore how storytelling, music, and performance combine to create successful musical productions across media platforms. The course moves chronologically from operetta, vaudeville, and revue through the book musical, the integrated musical, the concept musical, the mega-musical, and the current era of jukebox shows, sung-through pop scores, and screen adaptation. Alongside the history runs a persistent analytical question: what changes when a musical moves from a live stage to a camera. Students compare stage and screen versions of the same work and account for the artistic and production choices that separate them, from proscenium blocking to close-up, from live belt to a pre-recorded playback track. The conventions students study are the conventions they will audition inside, and understanding why a form exists makes a singer better at working within it.

Arranging and Transcriptions is a course that directly applies music theory and general composition skills towards arranging music for a variety of aesthetics and mediums including scoring for film. The course of study further develops ear training skills through music software exercises that give the student the ability to transcribe recorded music into music notation and into live performance.

This course focuses on the technical requirements of creating songs in a variety of forms. Students encounter and analyze established songs by composers from different genres and styles. They apply that knowledge to the creation and discovery of their own voice through song.