Related Field Possibilities
This list of related fields applies to both musicology and theory students.
Minor Or Related Field Exam (3 Hours)
The fulfillment of the related field or minor will be determined by the faculty of that area.
Musicology
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.
Music Theory
The related field professor, in consultation with the GADCom, will select two pieces representative of the standard repertoire. The pieces may involve original notation; they may be in full score (symphonic movements of moderate length).
Candidates will write an analytical essay on one of these pieces and should begin with a clear thesis, in which they indicate the purpose and the analytical approach of the essay. The essay should continue by addressing (at least briefly) salient large-scale issues of form and structure.
Candidates may then decide whether to write about large-scale matters, or whether to narrow down their discussion to particularly rich passages. The essay’s analytical discourse must be supported by precise evidence in the form of musical examples, diagrams, and/or sketches. If relevant to the work, the candidate might address extra musical elements such as word-painting, poetic ideas, narrativity, rhetoric, and aesthetics, being careful to ground such elements firmly in the immediate details of the work at hand. A conclusion should provide a clear overview of the results and significance of the essay’s thesis.
Ethnomusicology
(3 Hours) The related field professor, in consultation with the other ethnomusicology graduate faculty with whom the student has taken courses, will formulate an exam that will require students to write three essays. The essays should be focused, well organized, and clearly written. Each of the essays should evaluate scholarship relevant to the topic, articulate the candidate's own views on the issues involved, and demonstrate a thorough understanding of the discipline of ethnomusicology. Each professor will submit one question for each course taken by the student to the related field advisor who will compile the questions and administer the three hour related field exam. Listening examples may be included.
Other Related Fields and Minors
Other related fields in music and minors outside the College of Music will be formulated on a case by case basis.
Minor Field
“When an official minor is required or opted, the candidate’s graduate advisory committee must include a faculty member from that area who will verify accountability in the minor area through comprehensive examinations, dissertation projects or other appropriate means” (Graduate Catalogue 2009-10, p. 61).
Representative Related fields outside the Division include:
Jazz History
Section 1 (2 Hours)
Candidates will write an essay that demonstrates a thorough understanding of jazz historiography. The essay topic will be written with the student's research interests in mind.
Section 2 (1 Hour)
Candidates will listen to five excerpts chosen from recordings made between 1920 and 1970 and make written comments, in prose or outline form, that do the following:
1. Identify as many features of the excerpt as possible: artists, title, date, styles of composition, improvisation, and arrangement,
2. Contextualize the excerpt in two ways:
1. in terms of the lives and the works of the artists involved;
2. in terms of jazz and social history.
Early Music
Candidates will discuss various interpretations of performance practice topics (1500-1800), including modern writing pertaining to them.
At least two topics will be chosen from the following with pertinence to performance: rhythm and notation, ornamentation, tempi (including dance), pitch and temperament, history of instruments.
Candidates will discuss their specialty (voice or instrument) from the perspectives of historical technique and performance practice. Questions will be designed in consultation with the candidate’s committee.