Music

Faculty

Chairperson: Mary C. Breden
Professors: Mary C. Breden, Rae Linda Brown, Mark Saya, Virginia Saya
Associate Professor: Paul W. Humphreys
Assistant Professor: Michael Miranda

Objectives

The purpose of the Department of Music is to provide quality music instruction both for students who wish to pursue music as a career and for students who wish to enrich their lives through non-career oriented study and performance. Students and faculty work together to foster aesthetic involvement and creative and scholarly inquiry that support a vital community of music learning. Instruction emphasizes a personal approach. Through the presentation of diverse musical programs, the department also sustains and enriches the cultural vitality of the University and its surrounding communities. The work of the department further supports the goals of Jesuit and Marymount education by strengthening the socializing influence of music both within the University and the world at large.

The Department of Music offers the Bachelor of Arts in Music degree, the requirements of which can serve as an excellent foundation for students undertaking advanced studies in preparation for such careers as musicology, composition, ethnomusicology, music librarianship, and pedagogy-oriented teaching. In addition to meeting all general University admissions requirements, students who wish either to major or minor in Music must meet specific Department of Music entrance requirements.

Loyola Marymount University and the Department of Music are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.

Student Learning Objectives

Students majoring in Music should be able to:

  • Develop physical coordination and technical skills required for specific musical activities (conducting, singing, instrumental performance)
  • Apply essential principles of music theory and form to the study and evaluation of musical scores (critical skills)
  • Display familiarity with musical notation in performance and original composition (creative skills).

Students majoring in Music should know:

  • The historical evolution of Western music as evidenced by style periods, performance practices, and representative composers and their works
  • The varieties of music as a cultural phenomenon seen in its interrelationship with belief systems, life-ways, and language.

Students majoring in Music are presented with the opportunity to value:

  • The power of music as an expression and reflection of human emotion and responsiveness
  • The experience of aesthetic engagement that allows for deep identification with music
  • The synthesis of perspectives--physical, technical, analytical, historical--that leads to a cultured musical sensibility and artistic performance.

Admission to the Major and Minor

An audition in the applied emphasis (Instrument or Voice) is required before admission to the major or minor. Audition requirements appropriate to each instrumental and voice emphasis are available from the Secretary of the Department of Music.

A grade of C (2.0) or better is required in:

                MUSC 122 (Music Theory & Form II)

A grade of B (3.0) or better is required in: 

                MUSC 181, 280, 281 (Applied Lessons)

Foreign Language Requirement:

Two semesters of foreign language(s) through selection of one of the following options:

            ITAL 101, 102 or  
            GRMN 101, 102 or 
            FREN 101, 102 or 
            ITAL 101, GRMN 101 or
            ITAL 101, FREN 101 or
            GRMN 101, FREN 101

The language options selected may be taken credit/no credit but require the approval of the Chairperson and the applied emphasis instructor.

 
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