Composition
The bachelor of music degree program in composition is designed for students who demonstrate exceptional talent as a composer, who are eager to write for many different styles and genres of music and who are committed to a life of artistic exploration and creativity.
This course examines the underlying principles and classifications of tonal music. Topics include scales, keys, intervals, triads, seventh chords, harmonic progression, and an introduction to part-writing and voice leading.
Post-Tonal Theory explores the compositional techniques arising with the decline of tonality’s preeminence in the early Modern era. By engaging important musical literature from the 20th and 21st century, flexible analytic tools are used to facilitate a contextual interpretation of works. At the end of the semester, students marshal an array of theoretical concepts and compositional techniques to produce a composition of their own.
A course in which the basic concepts of arranging music for various groups of instruments are studied. After a general survey of the instruments of the orchestra covering ranges, clefs, timbre, special effects, and terminology, techniques of actual orchestration are studied through written projects and analysis of scores. Required for music majors pursuing the Bachelor of Music degree with a concentration in composition or pre-certification.