A Vision of Music's Future
Traversing music history, philosophy, and sociology, students will explore music as cultural product. Reading, listening, and thinking enable students to achieve a deeper understanding of music's place in society by, for example, emphasizing music's realities as social constructs; transmission of these realities to later generations; and subsequent absorption of these same (constructed) realities as transparent assumptions. Considering music since 1900, students will begin to see how we arrived at the music today. And where are we headed? Has jazz, for instance, run its course? Is hip-hop here to stay? Does anyone go to classical concerts anymore? In perceiving not only the forces that brought us to our current pass, but also those operating in today's intellectual, cultural, and commercial spheres, students will then be able to formulate coherent notions of how music will evolve in the course of their own careers.