Related Field Exam in Musicology for DMA Students
The exam will require students to write four 45-minute essays. A student will ask a particular professor to serve as the related-field adviser. The related-field adviser will make up and grade an exam in consultation with another professor in the musicology area.
1. The first essay will be on a topic that concerns methodology. The student must choose one of two questions/topics to write on, which may be taken from MUMH 5020 or from another course, subject to the approval of area faculty.
2. The second part of the exam will require the student to write three essays that focus on repertory. Well in advance of the exam, the student’s related-field adviser will assign her/him a group of pieces, one from each of the six periods as we divide them in the 5000-level period courses: Medieval, Renaissance, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, and 20th-21st Centuries. The related-field adviser may include American or Latin American as well as European repertory; the choices should be diverse and not play to the student’s existing strengths as a performer or composer.
Students will prepare for this part of the exam by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the assigned pieces and the English-language literature on them. The related-field adviser will be careful to assign pieces on which there is a significant amount of published English-language research. Six questions/topics will appear on the exam, one for each piece. Of the six topics, the student will choose three to write on, one from each of the following pairs of possibilities: Medieval-Renaissance, 17th-18th Centuries, and 19th-20th (21st) Centuries.