Fine Arts Music & Theater

Fine Arts Music & Theater Courses

• •  

  • Code

  • Course

  • Credits

• • MUS 101

  • Fundamentals of Music

  • 3
  This course introduces students to the basic elements of music including music notation. Elements will be introduced including; melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, timbre, tempo, and dynamics.
• • ART 110

  • Theatre Arts I

  • 3
  This course introduces students to the parts of a modern stage and the diverse tasks required in the performance of the play. Concepts in stage history, dramaturgy, set design, lighting technique, costume, and sound are explored. Also introduced: individual merits of classical verse drama, Pantomime, commedia dell’art, clowning, melodrama, modern drama, epic theatre, and Absurdist drama.
• • MUS 110

  • Music Across Cultures

  • 3
  This course explores music across national boundaries in its cultural context. At the same time, it enhances the students’ listening, critical, and analytical skills along with their aesthetic ability. It is an excursion in non-western music with an emphasis on the cultures in which it flourished such as the selected music of China, Japan, India, Middle East, Latin America, Ethnic North America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. This course is open to music and non-music majors.
• • ART 229

  • American Film

  • 3
  This course will trace cinema in America from the era of the silent film and the studio system to the world of wide screen & “auteur” productions. It will demonstrate how movies began, grew, and changed through the interaction of inventors, artists, entrepreneurs, and audiences.
• • MUS 102

  • Class Keyboard

  • 3
  Introduces students to the playing of a keyboard instrument including keyboard technique, repertoire, musical notation, sight-reading, harmony, basic instrumentation, and accompaniments.
• • MUS 103

  • Music Theory I

  • 3
  This course presents students with the opportunity to learn the basics of developing melodies and harmony through the study of chord constructions, chord successions, harmonic analysis, and part-writing. Emphasis is placed on melodic construction (form) and the elements of successful melody-writing. Students will also harmonize melodies and provide their own interpretation of the harmony implied in a melodic line. Prerequisite: Fundamentals of Music or permission of the Instructor.
• • MUS 104

  • Music Theory II

  • 3
  This course is a continuation of Music Theory I. Together, students cover the first year of a two year program in the principles of music theory. Students learn about diatonic harmony, dissonance treatments, secondary dominant harmony, harmonic analysis and part writing. The text further emphasizes the study of melody, including the form of melodic construction and the elements of melodic composition. Theory II will emphasize the creation of harmony, especially the student’s interpretation of harmonies implied by specific melodic lines. Prerequisites: MUS 103 or permission of the instructor.
• • MUS 108

  • Development of American Jazz

  • 3
  Development of American Jazz is trip through the history of America’s only original art form. This course will trace the development of American jazz from the plantations of the antebellum south, through the mass migration north of southern African Americans and America’s melting pot mentality, to the brothels, bars and concert halls of Kansas City, New Orleans and New York. Jazz is a reflection of an American ideal and the uniqueness of the American experience. We will examine the development of the art through the social, political, cultural and historical events and ideas that shaped the music. This course is a lecture course with an emphasis on listening, analyzing and comparing and contrasting the different periods in jazz history. The student will study the roles of all the different instruments and how they evolved in each period in jazz, biographical material on all the great instrumentalists and composers, the vocabulary of the jazz world as they relate to the evolution of jazz and learn how to listen and appreciate jazz on many different levels. There is no prerequisite required to take this course.
• • MUS 109

  • History of Rock

  • 3
  This course introduces students to the musical styles present in the rock music genre and to historical and social aspects affecting its evolution over the past fifty years. Explore the form, texture, melody, rhythm, lyrics, and instrumentation of selected examples from the historical periods of Rock. Through critical listening, students will analyze music from various Rock periods: Blues Rock, Country Rock, Gospel Rock, Early Sixties Rock, The Beatles, The British Invasion, Folk Rock, Soul Music/Motown, and Rock in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and Jazz Rock.
• • MUS 220

  • Band Management & the Music Business

  • 3
  This course will present students with the opportunity to learn about the many facets of the music business including: managing a band, recording and record deals, touring, writing and publishing music, merchandising, knowing pertinent laws, selecting a manager/advisor or attorney, selling music on the internet, and entering the motion picture music field. The course will prepare students to make knowledgeable, practical decisions while pursuing a career in music.
• • ART 112

  • Acting Workshop

  • 3
  A workshop in acting techniques involving scene work, textual analysis, and character study. Students will rehearse complex scenes, study a character’s progression through arc of the play, and write well-developed character analysis. Exercises are used to promote variation and authenticity in performances. Prerequisites: ENG 101 & ART 110 or permission.
• • ART 114

  • Improvisation

  • 3
  This course is a workshop in improvisational technique as applied to acting, performance art, and playwriting. Students will practice exercises to help them develop improvisational techniques and then apply those techniques to both written and unwritten scenes.
• • ART 155

  • Theatre Production

  • 3
  Students study the “behind the scenes” elements of theatrical production: producing, budgeting, casting, directing designing costuming, and managing a show. Students learn basic stage management and other technical aspects of theatre. Prerequisites: ENG 101, ART 110.
• • ENG 251

  • Introduction to Drama

  • 3
  This course provides an introduction to the craft and art of drama, including a close study of technique and subject, and selected plays. Prerequisite: ENG 102.
• • ENG 252

  • International Film

  • 3
  Introduces students to the world of international film, focusing on the major foreign centers of film production. Teaches the visual, narrative, and script cinematic values, develops the ability to critically respond to films both verbally and in writing, and to appreciate the historical and cultural contexts of films. The films emulate the transitional evolution of film centers representing peaks of cultural expressions and will be selected for cinematic quality and intellectual accessibility to novice audiences. Readings of film theories corresponding to filmic development will include film scripts and transcripts, critical reviews, and factual information about the films, directors, actors, and their historical-cultural contexts. Prerequisite: ENG 101 or permission of instructor.
• • ART 201

  • Survey of Fine Arts I

  • 3
  Emphasis is on developing an appreciation of the fundamental principles that are basic to all forms of fine arts. Consideration is given to pictorial art, music, sculpture, and architecture. Visual and audio-visual aids are used. Field trips are taken to nearby museums.
• • ART 230

  • Art & Society

  • 3
  Students will analyze the ways in which visual, musical, and dramatic artists respond to cultural movements and events, and explore how art shapes a society’s response to those events. Students learn how different branches of the fine arts influence one another during important epochs. Prerequisite: 12 credits ART/MUS concentration electives.
• • ART 297

  • Drama (Theatre) Internship

  • 3
  Students work in supervised placement for a minimum of 90 hours in a professional theater occupation. A term paper is submitted to the coordinator and the student’s work is assessed every week. Pre-requisite: 12 credits in the area of study matching the internship experience. Student must also meet college wide prerequisites for internship.