This course will examine the vital role music fills in feature films and documentaries. By analyzing specific visual examples and their respective soundtracks and scores we will try to understand the dramatic, aesthetic, and functional role music plays in the screen and stage industry. Furthermore, we will compare and contrast the art of film scoring with other musical dramatic genres such as musicals and operas. Students will use basic music notation software as well as GarageBand at the Packard Music Computer Lab and will explore a range of basic to more advanced scoring techniques. Finally, the class will complement the theoretical exploration with a portfolio of creative exercises while learning to develop a dramatic concept and to score several visual sequences with their own original soundtracks.

An introduction to operatic conventions from the origin of opera in the late Renaissance to the present day. Sociological elements behind the presentation of opera will be discussed as well as concepts in staging and production. 1 unit - Brink

Students learn about elementary general music education in school settings, plan lessons, deliver instruction, and design assessments guided by the national and Colorado music standards. Students become familiar with pedagogies for teaching elementary music. Curriculum includes music that reflects local and global communities. Students also learn to plan and present lessons, connect to core subjects and understand the vital role music plays in human well-being. The practicum portion includes observations and participation in area elementary music classrooms. 1 unit - Hanagan

How do we create meaning and understanding from music? And what do we do with that information in our everyday lives? This course invites students to think actively and critically about the ways the world around them is constructed through sound. We will explore modes of listening across a wide variety of musical genres and traditions, past and present, considering the ways people hear music individually and together. Students will develop newfound ways to discuss music meaningfully in a broad range of contexts and to translate what they hear into what they feel and why that matters to our collective experience. This course is open to any interested student and welcomes a diversity of backgrounds and levels of experience. 1 unit – Banagale, Chang

This course explores music and cultural belonging in the contemporary American Southwest, and the many interweaving forms of music-making across the region. We will examine how tapestries of ethnicity and cultural identity are crafted, reflected, negotiated, and altered through musical expression. Our investigation will consider processes of settler- colonialism that have contributed to waves of migration across the region, and the forms of musical practice that have emerged from, and shaped, these processes. We will focus on various genres that comprise the musical fabric of the region, including modern Latin pop, Pueblo music, Mariachi, Hispanic folk music, Navajo country, Ranchera, Flamenco, Tejano, and Indigenous rock, and will explore the relationship of landscape with identity and musical practice among local musicians. 1 unit - Carrizo

This course examines music-making as a significant site of gender performativity during the Georgian era (1714-1832), the period in which Jane Austen lived, and a critical period for gender construction in England. Her novels are full of musical scenes that offer fascinating commentary on the gendering power of music-making, however, the coded language and dated references often make these scenes difficult for the modern reader to parse. In order to situate ourselves in Austen’s gendered musical world, we will read from a variety of primary and secondary sources on music, gender and sexuality, as well as current scholarship on musical instruments and repertoire during the period. In the second half of the course we will turn to Austen’s 1815 novel, Emma, to observe the ways in which the Georgian construction of gender played out in literature, particularly through representations of domestic music-making. Open to all students. 1 unit - Chang