A-Z Site Index

Technology Intensive Concurrent Enrollment

Music 1010 - Introduction to Music

Introduction to Music is a broad survey course designed to provide students opportunities to learn basic elements of music including melody, harmony, form and rhythm together with their and their historical and biographical perspective.  Music of major composers of each style period will be studied and discussed. 
Through class discussion, guided listening, and required attendance at concerts, students examine historically important forms and techniques of the music of Western civilization. Particular attention is paid to historical and formal relationships of music to other fine arts, such as painting and architecture. Also emphasizes critical listening to discern important elements of musical composition and develop an appreciation of music as art, not just as entertainment.

Upon successful completion students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate music listening skills by identifying the fundamental elements of music: Form, Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Dynamics, Timbre, Texture and Text.
2. Students will demonstrate knowledge of these elements in a wide variety of genre both historical and current.
3. Students will demonstrate the ability to acquire a musical vocabulary and use that vocabulary appropriately in interpersonal communications in class, verbally and in writing.

Introduction

1. The Foundations of Sound
2. The Foundations of Music (Form, Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Dynamics, Timbre, Texture,

Applying the fundamentals to listening to music

1. Music for Voice
2. Referential Music
3. Absolute Music
4. Music of Non-Western Cultures

Hearing the fundamental elements the music monuments of Western civilization

1. Antiquity and the middle ages
2. The Renaissance
3. The Baroque
4. The Classical Era
5. The Romantic Era
6. The 20th Century & Beyond

While the project leader prefers to improve listening skills by the above order, many instructors feel that a music appreciation course is a concentrated course in music history and choose to teach this course from a chronological perspective. One of the beauties of the above plan is that within each of the above chapters each concept can be taught in activity modules that can be changed around to the needs and wishes of the given instructor and the needs of the students. If they wish to teach and learn chronologically, a curriculum could look like the following:

Introduction

1. Introduction to the fundamentals of music
2. The foundations of sound
3. The foundations of music (Form, Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Dynamics, Timbre, Texture, Words)

Music through the Ages

1. Antiquity and the Middle Ages
2. The Renaissance
3. The Baroque
4. The Classical Era
5. The Romantic Era
6. 20th Century
7. Popular genre

Sign Up for More Information