Lecture: 4 hours per week
Lecture time will focus on the analysis, discussion, and critical listening of the musical materials that form the core content of this course. Additionally, relevant information concerning the cultural, social, and political contexts of the time periods studied will be integrated into the lectures. While a significant portion of class time will be dedicated to listening to music, students will also be assigned listening tasks outside of class, which will include the music discussed during lectures as well as other related compositions.
- The elements of music
- Basic sound characteristics.
- The dimensions of music: temporal (rhythm), horizontal (melody), vertical (harmony).
- Musical texture: monophony, polyphony, homophony, heterophony.
- Pitch source and organization.
- Dynamics and timbre.
- Musical instruments: instrumentation; classifications including aerophones, chordophones, membranophones, idiophones, electrophones.
- Musical style: composition vs. improvisation; form, and genre.
- Vocal parts: the relation of music and text; vocal styles.
- Cultural contexts for music: the relation of music to the other arts, as well as history, geography, belief systems, politics, society, economics, and technology.
- Pre-Tonal Music:
- Music in antiquity.
- Western Christian Chant and early polyphony.
- Medieval secular music.
- Renaissance music (including mass, motet, madrigal).
- Tonal Music:
- Baroque music (including fugue, ground bass, opera, cantata, oratorio, concerto, and suite) with emphasis on the works of Bach and Handel.
- Classical music to the beginning of the 19th century (including symphony, sonata, string quartet, piano concerto, and opera) with emphasis on the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
- Recognize and describe the basic elements of music such as pitch, rhythm, harmony, and form.
- Describe the relationship of musical components to their cultural context.
- Aurally recognize various styles, genres, and forms of Western art music from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 19th century.
- Aurally recognize specific compositions and their composers.
- Aurally recognize elements of music in selected compositions as they relate to their specific historical, geographical, and cultural contexts.
Assessment will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. Instructors may use a student’s record of attendance and/or level of active participation in a course as part of the student’s graded performance. Where this occurs, expectations and grade calculations regarding class attendance and participation must be clearly defined in the Instructor Course Outline.
The following is a sample grades breakdown.
| Written and Aural Test on Elements of Music | 10% |
| Listening and Written Test on Medieval and Renaissance Music | 20% |
| Listening and Written Test on Baroque Music | 20% |
| Final Exam: Listening and Written Test on Classical Music | 20% |
| Short projects (minimum of 2) | 10% |
| Quizzes (minimum of 8) | 20% |
| TOTAL | 100% |
A recent edition of a text such as:
Bonds, Mark Evan. Listen to This. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
With access to Pearson My Music Lab online, e-book and full streaming audio.
OR
Kamien, Roger. Music: An Appreciation. McGrawHill
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