Sound-Tracks

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course will explore how music and sound have become central to modern multi-media. While our main focus will be on movies (ranging from classical to contemporary cinema, presented in mandatory weekly screenings), we will also explore the role of music and sound more broadly from advertisements to video-games; from music videos to TikTok clips; from ambient sound in retail spaces to personalized playlists. In doing so, readings will cover various topics and issues aesthetic and psychological (such as representation, narration, emotion); social and political (such as race, ethnicity, propaganda); cultural and economic (such as production, technology, dissemination), and music-analytical (such as style, syntax, harmony, topoi, genre). Course work will include discussion posts, position papers, and a capstone research project that may involve creative work.